Chapter 1: Rachel
I’m going to die a virgin, so you have to do this for me.
I stare at my sister’s—my dead sister, that is—words and fume.She’s bullying me from the grave, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
Our whole lives, she always had to have the last word.She wasn’t going to let something silly like death change that.
"Just because Jason Flemming only lasted two minutes doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.You didn’t magically grow your hymen back!"I yell at my bedroom ceiling as if she can hear me.Maybe she can.Who knows?At least she’s not arguing back, for once.
I wish she would.
If I had any tears left in my body, I’d be crying.Again.Frankly, I’m surprised that I was never hospitalized for dehydration during the past six months.Not that I would have gone.We spent enough time in hospitals.I’m never going back to one.Ever.
I pick up the piece of lined paper, the kind we used to use to do our homework on and read her words again.Gram didn’t give me Richie’s epistle until yesterday, even though she’s been gone for six months now.I should be angry at Gram, but I don’t have enough energy left for that either.Let’s face it, I don’t have the energy for anything besides basic bodily functions.She was only trying to protect me, just like she did for Richie and me our whole lives.
Plus, I was in no state to process what my sister had to say to me before this.Hell, I’m still not sure I’m ready, but nonetheless, here we are.
Richie left me a bucket list.Or is it a to-do list?Somehow, even though she was the younger sister, she felt it was her mission in life to boss me around.Once, when I called her out on it, she said that because things were so unpredictable when we were little, she was overcompensating by trying to control everything.
Talk about lives being out of control.Richie obviously had no control over the glioblastoma that entered her cranium and ravaged our lives so completely and quickly.I guess I can give her a pass for this one.She had the audacity to entitle her list "Live Like You’re Dying" as if to drive home that I’m still alive and she’s not.
I don’t need any reminders.
My sister and I could not be any more different if we tried.Aside from the whole living and deceased thing, of course.She had frenetic energy, fueled by caffeine and ADHD.I’m much more mellow and passive, too timid to speak up most of the time; anxiety will do that to you.She was vivacious and lively, while I prefer a night home with a good book.We shared the same pasty white skin, and that’s about all we had in common.Where she was a tall, lanky blonde, I’m short with dull brown hair and nondescript brown eyes to match.We used to wonder why we didn’t look more alike until we realized we resembled our fathers.Both of them.Mom never told us that we didn’t have the same dad, but sharing maternal things was never her strong point or priority either.
Paternity never mattered to us, though.We were a team.A unit.She was my ride or die until, well, she did.And now I’m here all alone, and if I didn’t have to help Gram and Gramps with their business to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, I’d never get out of bed.
And now Richie not only wants me to get up and function every day, but she’s given me a to-do list?
This is bullshit.
"Bullshit!"I yell to the ceiling.I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my hands into my orbits, hoping—yet again—that when I open them, this will all have been a bad dream.
Spoiler alert, it’s not.
Then the three words, which are so harmful yet I’ve been unable to silence, dance through my brain for the millionth time.
It’s not fair.
Richie was going places.She had just finished PA school.She is—was going to help people.She was going to make a difference.She was funny and vivacious and passionate about everything.The exact opposite of me.
God, I hate the past tense.
I’m going nowhere, quite literally.I still live with Gram and Gramps.To be fair, Richie lived here too, up until her death.But she’d planned to move out as soon as she got a job.Instead, she got headaches that weren’t just headaches.Eventually, she got a hospital bed in the den.
Me?I’m content to stay where I am.I work at their business, which is on the other side of the property from the house.Gramps has mentioned the idea of me taking it over eventually, which I probably will, but only because I don’t know how to tell him no.
It’s never been my dream to run a septic pump and grinding operation.I mean, does anyone write that on their first day of kindergarten All About Me board?
I want to work in a business that only exists to take care of what happens after you flush the toilet.I want to answer emails all day and listen to people being hysterical because their houses and yards are filled with human refuse.I want to explain over and over and over that there’s no such thing as flushable wipes, and for God’s sake, do not flush tampons.I want to work with my crusty old grandfather and my cantankerous uncle and a bunch of men whose butt cracks hang out of their tighty-whities and faded dungarees, and where everyone smells faintly of sewage.Living the dream!
I couldn’t tell you my dream for a million dollars.
Whenever I thought about the future, it was never about the career I would have.It was about Richie and me getting our first apartment and decorating it however we wanted, knowing that it would be a disaster because our styles were polar opposites.It was traveling the world together.It was laughing over our favorite movies.It was adopting cats together.It was being the maid of honor in her wedding and the best auntie ever to her kids.
I never really thought about myself outside the context of her.
Another intrusive thought runs through my mind.
