My head snapped up as I quickly clicked the red square in the top right-hand corner of my computer screen.
“What?! No! Who? Stop.”
Jane smashed her pink matte lips together. “You’re doing that thing again where you get caught doing something you’re not supposed to be doing and you start stringing words together that make zero sense.” She laughed. “I love how awkward you are, Brooklyn. It’s why I keep you around.”
I rolled my eyes, leaning back in my chair, a squeaky noise filling the room. “You keep me around because I’m your best friend, the comic relief is just a bonus.”
She shrugged. “So true. My life would be so mundane without you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Lie.” I placed my hand over my chest. “My life is mundane. Boring with a big ol’ capital B. Your life? You get to interview famous people, you learn all the gossip, and plus… shall we bring up last weekend?” I wiggled my eyebrows as her face turned pink. “Big. Shlong. Those are the two words that stick out to me the most about your endeavors. I have the text right here; let me get it.”
My best friend, Jane, was the definition of cool. We couldn’t have been more opposite if we tried—which is probably why we were the best of friends; we evened each other out. Jane climbed the ladder after graduating college with her journalism degree and now worked for one of the most popular tabloids in the celebrity world. And there I was, graduating with a “safe” degree and working an 8-3 job, teaching rugrats. Total opposites.
“Don’t you dare!” she hissed, pointing her finger at me. “What if there is a student hiding in here somewhere?”
I laughed. “Why would a student hide in my classroom? And where?”
She rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about these booger-heads you hang out with all day.”
I gave her a pointed look. “What are you even doing here? I was just about to head home for the day.” My eyes wandered over to the papers I need
ed to grade. Eh. They can wait another day.
“I came because…” Jane walked over and sat her butt on the edge of my desk. “You and I are going to Seven tonight for dinner.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, no can do. I told Cara I’d come over and watch the Bachelorette finale with her.”
Jane pouted as she crossed her arms. “Do it afterwards. I need to talk to you tonight. Cara can wait. I mean, she kinda owes you.”
I laughed while rolling my eyes. “You’re as bad as she is about that. She doesn’t owe me anything.”
She rebutted. “Cara will understand if you come over an hour later.”
Jane was right. My sister would understand. You know that cliché where big sisters are snobby and hate their little sister? That was never Cara. She never acted that way toward me. Cara was an amazing big sister and an all-around good person. She was the type of person who wanted to impress everyone, and she often did. She was a go-getter—that girl in high school that was good at everything. And what made it worse was that she was completely stunning. She’d do anything for anyone with a beautiful, glowing smile on her face—even for me, her annoying little sister who followed her around everywhere until she left for college.
She never once complained that I was always tagging along, or that I had silly, school-girl crushes on her cool, older boyfriends, or that I wore her clothes even though the boob area was three sizes too big.
The thought of her made my stomach uneasy as grief floated all around me. Cara had everything: perfect career, perfect husband, beautiful baby. But then her kidneys got worse from the Hydronephrosis and everything spiraled out of control. The last few years had been a whirlwind.
My family and I continued to stay positive and thanked God on the daily that I was a match to Cara. She now walked around with that bright smile still plastered to her face and with one of my kidneys inside of her body. She still continued to laugh and have a certain lightness to her, even with the heaviness of our financial problems on her shoulders. I said our because, in my family, everything was one. It was not just Cara’s financial problem, it was ours.
Even with insurance, kidney transplants were expensive.
Hospital stays were expensive.
Medication was expensive.
Everything was expensive.
And when it all added up? You were left feeling like you were drowning. I imagined that Cara and Jack felt like they were in a boat that had an awful leak, allowing small droplets of water into it with every passing second. We were all happy—and who wouldn’t be after a long, long year of doubt and fear, worry clenching at our hearts every second of every day as we watched my sister push through all the procedures and struggles? Now that she was doing better, we were now faced with the fear of Cara losing her house, or worse, my parents losing their home—our childhood home. My parents had helped so much, and Cara had given all that she could, but it was just too much. Cara and Jack couldn’t afford two car payments and her medical bills, along with a mortgage and everything needed to support a family—not to mention the medication that the insurance company would stop paying for after so many months. My parents had done what they could, as had Jack’s parents. But even combined, they didn’t have enough money to spread out to keep things afloat.
And me? I barely made enough to live on my own.
But Cara was healthy again. She was raising my beautiful niece, so that was one thing to be happy about. There was always a little bit of sunshine even when you were surrounded by rain. Always. It may not be clear at first, but it’ll peak through eventually.
I finally took my hand away from my face and peered up at Jane. “Fine, I’ll go, but only for a little bit.”
Jane’s face brightened up, her arched eyebrows shooting to her hairline as a smile spread out on her cheeks. “Yay! Okay, perfect. Now…” Jane walked over to the other side of my desk, her heels slapping against the tiled floor that was in desperate need of a polishing. “Hover that little curser”—she nodded to my hand still resting on my computer mouse—“and reopen the YouTube page that you so casually exited out of.”