“Chloé, please come home for spring break. Love, Mom.”

I always hated leaving school and coming back home. It pulled me away from my perfect life at Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzagué, one of the best Parisian high schools, and back to reality. But I always felt an obligation to do so, as if going home would help with something, anything.

Exiting the Amiens train station, I quickly hailed a taxi. The driver, upon hearing my destination, raised his eyebrows, his eyes traveling up and down me. 

“Rue de Cagny, eh? City girl like you, aren’t you too pampered to be going to the edge of town to a street like that?”

I smiled sweetly at him and asked, “Can we just get there as soon as possible?”

“Those city outskirts, no place for a young girl to go.”

As Amiens passed by in the back seat window, places filled with deep memories flashed past. I saw St. Martin, my old school; I saw the office where my mother used to take me to get my teeth checked because it was cheap; I saw the furniture factory where my father used to work. Finally, the familiar Rue de Cagny appeared. Soon, I arrived home.

I hurried up the old cobblestone path. I knocked slowly on the wooden door, its once-bright red paint peeling off. As if waiting for me my arrival, a middle-aged woman with wrinkles too deep for her age and tired eyes opened the door.

Relief flooded Mom’s face as she embraced me, kissing me on both cheeks, “Thank the Lord you’re home, ma fillé. Oh, I missed you so much!”

“Ma mère! How’s Bastién?”

Upon hearing those words, the happiness upon seeing me drained from her face. She sighed, gesturing for me to enter the house. 

I brushed past Mom, through the house with its old furniture. I ran what had been my room. It converted into a basic infirmary for Bastién two years ago, after I had gone to Paris for high school.

Bastién was lying on a simple cot. He had gotten so skinny, I could see his skin clinging desperately to his bones. His chest rose and fell heavily, fighting to grasp for the precious oxygen I could so easily breathe.

Bastién smiled at me, and I could almost imagine it was like old times, back when he was still healthy, back when my brother was full of life, back when he still had the energy to move. But by the time we found out about his illness, it was already too late.

I kneeled down next to him, "Oh my gosh, Bastién. How are you?”

Bastién weakly nodded his head. I hovered over him, tracing my cold fingertips across his burning forehead, wondering what I should do and I should say. Before I could do anything though, he went into yet another coughing fit. 

Ever since Bastién had gotten chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the distance between us had begun to widen. We talked less, despite the fact that I kept trying to engage him in something. Some days I almost couldn’t believe this shivering, whimpering, coughing boy was my brother. 

“We thought he had gotten better,” my mom’s strained voice came from behind me, "and we thought, well, that the COPD had subsided.”

“The clinic’s only a block away…”

My mom’s desperate eyes met my own. She opened her mouth, shaking her head. Tears filled her eyes, “The basic treatments there do nothing. We can’t afford it, sweetie. Your high school tuition, your granddad’s recent… issues… I wish we could, but we just can’t. The drugs needed cost too much."

I gritted my teeth. Why does it always have to come down to this? All my life, all the problems I had ended up with not having enough money. I couldn't buy myself nice things without feeling guilty about how much I was spending, and I probably could've made sure my brother lived until he was ten, unless...

“I’ll quit school,” I decided, surprising myself, “I’ll go down to the job center tomorrow and get a job as a clothing store assistant or something. I’ll just go to that fichu St. Marks public school again. Anything to get the money.”

Mom stared at me, then she dragged me into the living room. She took both my hands firmly in hers and said, “Chloé, you can’t just quit school. That school was so important to you! You deserve a chance to see your designs appear on that runway someday. Two years ago, you were still raving about the niceness of it all!”

“Bastién deserves a life, too! He’s so young. He should have the right to live,” my voice cracked, “and school doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Chloé, your father and I would figure something out. We’ll both work night jobs! Oh, I’ll go work at the florist shop. Mrs. Boycé always offers good pay.”

“Mom, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t! Unless if I become an overnight millionaire fashion designer, I can't," I yelled, my throat closing up.

I gestured around the living room at the sunken couch, the broken armchairs, the coffee table my mother bought twelve years ago, and the dirty rug, “You don’t have the money. We don’t have to conditions to do so! We can’t even buy new furniture!”

I sunk into yelling rapidly fired French about how poor we were, but my mom’s voice suddenly became hard as glass, “Chloé Français, we will manage. Go back to Paris. That was so important to you. We didn’t get you into one of Paris’s best private schools for nothing.”

“Non! Non! Non! I most definitely will not!”

“Chloé?” A meek voice croaked from the infirmary, “Chloé?”

Shocked, I said, “Yes, Bastién?”

“Go back to Paris. I’ll heal soon enough. Promise.”

He lifted an arm weakly to demonstrate that he still had energy. 

I wanted to protest. Bastién wouldn’t heal without proper, ten-thousand-dollar medical care. He was dying. He needed me. I couldn’t just leave and go back to Paris. 

But I didn’t want to argue with a dying brother. I just shook my head and stormed out of the house.

Taking deep breaths, I went for a walk, not sure where I was headed, but pretty soon, it was clear enough. Leaving up Rue de Cagny, turning left onto Rue de Québec, and stopping just before my destination.

I stood before the lady at the front desk of the job center, “Bonjour. I’m a pathetically inutile minor, and I-I’m here to get a high-paying job before my brother dies.”