The Promise

Leah said she’d be ready to leave the house at exactly 6:30. It is now 6:42.

My twin sister, who decided on her own merit, after never having done it before, to take a zero period that starts at 6:45 in the morning, has made me tardy every single day for the last seven months of our senior year. Every day she apologizes profusely, and every day, I suffer for being the only one of us to get a license.

But I do get to choose the music. Stevie Nicks, mostly.

As the digital car clock flickers to 6:43, Leah throws open the front door. Her hair is unbrushed, her backpack unzipped, and is that a fleck of toothpaste on her—my—hoodie? In one hand, she holds a cream cheese bagel. In the other, an essay that I can only assume is warm to the touch, fresh out of our dingy printer, the reason for today’s tardiness. I turned mine in last week. 

I lean over the passenger seat to nudge the door open for her. She takes a fat bite as she plops in her seat. I watch as the chaos that is my sister gets situated in her seat. “I thought Mr. Priest wanted that essay turned in at midnight last night.”

“Technically I get one more day, because I had that excused absence last week, remember?” Leah says this through a mouth of cream cheese.

“Ah, yes,” I muse, trying not to laugh. “Your doctor’s appointment that happened to be at a Laufey concert. At ten at night?” I put the car in reverse and back out of the driveway.

Leah rolls her eyes and smiles that smile she gives when she gets what she wants. “The gradebook says I’m excused for a doctor’s appointment, and the gradebook doesn’t lie. Plus I needed to get ready before Levi picked me up.” She finally buckles her seatbelt. “Do you want to have lunch with us today?” 

“As in, go to the cafeteria and sit on the opposite side of the table from my sister and her lovey-dovey boyfriend?” I glance over at her, raising an eyebrow. She knows I hate to third wheel. She gives me an innocent shrug, a pleading look to go with it.

“Well, yes, Audrey.” She cranks up the heat dial on the dash. “Besides, there’s only like, an eighty-seven percent chance he’ll be there, because he might be doing Model UN club stuff. And I have news.” She puts on that smile again—the kind that says she got what she wanted.

“Ugh. Just tell me now.”

Leah was hoping I would say that. She grins the biggest grin I have ever seen on her face. “Guess who got accepted to our dream school?”

“Columbia accepted you?!” I immediately pulled to the shoulder of the road. Columbia is our dream destination. Where we have planned to go since we both knew what college was. We made a promise to one another when we were eleven that we’d somehow find a way to go together. “When did they tell you?”

“This morning! Check your email! If they let me in, you’re a shoo in, Aud.” Leah bounces in her seat and claps her hands as I frantically log in to my college portal. Why is it still loading?

“It’s not loading,” I whine, anxious to see the results. Leah yanks the phone from my hand, tapping the refresh button with crazed enthusiasm.

“Oh my god, it’s here!” Leah’s smile is bright. She scrolls down to the box for admission status. Her grin slackens, just a little bit. 

“So?” I ask, tearing the phone from her hand. I see the red “X” and the bolded word, a little too blatant for my brain to handle.

“You didn’t get it, Aud,” Leah whispers. Her voice is drenched in sympathy.

My mind goes blank. Leah’s words feel far away, and I am no longer in my car on the side of the road. All that goes through my mind are the countless hours I spent studying for calculus and participating in my dream extracurriculars, all to get into Columbia so that my sister and I could make it together. I always thought that, if this crazy dream somehow came true, that I’d be the one to make it, and she’d be the wild card. She never studies. She is always late. She prints her essays the morning after they are due. She is going to Columbia. The red “X” feels like it is burned into my eyesight. Even when I look back up at her.

“Yeah. I didn’t get it.” I feel numb when I speak the words aloud. One minute, my world felt perfectly normal, the next, my sister gets our dream and I don’t. “And you did. Congratulations.” I put the car back in drive, eyes on the road. Anywhere but on Leah.

“Audrey, I don’t know what to say.” Her voice has lost all excitement.

“It’s okay. You never try for anything, but you will keep getting everything handed to you, and I will keep trying—”

“Hey, that’s not fair, you know I—”

“I know, Leah. It’s fine. I’m happy for you.” I don’t want to hear her defend herself. I don’t really want to be told I’m being unfair.  Frustration and sadness radiate from her, and I keep driving, neither of us saying a word for the rest of the ride. 

We end up being twenty minutes late to zero period. I wait for Leah to haul her stuff out of the car before I get out, not saying a word to her as she walks away from me, towards the warmth of the classroom. She turns back to me, breath fogging in the cold air. “See you at lunch, Audrey.”

“Yeah,” I mutter as I slam the car door shut a little too hard. A promise is a promise.