I was diagnosed with leukemia. I needed a bone marrow transplant.
I knew my parents would never agree to have anyone in the family get tested for me, so I lied. I told them the one who was sick was my sister.
They immediately dragged the whole family to get HLA typing done for her. And as it happened, I was a match.
My parents coaxed me. Donating bone marrow is just like giving blood, they said. It won't affect your life at all.
When coaxing didn't work, they called in reporters to pressure me. They knelt in front of me, begging me to save my sister.
With cameras and microphones shoved in my face, I smiled and pulled out my test results.
"Mom, the one who's actually sick... is me."
——
I had leukemia.
The doctor said I needed a bone marrow transplant as soon as possible.
Clutching the lab report, I paced back and forth outside the front door.
I couldn't bring myself to imagine how my parents would react if they found out I had this disease.
Would they leave me to fend for myself?
Or plead poverty and say the family had no money?
I stood at the door for an hour before I finally turned the handle and walked in.
The living room was warm and cozy.
Mom, Dad, and my sister were sitting on the couch watching TV.
The moment she saw me, my mother wiped the smile clean off her face.
"Where have you been? Your sister's starving! Get in the kitchen and start cooking!"
I squeezed the lab report in my hand. Three times the words rose to my lips. Three times I swallowed them back down and said, "Okay."
I shoved the report into my bag and got to work in the kitchen.
An hour later, I brought out four dishes and a soup.
Mom scooped rice into my sister's bowl. Dad piled food onto her plate.
They said Laurel Dickerson had worked all day and must be exhausted, that she needed to eat more.
But I'd worked all day too. Then I came home and cooked. Nobody asked whether I was tired. Nobody cared.
Over dinner, my mother said, "Come home earlier next time, you hear me? You were so late today. What if your sister had starved?"
I forced a smile uglier than tears and nodded. "Okay."
Watching the three of them eat together like a happy little family, a thought crept in. I wanted to see what would happen if they believed the sick one was Laurel.
So I hesitated on purpose, starting to speak and then stopping, until I caught my father's attention.
He frowned and snapped at me. "Spit it out! If you've got something to say, say it!"
I took a deep breath.
"The test results came back."
"Laurel... has been diagnosed with leukemia. The doctor says she needs a bone marrow transplant."
The chopsticks in my parents' hands froze mid-air.
Disbelief flooded both their faces. "That's impossible! How could that be? How could your sister be sick? And with that disease?"
"Is it serious? Does it cost a lot? What even is a bone marrow transplant?"
The smile on my sister's face vanished, replaced instantly by raw fear.
She spent every day either at work or sprawled on the couch watching TV. She never exercised. Her complexion was already paler than most people's.
Now, hearing she had a serious illness, every inch of her body suddenly felt wrong.
Her lips trembled. "Lily, you're making this up. How could I possibly be sick?"
"There's no way. There's absolutely no way!"
"I didn't want to keep it from you," I said, "but it's the truth."
"If you don't believe me, see for yourself."
I handed her my own lab report, crumpled into a ball so the name was impossible to read.
My mother snatched it with shaking hands.
She didn't bother checking the name at the top, already blurred by tearstains. Her eyes went straight to the results.
The moment she saw the word leukemia, her legs buckled and she nearly collapsed.
She burst into sobs. "What did we do to deserve this? How could she get a disease like that out of nowhere?"
My sister's face went whiter than before. She held the report in both hands, fat teardrops splashing one by one onto the paper.
