‘Yes!’ Becca calls, her head popping up from her desk. ‘While I’m rotting through the holidays with my sister’s new baby, she’ll be in paradise! I’m thrilled for her!’
I roll my eyes in Becca’s direction as Matteo laughs. ‘Much to Becca’s dismay, my family does think I need to get out more. So, here I am, finally taking a vacation.’
Millie and I had agreed not to explain the situation to anyone. She wanted to keep her health issues private, and I was worried that somehow it would get back to her work that she never went. Once she transferred the tickets, I tried to convince Millie to explain everything to her boss. After all, shedoeshave health leave. So, she would still have plenty of time off to undergo surgery and recover. But she pointed out that if they knew I was the one who went on the trip, because I’m not a working marine biologist for the University of Ohio, the lab wouldn’t be able to use any photos I took or, more importantly, officially count any sightings of the butterfly wrasse, making the trip a complete waste of time.
‘Good for you,’ Matteo said, patting the wall of my cubicle. ‘And we only have the end-of-year statement to prepare for before you go!’
‘I can help you with it!’ Becca calls again from her cubicle. I forget how much noise carries in this office.
‘Thank you, Becca,’ I yell in her direction before turning back to my work at hand – another deck that would be used for one meeting and then never looked at again. Operations strategy sounded exciting six years ago, back when I was fresh out of college – I could use the statistical research part of my marine biology degree and the career path was stable. But the work has become repetitive and stale, the last thing I want to do is churn out another deck before my vacation. Every single time I make a deck I question what I’m doing, dedicating all my time to a company that makes cereal. In fact, the only time I don’t feel like I’m wasting my life away is when we do volunteer events like planting trees or last summer when I oversaw the intern programme. At least when I do those things I’m impacting something bigger than me.
I watched Matteo walk away and felt a sudden burst of nostalgia for my years working here, always the same, completely safe. The feeling fades as soon as I remember that my break is only a couple of weeks, not forever – I’ll be back here, getting tea with Becca and making decks for the spring campaigns before I know it.
The day I leave for Australia, Millie comes over at ten. She squeals upon arrival. We’re leaving for the airport at eleven – my flight takes off at 1.30. Three hours to Dallas, and then fourteen to Cairns. My stomach dips at the thought of being trapped on a plane for fourteen hours. I’ve downloaded more romcoms than I’ll be able to stomach, includingNotting Hill,Just Go with ItandThe Proposal. And, for good measure, to make Millie proud, a documentary about coral reefs. I even screenshotted Hugh’s Cairns’ itinerary. My phone storage is full, and my suitcase is zipped (barely), but I don’t feel ready.
‘Are you ready?’ Millie asks, launching herself onto my crisply made bed.
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so?’ I back-flop onto the mattress next to her. Both of us stare at the ceiling.
‘Me neither.’
Lying next to her on the bed I feel an overwhelming sense of pressure. I want to do this for her so badly. The only emotion that can overcome my guilt at being the sister without the BRCA gene is my hope that I can do something, anything, to make it better.
After the surgery and a night in the hospital, she’ll be released, where she will recover, wrapped in gauze, for three to four weeks. She won’t be able to lift her arms over her head. She’ll stay with our parents and Murphy, although she won’t be able to walk him in case he pulls on the leash. The week I’m gone will be her worst week. She will be exhausted and sad, and living in a body that doesn’t feel like hers. It doesn’t feel right to know I’ll be living her dream at the same time.
‘I’m gonna find this stupid fish,’ I say, more to myself than to her.
‘I know you are,’ Millie says calmly, still staring at the ceiling. ‘And I’m gonna have boobs that never sag.’
My laugh comes out strangled because I’m trying not to cry. I scoot closer to her and tuck my head onto her shoulder. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
As much as I think I prepared, I don’t even make it onto the plane before I realise I forgot something. I’m on the jet bridge when I go digging in my toiletry bag for my hand sanitiser and pull out my face sunscreen instead. Looking at the bottle, I realise what I’ve forgotten. I forgot reef-friendly sunscreen.
Millie doesn’t even buy sunscreen that isn’t reef-friendly. Any marine biologist worth their salt wouldn’t dare do that. Unless I can find the right kind of sunscreen before I get on the boat, everyone will know I’m a fraud, let alone the guilt I’ll feel using a product that could damage the environment I’m supposed to have dedicated my life to studying and preserving. I’m supposed to board a shuttle to the pier as soon as I land in Cairns, and there is zero chance that I’ll be able to find reef-friendly sunscreen at Dallas airport.
I resist the urge to smack myself in my forehead with the heel of my hand.
‘Are you OK?’ the flight attendant asks as I scooch by her onto the plane.
I gulp. ‘Mhm,’ I say, hoping she thinks I’m scared of flying and doesn’t register that I’m about to have a full-on mental breakdown.
What was I thinking?I ask myself as I sink into my seat. I’m in the window, squeezed next to a man with a giant Kindle on his lap. He is paging through a romance novel in exceptionally large font, something I would usually find amusing, but I’m so stressed that it doesn’t bring a smile to my face.
How am I going to convince people that I’m Millie if I can’t even remember the basics?Why did I think this would be a piece of cake?I begin to regret spending more time studying the coral and fish than reviewing scuba basics. Millie kept telling me, ‘It’s just like riding a bike,’ but it’s been almost five years since my last dive. Not to mention I’ll be on a boat with total strangers, and I’m travelling all the way there and back alone. I’ll have no one to stop me from making a complete fool of myself. No, worse, a complete fool of my sister.
I close my eyes to keep from crying. If Millie thinks I can do this . . . then I can do it . . . right? As the plane takes off, a familiar thought hits me, one I’ve had a thousand times before:I wish I was her.
I ease her scuba certification card out of my wallet. The photo is small and grainy. I can pass for her easily, the same way I did for those eleven months when she was twenty-one and I used her ID to get into bars.
I only indulge myself for a moment before a shake of turbulence brings me back to my senses. How dare I wish I was Millie, how could I have the indecency to want to trade places with her, when I am jetting off to Australia and she is getting ready for what will probably be the worst week of her life?
The plane shakes some more, and I find myself promising to myself, and whatever universal power is keeping the plane in the air, that if we get on the ground safely, I will do Millie justice and take advantage of this opportunity.
I don’t want to keep wasting my twenties wondering when I’m going to be happy. I was happy in school when I was studying the movement of the ocean. I used to be excited to travel, thrilled to see new places, so elated to find out what wasnext. I loved feeling like I had choices. But then . . . I chose Zach and pretty soon it seemed like that was my last choice, suddenly my future was planned. Before I knew it, my friends were his friends, couples the same age as us, content to spend every Saturday at the same trendy brewery on the edge of town. Up next was a house in the suburbs and a baby named Theo.
Now that my future with Zach is gone I should feel happy but instead, I feel frozen, like now I have too many choices, and I don’t know if I’ll choose the right one.
