AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bigger even than crashing in Sofia’s dorm room for her whole freshman year.
We dissolved into the kind of hysterical laughter that happens when things take a sudden turn and you end up somewhere unfathomable. I welcomed the glee that replaced the adrenaline that had coursed through me during the whole charade.
“You sang for them and Coco wants you to audition!”
“I can’t freak out about that until I’m done freaking out about this!”
Sofia grinned at me, a bright smile that revealed the incisor she chipped when she was twelve and I was fourteen and she tripped playing with our little brother Lucas in the park.
“Thanks, bro. You always come through for me.”
The familiar satisfaction of looking out for my family washed over me, and I grinned back. We kept our arms hooked as we headed for the subway, and the midday sun made the pavement glow.
When our train came, we settled into the comfortable silence of the ride. Sofia, still buzzing with excitement, put her earbuds in, and I knew she was probably listening to Riven, as she had been nonstop since we left karaoke night and I told her about the strange, intimidating bartender and the improbable phone call with Theo Decker. I closed my eyes and strained to hear the familiar melodies over the din of the train, shoulder pressed comfortingly against my sister’s.
Sofia was my best friend and my roommate; when we were growing up she was also my co-captain. With three younger siblings and our mom working long hours, it took both of us pitching in to keep the family system running.
I was the oldest and Sofia was a year and a half younger than me. There were a couple of years when it had been just me in charge, but Sof became my partner in all things around the time she turned fourteen. After that, we were in charge. Of putting together dinner when my mom was working; of making sure Adrian, Ramona, and Lucas had their lunches and backpacks and had done their homework; of cleaning up and making sure the kids hadn’t hidden yet another “pet” in their room. (After I found three desiccated frogs in a shoe box under Ramona’s bed, I began checking regularly.)
Though I was interested in learning, school itself was never my thing, so I was always willing to be the one who skipped out on last period to pick up an extra shift at the diner, or miss first period when one of the kids inevitably forgot a necessary piece of their day and needed it brought to them.
But Sofia was smart and good at the rigmarole of academics, so college was on her horizon from the time she started high school. She saw it as her way out of New Brunswick and into a new set of opportunities, and she went after it the way she went after everything she wanted: with total confidence and single-minded attention.
College didn’t seem like an option for me since I hadn’t put much effort into my grades in high school, so when I graduated the year before Sof, I took on most of the responsibilities around the house when I wasn’t working at the diner so that she could concentrate more on her senior year and college applications.
It was a long year of getting all the kids up and fed and off to school when my mom worked early, running straight from a shift at the diner to scrape together dinner when she worked late, and making sure their homework was done and their arguments didn’t get bloody. Through it all, Sof had studied for school, studied for the SATs, worked on her applications, and sung in the choir. My mom would get home, exhausted from the double shifts she nearly always worked at the hotel to make up for Sofia quitting her job that year, and smile at me when I handed her a bowl of food. We’d talk while she ate, and then I’d shoo her to bed and clean up the mess of the day.
It wasn’t sustainable, long-term, but for that year Sofia, my mom, and I ran on caffeine, adrenaline, and leftover French fries.
And though I’d been exhausted and stressed, it felt so good to be able to take care of my family. My whole childhood I’d wished I could erase the tightness around my mom’s eyes that came from being tired and worried, and that year I made promises to myself: That someday I’d do even more. Someday I’d be able to make her life easier.
When Sof got into Fordham, I’d been as elated and proud as if it’d been me who got in. I hadn’t realized it until the moment she held the acceptance letter in her hand, but somewhere along the line, I’d begun imagining getting out of New Brunswick too. I didn’t usually let myself dwell on it, because leaving my mom and the kids made my throat feel tight and my heart race. But the notion of what my life would look like five years down the line if I stayed there…it was grim.
