Eyes on Me

Two stick figures

I walked quickly to get to Milly

I looked at my time it was 3a.m in the morning

Shit

I thought I’d be back earlier

I knocked on the door waiting for Amara to open up

The door opened as Milly stood there smiling sheepishly

“ Grace”

Milly shouted rushing in for a hug

“ Milly, you’re still up?”

I asked hugging her tightly

“ yeah I wanted to wait for you”

“I’m here now, how are you?”

“ I’m fine, I made a drawing I’ll show you when we get home “

“ okay”

“ wait here let me speak to Aunty Amara okay”

“Where is she”

I turned to where her hand pointed and Amara had already walked out with a towel drying her hair

“ oh Grace you’re here”

“ yeah, thank you so much for today”

“ you’re welcome, you know it’s nothing I love Milly”

“ she wouldn’t close her eyes till she was sure you’re back”

She said swinging her head to the side and throwing a smile at Milly

“Hope you’ve had something to eat?”

“ not yet, I’ll whip something up when I get home”

I held Milly’s hand walking towards the door, she kept waving at Amara while I just smiled tired but grateful

“Goodnight”

I mouthed while she whispered a good night back

I closed the door tightly making setting Milly to the ground

I crouched down to her level

“Milly, please you don’t open the door when you don’t know who is knocking okay, let the adults there with you do that okay”

“ I’m sorry” she said looking down

God she was too cute and I couldn’t even be mad for long

“ it’s alright”

“I’ll go run your bath”

I threw my bag to the chair before rolling my sleeves up

Wouldn’t want to get them wet

…

Milly was fast asleep and her drawing a crooked rainbow with two stick figures, one labeled Gracie was stuck to the fridge

Our dad had died when we were younger and our mom was basically an alcoholic

She had to go to rehab

I had to step up and live quietly just till I was 18

And legal enough to live alone with my sister

I love her so much

She had severe asthma and we found out when I got into a huge argument with my mom and Milly got scared so she couldn’t breathe and all

I was so scared. I thought she was going to die

Since then I had to work to be able to get her drugs

It was called Montelukast, it was used to prevent attacks

I plan to leave this job and get something decent just after I had gotten enough money for Milly’s health

I stared at the pharmacy receipt until the numbers blurred.

Albuterol. Fifty-five dollars.

Singulair. One hundred and twenty.

And the nebulizer solution, which I'd pretended to forget last time but couldn't ignore anymore. Another forty.

Over two hundred dollars. Every single month. Just so my little sister could breathe.

I shoved the receipt into my pocket and went to bed

I tried not to think of the dread feeling of going back to the club which gnawed at me every chance it got