The Mosaic of Shadows and Sun

My world is shrouded in darkness. A peaceful darkness.

I feel the bass pumping from my headphones and spreading throughout my entire body. The pounding of the music chasing away all the unwanted thoughts that cloud my head. If only all of life’s problems were this easy to solve; just stick on some headphones, turn the volume to max, close your eyes, and just like that, all the things in your head start to disappear. Leaving only the music.

But pure bliss can’t last forever and sure enough, as if to prove it, a loud thud beckons me back to reality.

I crack my eyes open, squinting through the rays of sunlight pouring through my window, leaving a mosaic of shadows and sun spread across the pure white of my bed quilt.

Glancing up, I find the source of the disrupting thud, in all of her blue-haired-grunge glory. I roll my eyes and pull off the headphones.

“What is it this time?” I ask patronizingly, a knowing smirk pulling at the corner of my mouth.

Propped against my door frame she leans forward, “Emily, are you kidding me? You text me to just casually say ‘oh by the way Charlotte, my grandparents just gave me twenty grand’ and you don’t expect me to come over and freak out about it with you?! This is freaking amazing!” She finishes, almost squealing as she runs forward and hops on my bed across from me.

I grin at her enthusiasm, though my own lingering sense of dread underlines it.

She must’ve picked up on my hesitation and no sooner than having sat down fires another question. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you excited? I mean, it’s about time they spend some of their billions of dollars on you, right?”

Sighing, I try to gather my scattered thoughts as best I can. “Well, don’t get me wrong, I am happy about it. But it’s really just infuriating you know? They’ve never done anything for my family before, even when we needed it most. When their daughter was dying they did nothing.” I scoff, “And I find it really freaking hard to overlook that. Especially when I know the only reason they’re doing this now is to keep appearances up, however slight they may be. They have two grandchildren graduating high school this year, one they give a freaking Lamborghini, and the other? ‘Oh let’s just give her twenty grand so we don’t look too bad.’ I’m just sick of it.” I finish my rant through gritted teeth in an attempt to control my emotions.

Charlotte runs her hand down the side of her grimacing face. She must be in deep thought, rubbing her face like that without fretting about smudging her makeup. After a minute she nods, looks back up at me and says, “I totally agree with you.”

‘Kay well I wasn’t expecting that one. I blink, “You do?”

“Well, yes and no.”

There we go, there’s my normal Charlotte. A smile pulls at my mouth, she’s so predictable. “Care to explain?”

“Right, so I totally agree that your grandparents are stuck up jerks and insanely selfish.”

I start to interrupt, “Thank yo-” till she interrupts my interruption. Typical.

“But,” She continues, “I also think you should take advantage of anything they do give you, like, imagine what all we could do with twenty thousand dollars…” She gets that faraway starry look in her eyes as she leaves her sentence just hanging, pondering all the possibilities.

“Yeah, I mean you have a point. But still, it just- it feels so wrong.”

“Wrong? To use money given to you by your hateful grandparents to enjoy yourself?” She asks incredulously.

I shake my head, “No, not that. I don’t really know why honestly, maybe it’s just the whole situation with Mom.” With a sigh, I throw myself back, laying across my pillows.

Charlotte scoots over beside me and lays back, “Hm, that’s understandable I think. But I also think your mom would want you to enjoy yourself when the opportunity presented itself.”

I already know she’s right, despite how rare that is. It’s stupid to be overthinking this so much. I roll over to face Charlotte, “You know, I think you’re actually right.”

She shoots up, “Seriously?!” Squealing, she exclaims, “We’re gonna have the best senior trip ever!”

I chuckle; for her to try so hard to put off such a grunge vibe in her appearance, her personality will just never match up with that.

Grinning, I prop up on my arm, “Sure as heck we are.”

“M’kay, so,” She gestures out with her hands, “I may or may not have already been brainstorming some things…” She hops off the bed and reaches for her bag, after digging around for a minute she pulls out a worn little black notebook and holds it up like a prize.

“Aha! Here it is.” Charlotte plops back down beside me on the bed and starts flipping through the scribbled pages. After locating a certain page, she flings it in front of my face, “So see I’m thinking we do a massive road trip all the way across America, for like, I don’t know, a month? Maybe longer? It’s gonna be so great, oh my stars.”

Her enthusiasm is infectious and I find myself grinning like a child as we spend the next couple of hours daydreaming over our collective scribbled notes.

***

I twist my tangled blonde hair into a messy bun as I walk into the kitchen, noticing the small bag of Subway sandwiches tossed on the table.

Dad and I usually take turns cooking meals, but neither of us were feeling it tonight so he decided to pick something up on his way home from work instead.

Grabbing a couple plates and glasses, I set the table as Dad walks back into the kitchen from his room.

“Hey Dad.” I say, giving him a hug before sitting down, “How was work?”

“It wasn’t too bad. I actually ran into Sam and Casey Cottrell when I went out for lunch, did you know Casey has breast cancer?” He runs his calloused hand through his tousled mop of speckled hair.

I bite my lip, knowing this brings just as many horrible memories back to his mind as it does mine. “No, I didn’t. That’s awful. Do they have any kids now? It’s been forever since I’ve seen them.”

He sighs, “They do, they adopted a little girl a couple of years back, she’s seven now.”

My eyes start to well with tears, despite my best efforts. “Aw no, that’s so sad. I wish there was something I could do.”

“I know, so do I. They seem to be taking it as well as can be expected though, so that’s good.”

I nod and we lapse into a moment of silence.

“So, how was your day?” Dad asks, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s been good. Charlotte came over for a while this afternoon, we decided to use the money Mom’s parents gave me for our senior trip, so that’s exciting. I think we’re gonna plan a road trip across the entire country.” I say with a grin, though feeling a tinge of guilt at the frivolity of it.

“Hey well that’ll be fun! I’m so glad you girls are getting that opportunity. I would’ve loved to travel the country at your age.” He sighs, a nostalgic smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, hopefully everything goes well, you never can tell with Charlotte.” We both chuckle at the truth of that statement.

***

I toss and turn all night, unable to get the poor Cottrell family off of my mind. That poor little girl. I know all too well how the stress of things like that affect every member of the family, no matter how young. Even just the financial aspect of it.

And that’s when it hits me. I know exactly what I can do, and Charlotte is almost guaranteed to not be happy about it.

***

I make sure to wake up bright and early the next morning, Saturday.

And I know if I don’t do something about it, Charlotte will sleep till noon. So I do what every great friend does and call her, at six o’clock in the morning.

After the fourth ring she picks up, “Hello?” I very obviously woke her up, her voice sounds like straight up gravel.

“Hey! Sorry to wake you, but this couldn’t wait. I changed my mind about the money.”

“You did what now?” That did the trick, she’s way more alert now.

“I changed my mind, I’m gonna use the money how it should’ve originally been used.”

“Ok, you lost me.”

I sigh, “Look I told you my initial hesitation stemmed from everything that happened with mom, and now an opportunity has fallen right in my lap. My dad knows this family who is in the exact same situation we were in eight years ago. I know how badly we needed financial help with all of Mom’s medical bills, and there was no one to help us. I’m not gonna let the same thing happen to this family. I’m giving them the twenty grand.”

She’s silent for awhile, then finally says, “I think you’re doing the right thing Emily, I’m proud of you.”

Ok, wow. Maybe she’s not as predictable as I always thought.

She sighs, “Though I was really looking forward to exploring San Francisco… and New York City… and seeing the Grand Canyon.” She finishes under her breath.

And then again maybe she is.

I grin, ready to seize the day and hopefully change someone’s life.