The Other Side of Tomorrow

“Oh, here, have an Oreo,” she says suddenly, grabbing the blue bag buried beneath her covers. “Dad came in, so I hid them—you know he’ll eat them all in under a minute.” She extends the package to me and I take two, shaking my head when she continues to hold it out for me to take more.

“Spencer’s cute.” She gets a conspiratorial smile. “You think he’s cute, right?”

“Yeah, he’s cute,” I hedge. “But …”

I pause, not knowing how to explain to her how I didn’t feel excited by him or have butterflies in my stomach. Not like I’d experienced with the guy Perry had run over outside Cool Beans—a guy I knew I’d never see again.

“I think it’d be cool to maybe have another friend, you know?”

She looks at me. “A friend?”

“Yeah, someone other than you and Meredith. But, I mean, it’s unlikely I’ll bump into him again. But it was kind of cool to see someone I used to go to school with. I guess I thought everyone forgot about me.” I take a bite of Oreo.

Harlow leans forward and wraps her arms around me. “No one could forget you, Willa. I know you think you’re a wallflower, but you’re a wildflower. You grow and sway to your own beat. You leave a mark wherever you go.”

I smile and hug her back, dropping Oreo crumbs on her bed in the process, but she doesn’t notice.

“You’re the best sister ever.”

“Duh.” She flips her hair dramatically. “You lucked out with me.”

I stand up and finish the last of my cookies.

“Good night.”

“Night.” She picks up her laptop and gets back to work on whatever paper she’s currently writing. Smarty-pants Harlow opted to take all honors classes. The little freak. I’m secretly proud of her. I know her courses are hard and I’ve never, not once, heard her complain this year.

I pad down the stairs, my feet thumping on the carpeted hardwood—my dad insisted it be installed so no one could slip—and into the kitchen. I grab

a bottle of water, kiss my dad on the cheek, and reluctantly go back to my room.

It’s that time of day, or I guess evening, where I have to hook up for dialysis.

I swear the monotony of it all is frying my brain cells.

I try not to think about it as I hook up to the machine. I have to do it. The reality is if I don’t, I die. It’s that simple. There’s no point in fighting something that literally means life or death.

If something gave you the opportunity to live, wouldn’t you take it?

I settle into bed, grab my book, and begin to read.

Exactly like every other night.

This morning after breakfast I leave when everybody else does.

Once a month I have to go to my dialysis center to check in and be seen by my nurses and nephrologist.

My mom used to go with me to every appointment, but once I could drive myself I put my foot down and told her she didn’t need to anymore.

After all, she wasn’t sick, I was—why should she have to suffer?

It only takes me twenty minutes to get there. I sit in the lot and turn the radio up. I’m ten minutes early, and I’m not going into that building until I have to.

Don’t get me wrong, they try to make it look homey, but they fail miserably.

Thankfully, I’ll only be going to a small, closed-off room today.

I haven’t had to set foot in the actual center since that first year.