She looks at me, I look at her, and we both start cracking up.
She scrunches her nose. “You’re right. Too cliché. Let’s stick to the good stuff. Drugs?”
“Really?” I sound thoroughly unimpressed with her decision-making. So much for not judging…
“It’s Ibiza,” she points out, like I’m being slow to catch on.
“I know, but…”
I don’t mean to let my gaze drift down to her PICC line or the faint edge of her surgical scars that lie beside it.
“But nothing,” she replies firmly. “I want to try something.”
“Fine. Keep it. And keep ‘fall in love,’ too. That’s not too cliché. It’s sweet.”
“Okay, but I’ll add a second part to it…”
I wait while she does it, then snicker once I see what she’s written.
She hands me the pen and gets her phone, and together, we research Ibiza and come up with other items to add to her list. We spend the entire afternoon on her bed, huddled together, laughing as we picture what life will be like for her once she’s better.
It’s a painful memory to relive. Even two years later, I’m frustrated by the randomness of my sister’s death. It wasn’t Winnie’s valve that gave out, not the infection that eventually took her, but a chance blood clot and a massive stroke.
I was there when it happened. I heard the screaming—myscreams—before a nurse gently forced me out of the room. Afterward, while I waited for my parents to arrive at the hospital, I sat in quiet agony by my sister’s hospital bed, staring at the boxes of clothes littering the floor. A few hours earlier, Winnie was collapsed back on her bed laughing so hard she was crying because I’d finally agreed to model that silly turquoise string bikini just in time for a group of physicians to come into Winnie’s room for their afternoon rounds and find me standing there, nearly naked.
God, we laughed about it for hours. And when we finally got agrip on ourselves, all it would take was one simple look and we’d lose it all over again.
Tears had burned the corners of my eyes as I sat in her room, staring at those boxes. Her death didn’t feel real then, and in some ways it still hasn’t seeped into my psyche that Winnie is gone. I occasionally have moments of forgetfulness. When a Bob Marley song comes on the radio or when I see a Nordstrom sale, Winnie is the first person I think of, and I’ll reach for my phone as if to text her before it hits me a moment too late that I can’t.
The salt water in the Mediterranean washes away every tear until I feel drained from them. I still don’t want to go back to shore and join the others, though, so I swim out until I reach a sandbar. The people on the beach are nothing but tiny specks.
“Blimey,mustyou swim so fast? I’ve been trying to catch you for ages!”
I startle and turn to see Simone swimming after me and looking like she’s about to give up and sink under the waves at any moment. I reach out and take her hand, pulling her to stand beside me. I wouldn’t have gone out this far if I’d known she was coming after me.
“Are you a strong swimmer?” I ask.
“Sure, yes.” Then she laughs, bending at her waist to rest her hands on her knees. “Just…” She inhales deeply like she’s completely out of air. “Give me a moment. Think my left lung has burst.”
I laugh and she looks up at me, her amusement fading quickly.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
I was hoping she wouldn’t notice. I swipe at my cheeks. “Nothing. Salt water got in my eyes.”
“Don’t give me that crap. I can see straight through it, you know. Are you thinking about your sister?”
Simone knows about Winnie. The first night we moved in together, as we walked home, we got to talking. She brought up the resume I’d shown Hugo and admitted she’d sneaked a peek. “Now, listen, I don’t want you to think I was prying or anything, but it had quite a lot of bulk to it. Mine’s only about a quarter of the page, and that’s only ’cause I padded it with made-up jobs. Don’t tell.”
I’d laughed. “It’s not that impressive. Just college and stuff. And my work experience doesn’t matter. My job back home is nothing like this, so it’s not like it’s all that useful.”
“But see,that’swhat I’m confused about.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “If you’ve gone to university and have this posh job back home, why are you working this summer instead of just enjoying your holiday? Do you need the money?”
“Not really.” I didn’t want to lie to her if I didn’t have to.
“So why aren’t you just taking a load off and toasting yourself under the sun?”
“I plan to do that,” I said with a grin. “But I also want to work. It’s part of this summer bucket list thing I’m trying.”
