Free Sister Pact by Stacie Ramey

forehead.
    â€œYou’re scaring me, Allie,” he whispers. “You look bad. Really bad.”
    And just like that, the guilt rushes in. God, I suck. I start to cry. Small tears. Because I don’t deserve the big therapeutic kind. I did this. To myself. I need to stop.
    â€œYou better get back to class. Allie needs quiet.”
    He reaches down and kisses the top of my head. “Text me later. Okay?”
    I nod. Then close I my eyes and think about the choices I’m making. Am I being smart? I fall asleep, Leah’s voice washing over me like a wave on the beach.
    â€œJust keep moving,” she says. “Watch your checkerboard. Don’t get jumped.”
    â€¢ • •
    Mom is waiting in the front office to sign me out of school. We walk to the car in silence, thankfully. I close my eyes.
    â€œAre you okay?” Mom asks. “I mean, is it because it’s too hard? Are we pushing you too much?”
    â€œIt’s all hard, Mom,” I say.
    â€œI know.”
    What I wouldn’t give to go back in time, never make the pact. Or tell someone about it. What I wouldn’t give to argue with Leah and say it was stupid.
    Mom’s car stops, jolting me conscious. We’re parked in front of a CVS.
    â€œWhy are we stopping?”
    â€œJust have to pick up your script; you’re almost out. You wait here.”
    â€œThat’s okay. I’ll go. I’m faster.”
    Mom hesitates, then opens her purse and grabs her wallet. She takes out her debit card and hands it to me. “Get yourself something if you like,” she says.
    I walk into the store and head toward the prescription counter, passing the makeup, then the nail polish, then the hair products. I walk past the rows of cold medicines. Small red pills. Bright-pink Benadryls. Yellow Coricidins. Followed by bottles of cough syrups. Syrups—as if you’d put it on pancakes or waffles. Words are important. They mean things. When the drug companies called cough medicine “syrup,” they opened up a possibility that their product would sweeten something bitter. Like my life.
    I run my fingers over the bottles like when Leah and I used to go for mani-pedis and I couldn’t decide which color to pick. Only now there’s no Leah.
    Mom’s words “ Get yourself something ” run through my head. I am out of Robitussin. It claims multisymptom, nighttime formula relief. These products are all offering them. Shouldn’t I accept a little Help? When it’s right here in front of me?
    â€œCome on, Allie, we don’t have all day. Pick one. Any one. Just pick,” Leah’s voice is sweet but slightly annoyed. The day of the party. She took me to get our nails done. Because I had agreed. It was time I grew up. And Leah was going to help me with that. I remember she was so good to me that day. And that felt so great. More intoxicating than Robitussin. More fun than gin shots chased with Gatorade. Leah choosing me was a drug. My favorite high.
    I held up a red bottle of polish. “I’m Not Really a Waitress?”
    She shook her head. “Too bad they don’t have one called I’m Not Really a Virgin.” She laughed so hard that she started to choke. I went along with the joke. She was helping me out after all, wasn’t she?
    Standing in the drugstore now, I do exactly what I did that day at the nail salon—and that night at the party. I close my eyes, reach out, and pick. My hand closes around the Delsym. I feel good about that choice because orange is one of my favorite colors. Orange is Max. And pumpkins. And Creamsicles. Orange is the color of warm. Orange will coat you and protect you and keep you safe. Like a life jacket, orange will lift you up.
    I take it to the back of the store and put it on the counter.
    â€œHi, Allie,” Mrs. Simpson, the cashier, says to me. Her hair is carrot and wheat and gold, and she has freckles on her face. She