Wrecked

by J. B. Salsbury

I dissolve into a fit of giggles and she follows.

  “All right, either you drink or I do.” She motions to the bottle.

  I take a sip and she glares so I take another until she’s satisfied.

  “So . . .? What else?”

  “We work together and live together. It’s just a lot of together, ya know?”

  “Hmm . . .”

  “He clips his toenails in bed. Oh, and I’ve caught him scrolling through my text messages, did I ever tell you that? He said he was looking for a message from someone at work, but really . . . who does that?”

  She looks thoughtfully at the television, then turns back to me. “I think I know what this is about.”

  “It’s not about anything. I’m just not in love—”

  “You’re scared.”

  I gasp and find myself sitting up a little taller. “I am not.”

  “Yeah, you are. This is the first serious relationship you’ve been in since you were ‘cured.’ ” She uses air quotes. “First sign of trouble and you’re running.”

  I laugh, loud, because that’s absurd and strangely it makes me feel defensive. “He’s mean to waiters, and he breathes through his mouth, not when he sleeps, but like always. That has nothing to do with fear.”

  “I’ll give you that, Mark is kind of a douche, but don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re secluding yourself again.”

  “I am not—”

  “How many friends do you have? And don’t just throw out a number, I want names.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Name ’em.”

  Taking another sip of vodka gives me a few extra seconds to think. “There’s Dana—”

  “Your assistant doesn’t count. She’s paid to like you.”

  My jaw drops, but my sister looks unapologetic as she asks me to continue.

  “Maggie is my—”

  “Your hairdresser?”

  “Oh, so I can’t be friends with her either?”

  “Fine. Maggie. Go on.”

  I chew my bottom lip, thinking. “I still talk to Anna from high school.”

  “Commenting and liking on social media does not count as talking to, Sawyer.”

  “What, you want me to admit I have no friends? I admit it. I have no friends.” Tears burn my eyes, stupid booze.

  Her expression softens and she frowns. “Life is too short to live being afraid of everything, trust me, I know.”

  “You’re not afraid of anything.”

  “That’s not true.” She seems to sink deeper into the bed. “I’m afraid of what’ll happen to you once I’m gone.”

  “Cece, don’t talk like that. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon. And when the time comes . . . I’ll be fine.” It’s not really true. Once this brain tumor takes Celia away from me forever I’ll become completely lost. She’s only four and a half minutes older than me, but she’s always been my big sister in every way. She was the one to go first, to lead, to move ahead and take risks while I hung back, always calculating the consequences.

  “You’re a liar. Grandma dying totally messed you up. You haven’t been the same since.”

  “Or . . . this is just who I am. Just because we’re identical twins doesn’t mean I don’t have my own personality.”

  “You didn’t kill her. She got sick, Sawyer. Old people do that!”

  “Yeah, I remember. I’m the one who gave her the flu.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Neither do you.” She huffs out a breath, clearly exhausted by the age-old argument neither of us has ever managed to win. “Remember when we were in school and we’d go to each other’s classes?”

  “Yeah, it was always fun to see which teachers we could pull one over on.”

  “Mrs. Fleming was the only one who could tell the difference between us.”

  “I swear she was clairvoyant.”

  She sighs and leans into me, her eyes staring just beyond the bed. “Those were some good times. How many boyfriends did you break up with for me?”

  I laugh. “A lot. Remember that James kid who was in love with you kissed me senior year. I almost barfed.”

  She shivers. “Ick, yeah, he was a horrible kisser. But he had a sweet Corvette.”

  A few seconds of silence pass between us when she turns to me. “Sawyer, I need you to do me a favor.”

  At the serious tone in her voice, I set the vodka bottle down and turn to face her. “Anything.”

  “I need you to go to San Diego and pack up my place for me.”

  “No, Cece . . .” I swallow the lump in my throat.

  My sister left home four days after she turned eighteen, never even finishing high school. My parents were furious, but they also knew they couldn’t hold her back. She moved from city to city and never settled in one place for longer than a year. San Diego became her home a few months before she showed up back in Phoenix with the devastating news of her tumor. She refused to let my parents go pack up her beach house because she said if she did, that meant she’d given up hope that she’d ever get better.

  All the doctors said there was only one prognosis for the tumor that’s wrapped itself around her brainstem. The pressure would become too much and she’d lose the ability to breathe. That was a death sentence. No one with this type of cancer has ever survived. But we all refuse to believe it, with Celia leading the cavalry.

  “Listen . . .” she whispers. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I quit treatment a few weeks ago.”

  “What?” My stomach turns to lead. “Why?”

  “The tumor isn’t responding to it anymore. It hasn’t for awhile.”

  “What does that mean?” My sinuses burn with the tears I refuse to let fall in front of my sister.

  “I’m tired of fighting.”

  How do I even respond to that? Make a list of all her reasons for living and weigh them against her reasons for giving up? Prove to her that her life is too valuable to just let go?

  I sniff and she curls in closer to me.

  “Nothing has changed. Don’t waste a single second being upset.”

  I can’t dignify that with a response because it’s utterly ridiculous so I just sit and hold on to her.

  “I didn’t tell any of my friends back in San Diego about my head. They ah . . . they don’t know I’m sick.”

  “Why wouldn’t you tell them?”

  “Because I don’t want to be remembered as the sick girl who everyone felt sorry for because she was dying—”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “Sawyer.” She stares at me with green eyes that match my own.

  “Miracles happen every day. There’s still a chance. I won’t give up hope.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but even if I do hang on for another few months or a year I’ll never make it back to San Diego, so I need you to go, pretend you’re me, and pack up my place.”

  I sit straight up and glare at her. “Pretend I’m you? Are you kidding? No one will ever buy that.”

  “Of course they will!” She smiles big and the sight of her excitement is so intense that I feel it in my chest. “I have a closet full of clothes you can wear, your hair is different, but they’ll just think I cut it.”

  “This is stupid.”

  “It’s not! Think about it. You go for a short time, a couple of weeks, tops. Enjoy the sun, sand, and my gosh, enjoy the company. It’s about time you had a few friends.” She shrugs. “Even if they’re mine.”

  “Why can’t I just go as myself? I can explain I’m your sister and you’re, I don’t know, on an archeological dig in Pompeii or something.”

  “Because if you’re you, you can’t be me. You’ll hole up in my beach house and methodically pack my things while pushing everyone away. If you’re me you’ll be forced to interact. I wasn’t even there for six months, they’ll never know you’re not me.”

  “I can’t do this, I mean . . . so m
any things could go wrong.”

  “Like what? You’ll have to let loose a little, smile more, stop making those fucking lists you carry around, take some risks, basically . . . pretend you’re me.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then you come home and anyone who knew me will never have to know what happened to me. They’ll think I’ve moved on, traveling the world, and sucking the life out of living.”

  “They deserve to know—”

  “Why?” Her brows pinch together. “So they can come visit and cry at my bedside? Send depressing cards accompanied by those fucking white flowers you always see at funerals? You think that’s how I want to go out?”

  “No, but—”

  “No. I’ve managed to keep my condition a secret from them, and everyone else outside of Phoenix. I need you to help me keep it.”

  “I don’t know, Celia. It was funny when we were kids, but we’re twenty-four years old now. We have a responsibility to . . . to . . .” To what?

  “It’s all I ask, Sawyer. My dying wish.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  Her lips hitch in a crooked grin. “So you’ll do it.”

  This is absurd. I feel sick to my stomach. Responsibility and loyalty pull me in opposite directions. But . . . she’s my sister, and if she doesn’t beat this life-robbing growth in her body and I lose her, if I don’t do this I’ll never forgive myself. “I guess.”

  “Yes!” She throws her arms around me. “Thank you!”

  I hug her back, burying my nose in her shoulder with a groan. This is never going to work. “How am I going to pull this off? What if I’m forced to make decisions?”

  “Easy.” She reaches over to her bedside table and fishes in the top drawer. “Take this.” She plops a coin into my hand.

  “A quarter? How will this help me?”

  “Every time you’re forced to make a decision, whatever it is, no matter how simple or complicated, don’t think, just flip the coin.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. I do it all the time.”

  “Celia, that’s . . . it’s . . . immature.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s living by chance. Let the fates decide.”

  Chance. Fate. These are things I know nothing about. In my experience, all choices, no matter how seemingly simple, have significance. Choose wrong, pay the price.

  In a world where I live in black-and-white and absolutes, my sister lives in tie-dye and liberation. All answers are right answers and even negative consequences serve a bigger purpose. It’s insane. Anarchy. Chaos. Everything that makes my pulse race and my palms sweat.

  “Life is beautiful and terrifying,” she whispers. “And you deserve to feel that down to your bones.”

  “Okay, Cece.” I look her in the eyes and find them glossy with emotion. “I’ll do it. For you.”

  “Thank you.” She nuzzles back into my shoulder. “Ya know, my only regret in this life was not taking you with me when I left. I’ve seen the world, Sawyer. You should’ve been there too.”

  “I would’ve hated it, you know that.”

  “Maybe, but . . . if you were with me you wouldn’t have locked yourself up like you did. Life’s too short to let fear keep you from living.”

  “Now you sound like my therapist.”

  “You should listen to her. If I would’ve known how it was all going to end, how soon it was all going to end, I’d have wanted less time traveling and more time with you.”

  Her words manage to coil around my lungs and they constrict so I’m unable to take a full breath. “Don’t talk like that. We have time, a lot more time.”

  “Hmm.” She smiles sadly and drops to her pillow, pulling the down comforter over her body. “Stay with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  She yawns. “Okay, but go put on some pajamas. I’m not sleeping in the same bed as those pantyhose.”

  Her eyes drift closed and a look of peace softens her face. I wonder if it’s my agreeing to tie up her loose ends in San Diego that’s put it there.

  I roll the quarter between my fingers.

  This should be easy enough. I’ll keep to myself as much as possible, bring Celia’s stuff back, and she’ll be able to live on in the eyes of her friends.

  TWO

  SAWYER

  “What time will you land in San Carlos?” My mom hands me my toiletry bag.

  Between what was left in my old bathroom and after raiding Celia’s closet, I was able to scratch up enough for a few days out of town. That plus whatever is already there should be plenty to get me through what I hope will be a short trip. Cutoff shorts and baggy tank tops aren’t what I’m most comfortable in, but nothing about this trip will be enjoyable, let alone healthy.

  My hands shake as I shove a pair of Celia’s sandals into my suitcase and zip it up. “Five-thirty, and it’s San Diego, Mom.”

  She rubs her temples. “Oh, that’s right.” We never could keep up with my sister’s living situations. At one point her address was a semi-truck working its way across the country driven by a guy named Panda.

  “You sure you’re okay with this? I know how much you hate flying. Your dad can go.”

  “It’s fine. I want to go.” It’ll do my mom no good to tell her the truth, that I really am scared shitless. There’s a good chance my plane will go down in some remote area and no one will know where we are so we’ll all have to start eating our dead to survive. Or if I’m lucky I’ll get stuck in that germ tube next to a guy who was bitten by a monkey and I’ll die in a hazmat suit three days later. If it would happen to anyone, it would happen to me. Too late now. I made a promise to my sister and shit-scared or not, I intend to keep it.

  “Are you sure? It’s not too late to change your mind.” My mom stills my hands that aren’t yet satisfied with the arrangement of clothes.

  Turn off disturbing thoughts. Take a breath. Get a handle on my emotions.

  The open door across the hallway where Celia is sleeping catches my eye. I have to do this for her. “I’m sure. Besides, I won’t be gone long.” I zip up my suitcase and pull it off the bed to the floor. “A couple weeks at the most. I’ll pack up, tie up any loose ends, and I’ll be back.”

  She worries her lip. “What about work?”

  “I’m using my vacation time and sick days. Dana will call me if something needs my attention.” I pat my shoulder bag. “I’ve got my computer.”

  “And Mark? What about your things?”

  “Dana said she’d throw all my stuff in boxes. It’s mainly clothes and small pieces of furniture. Movers are going to pick it all up and put it in storage until I get back.”

  She hands me my neck pillow. “Do you have a sweater? It gets cold on the coast at night.”

  “Yeah, Mom.” I hug her. “I better get to the airport or I’m going to miss my flight. I’m going to go say bye to Celia.”

  She nods and grabs my bag to take down to my dad who is most likely waiting by the door with his keys in hand.

  I tiptoe into Celia’s room and sit on the bed next to her. It seems she’s sleeping more and more. Mom said it’s the medication she takes for the headaches, and I want to cry every time I see my usually energetic sister sapped of all her strength.

  I run my fingers through the mass of strawberry-blond hair that’s fanned out around her face. “Celia, I’m leaving.”

  She whines and her eyes pinch together as if my voice is sending shockwaves of pain through her temple. I lean down and kiss her forehead. “I’ll call you when I get there.” Her face relaxes and she hums. “I love you.”

  I take a couple more seconds to watch her sleep and then head downstairs to find my dad exactly where I expected him.

  “All set?”

  “Yeah.” I turn to get my bags and end up in another hug from my mom. “It’s okay, Mom.” No one’s saying what we’re all thinking, that Celia’s giving up. She’s been our strength and if she loses hope in getting better . . . well, I can’t even go
there, not even hypothetically.

  She squeezes me tight. “Don’t throw anything out, okay? You know Celia’s going to want to sort through her things once they’re here.”

  “I won’t.”

  She pulls away and kisses my cheek.

  “I’ll be in touch.” And with that, I leave to sort through my sister’s life.

  With the coin nestled safely in my pocket.

  The coastal city of Ocean Beach is nothing like I imaged it would be.

  I’ve seen the movies filmed on southern California beaches, the rail-thin women in string bikinis, tattooed hard-body guys walking around with a surfboard under their arm. So I knew exactly what to expect when I deplaned and hailed a cab to take me to Celia’s house. But with my face pressed to the window as we drive through town I wonder if this green Prius is the modern-day version of a Delorean and I’ve been blasted back to 1972.

  This is nothing like The O.C.

  The main street that runs through town is lined with palm trees and old storefronts on both sides. Antiques stores, bead shops, tattoo parlors, and those shops that always smell like patchouli and sell pipes for smoking marijuana. There’s even a movie theater that has an old-timey marquee sign boasting the three movies currently playing, none of them new releases.

  It’s quirky. Colorful. Perfect for Celia.

  I’m so busy staring out the window I hardly notice when the driver throws the cab into park.

  “This is it.” He hits the fare meter and eyes me through the rearview mirror. “Eight oh four Sunset Cliffs?”

  I blink at the row of cottages that look like playhouses for kids lined up at the cliff’s edge. They’re all identical—small, white slat boards with hunter-green trim—except one. I don’t have to see the number on the door to know that one has to be hers. My sister’s place stands out like a pink flamingo in a sea of pigeons.

  “Yeah, this is the place.” I gather my purse to my chest and push open the car door. The briny breeze slaps me in the face and tosses my hair—already frizzing in the humidity—around my face. The driver follows, retrieving my black roller bag from the trunk and placing it at my side. I shove a few extra dollars at him and rub on hand sanitizer while I stare at my sister’s tiny house.

  When she left here to come back to Phoenix, she had no idea she’d never be healthy enough to return. My chest grows heavy.