Going Downhill Chloe
Going Downhill
Chloe
Nineteen Years Ago
Two weeks after Eden came home, Chloe woke up on a Sunday morning, sick to her stomach. She didn’t think twice. She went straight to her sister and begged a ride to a drugstore the next town over.
“Why?” Eden had asked. “What’s so great about the CVS? Why can’t you go to Little Drug?”
Chloe didn’t want to say it aloud. She didn’t want to manifest it into being. They’d been so careful, but she hadn’t gotten her period. And now she felt bad, and strange, like she wasn’t connected to her body. She knew what that meant.
“I just need a bigger selection of stuff. Please, Eden?”
“Fine.”
“Can we go this morning? Like . . . now?”
Eden narrowed her eyes at her little sister, appraising. “Yes, we can go now. Go get your things.”
Chloe spent the ride nauseated, quietly freaking out. The timing would be exactly to the night Andrew left. She threw up when they got to the drugstore, leaning out the door of the car. Eden didn’t say a word.
Chloe stalked the entire store to make sure there was no one there she might know, then bought the pregnancy test and went directly to the bathroom.
She read the instructions, heart in her throat.
Peed on the stick and set the timer on her watch for three minutes.
Her thoughts were in a jumble; she felt so ill she couldn’t think straight.
Finally, she dared to turn the test over and look. There was only one line. Negative.
Relief as incandescent as the sun burned through her. These were decisions that she wasn’t ready to make, and she felt like she’d dodged a huge bullet.
It was just a bug, or food poisoning.
She practically skipped to the car, smiled at Eden.
“Everything okay?” Eden asked. Chloe realized Eden knew exactly what was happening.
“Everything’s fine. Here, I bought you some peanut M her resistance was down.
The doctors were baffled. They did testing for autoimmune diseases. Nothing showed up.
It was incomprehensible. She’d have weeks without issue, then bam, down for the count.
Andrew came home for the holidays, and she could barely get out of bed. It was awful, not being able to spend time with him. She spent almost his whole break with her head in the toilet. She couldn’t even go to his parents’ for the annual holiday open house.
Then the holidays were over, and he left, and Eden tearfully left for college, and Chloe started feeling better. She was far from perfect, but she could at least get around. She went back to school, and it felt like being with strangers. Having a chronic illness was hard as a teenager.
By the time spring break rolled around, she was feeling almost back to normal. Excited because Andrew was coming to visit. He was the one thing that kept her going through the horrible time, him and Eden. She’d been an absolute rock.
Chloe was so grateful to have a sister who loved her so much.
They’d managed to put away all their animosities and spent all of Eden’s free time together.
They streamed movies and made popcorn and brought books home from the library to discuss.
Eden braided Chloe’s hair and wiped her brow when she felt feverish.
When she went back to school, Chloe missed her big sister so much.
People often say that sisters go through a stage of competitiveness and grow out of it.
They’d hit theirs and gotten past it. Even their mother was surprised at their connection.
They talked about everything. Went everywhere together.
Chloe was always careful not to encroach on her sister’s time, but Eden encouraged the interruptions.
Chloe gave Eden her heart. She shared her dreams and desires with her.
They imagined what their futures would be like.
Their children playing together. Timing their lives, their pregnancies.
Maybe even getting a house big enough to accommodate both their families, or at the very least, buying houses next door to one another.
But when Andrew came home, Chloe got sick again. It was so incredibly frustrating. She’d spent weeks dreaming about them being together again, and now she could barely get out of bed.
Eden drove back from school to nurse her. She took her to the doctor for blood tests and even pretended to get along with Andrew before leaving for Atlanta to prepare for her finals.
The last night he was in town, in a rare moment alone, he remarked on Eden’s attentiveness.
Chloe told him the story of them going to the CVS, of the negative test. She hadn’t mentioned it before, and he was shocked.
Both that she hadn’t told him, and that Eden was being so accommodating to her.
“It’s like she had a personality transplant,” he said.
“It was the hospital, I think. They really straightened her out. And the medications, too. She told me that it was so clear to her that she’d made a stupid mistake. She doesn’t know what she was thinking, other than she felt left out.”
“I can understand that,” he said. “It had to be hard, seeing life passing her by. I’m glad you two are so close. It makes me feel better knowing you’re not here alone with her being mean.”
She kissed him then. “You’re the best, Andrew. I knew you’d understand. I’ve missed her since she went back to school. It’s too quiet around here. Mom and Dad are working all the time, and being sick so much . . . I don’t know. Not a ton of people like to hang around when you’re not well.”
“But Eden’s been here?”
“She comes home a lot to take care of me. She’s been an absolute godsend.”