“That girl’s bad news. I’m not sure I’m okay with you going out partying God knows where with her. You’re meeting the wrong kind of people, Patience, and if I find out you’ve been doing anything bad with anyone I’m going to be very angry.” I didn’t miss his meaning. “That boy that helped you last night, I’m assuming that was the first time you met him?”

He was acting like a jealous boyfriend instead of a pissed-off father. It was disgusting. My entire life was a psychology book in the making. Tech students would take tests based on the appalling details of my dysfunctional family one day.

“Last night was the first time I’d ever seen him, and even then I wasn’t properly introduced. You know, since I was practically dying and everything.” My voice was calm and cool, but my words were sarcastic.

“Don’t be a smartass, Patience. Stay away from him. Don’t let me find out you were on that side of town again, do you understand?” His fingers started to dig into my arm and I hissed as his pinky nail cut skin.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Yes, what?” He reached up and brushed my hair to the side.

“Yes, sir,” I repeated respectfully as I pulled my arm away from his death grip.

“There you are! Where have you been, Pay?” My sister Sydney came bursting into the space.

Dad stepped away from me, and the room instantly felt lighter after seeing her smile. While I was the older, gloomy daughter of depression, Syd was the sunlight in our home. She was twelve and just now coming into herself. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t planned since there was such a large age gap between her and me, but instead of being annoyed by my baby sister, like I’m sure most girls my age were, I adored being around her. She made me feel needed and technically she did need me.

I was the one that shielded her from him. I used my body as a distraction so hers could remain untouched, and I’d continue to do that until she was safe and sound and out on her own. She’d never know about what went on behind my door some nights and I’d sure as hell never tell her, but as long as it was my room he visited once a week and not hers, I’d die a happy girl someday. As long as I could protect Sydney, I would be at peace with my lot in life.

“Hey, you.” I reached out and tugged playfully at her strawberry-blond hair. “When did you get home?” I asked.

She’d been away for some school trip for the last week, which was a lot like a mini break for me since I only had to protect myself and not her for the week. I actually got a good night’s sleep at one point. I hadn’t slept well since Sydney and I had gotten our own rooms when I was twelve. I couldn’t watch out for her properly when she was in the room next to me, which resulted in a lot of listening out for noises. I’d become the lightest sleeper alive once my parents moved me into my own room. I hated it, but at least there wasn’t a chance of Syd waking up and seeing me being manhandled.

“I’ve been home for an hour. Mom looks good today.” She smiled. I instantly felt bad for not visiting my mom before rushing off to the other side of town.

“Does she? I guess I should go up and say hi then, huh? Come with me.” I tugged on her arm and dragged her upstairs to our parents’ room.

If the space outside their bedroom door smelled like a hospital, then the bedroom itself smelled like the morgue. As much as I loved visiting my mother and seeing her lying in bed, waiting with a smile, I despised visiting at the same time. The room was swarming with death and was a constant reminder that today could be the last day I’d get to see my mother’s smile or hear her soft voice.

I was seven when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Sydney was only two. Since her diagnoses, she’d been in and out of the hospital. One year she was in remission and things would look brighter, and then she’d go in for one of her six-month checkups and the walls would come tumbling in again once the doctor would let her know her cancer had returned.

I’d seen her in all stages of the disease. I’d held her hair back as she puked after chemo. I’d held her in my arms as she cried for the loss of her breasts after a double mastectomy, and when that wasn’t enough, I spoon fed her chicken broth when she was too weak to even lift her arms. That’s the stage she was in now, the final stages. My dad was paying a nurse to care for her now since there wasn’t much else the doctors could do for her. She’d gotten to the point where she flat-out refused the chemo.

“Three days of being happy and alive are better than five days of being sick and half dead,” she’d say when Dad would beg her to go in for treatments.