Snow is silent for a few seconds before saying, her tone even gentler than mine, “Nothing is going to happen to me.”
A big ball of emotions gets stuck in my throat, and I croak, “And I’m going to make sure of that.”
“I’m fine, Juju,” she says, using her childhood nickname for me. “The doctor said I’m recovering nicely.”
My eyes sting and I blink a few times to get things under control. “He also said what happened to you was extremely rare, so I’m not taking any chances.”
No, I’m fucking not.
Not with my sister. Not with her health, herlife. Herheart. Which is what’s at stake right now. Apparently it’s been at stake ever since she was born, but we only found out about it last year.
Ebstein’s anomaly. That’s what they called it when Snow fainted in class last year and was brought to the emergency room. They said her heart wasn’t beating right. That she had arrhythmia and she needed further testing, which showed that she had a defect in her tricuspid valve. They said it was congenital, that she’d had it since birth. It was only presenting itself now.
As scary as that was—and believe me, it was plenty scary—the scarier part was when they said she was going to need a new heart. That simply repairing the damaged part wasn’t enough, because it was associated with other abnormalities, and a transplant was a long-term solution.
Imagine hearing that about your little sister. The one you’ve been trying to protect ever since you realized that monsters may be real. Only the monster that came to get her was inside her own body. I would’ve given her my own heart if they’d let me. But we were lucky enough to be put high up on the transplant list and managed to get a heart after only a few months of waiting.
“Fine,” Snow gives in. “Lights out by eleven.”
I breathe out with relief. “Thank you. And don’t forget your meds. I put them out for you on your nightstand.”
“Yup. Saw them and took them. Every single one.”
“Even the big red one?” I ask.
I can imagine her wrinkling her nose, because she hates that pill, as she replies, “Yes, even the big red one.”
“Good.” Then, I move on to the other important part. “I also put some brochures on the nightstand right next to the pills.”
This time, a sigh is her only response.
“Just take a look at them,” I insist. “For me. Please?”
Another sigh, this one sharper. “You’re the reason I don’t want to look at them.”
My heart clenches. “Snow, I told you. I’ll be fine. In fact, I’ll be happy you’re out of here. I’ll visit you.”
“I don’t want you to visit me,” Snow says. “I want to live with you.”
I know she does. I want to live with her too. I’ve always wanted that. I’ve also always wanted to get her away from Jeremy. And since my mother wouldn’t leave him, from her too. Which is why as soon as I could, I moved out myself. I got a job,multiplejobs, got an apartment, and then moved her out.
Of course, it wasn’t easy. While my mother was happy that I no longer lived with them, she didn’t want to lose Snow. Snow has always been my mom’s favorite, the daughter she loves more than me. Plus Snow was a minor—still is; she’s only seventeen—so she did everything she could to stop Snow from moving out. But then my sister fainted at school, and we found out about her heart. As much as my mother claimed to love Snow, she didn’t want to be the one to take care of her. So she let my sister go. And I did whatever I had to—extra shifts, taking out loans, begging and pleading to extend those loans—to take care of her.
But I did all that so Snow could get out of here, out of Bardstown. I did it so she could go to college, build a life for herself. A life that’s about more than just survival. Because my own has always been about that.
Just surviving.
“Snow,” I say. “Please, okay? For me. Just look at them.”
“College is expensive,” she argues like she always does. “And I see the huge stack of bills on your desk.”
It stings that my sister knows about this. About the state of our finances, about overdue bills and the medical debt. It makes me feel like I failed as a big sister. The fact that I couldn’t shield her from the truth. But I’ll figure out a way to send her to college. I will. There are loans, right? I’ll take out loans. I’ll somehow get the money but I’m not giving up and I don’t want her to either.
I go to retort when she continues, “And I thought of something.”
“What?”
“I’ll think of going to college whenyouthink of going to college yourself,” she says triumphantly.
