“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 many 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.”