Page 18 of Vows In Corruption

I spent my fair share of my life in foster care and in group homes and Charlie spent eleven years of her life being raised by a pair of individuals that would take their frustration for someone else out on her.

I thank whatever god is up in the heavens for informing me I had a little sister when I was eighteen. I had just left a group home and for some reason decided it was a good idea to reach out to my mother. I didn’t find her, but I did out the fact that she had another baby, one that was being raised by my grandmother. As soon as I found out about Charlie and saw about the situation she was in, I did everything in my power to take her out of there and bring her to come live with me. Some how I was able to convince all parties to give me what I wanted. I was twenty, she was eleven. Bringing Charlie to come live was me is something that I’m still paying for, and possibly always will, but one that I will never regret.

My eyes stay on Charlie for a bit longer than needed as I remember the day I found out about her and how badly I wanted to take her out of the hellhole she didn’t belong in.

She’s here with you now, that is all that matters.

Still, I have to push down the ball of emotions that is forming in my throat and act as if my mind didn’t go into a dark place just because we mentioned our grandmother.

I slide a wrapped egg sandwich over to my sister. “Here. Eat this, so you can get going. You don’t want be late for school.”

I get a nod, but thankfully not a single fight as the egg sandwich gets unwrapped and eaten. Within second, I follow suit and for a few minutes, we eat the four sandwiches in silence.

Charlie is the one to break it.

“Speaking of school,” she starts as if we had spent the last few minutes talking about her classes and not eating. “I got an email this morning.”

At least one of us did.

“What kind of email?” I ask, instead of letting my brain talk for me.

My curiosity is piqued. I’m not the only individual in this room that has been waiting for a very important email to hit her inbox.

“The kind that says that my application to be a student at Saint Christopher Prep Academy has been accepted.”

I don’t know what goes wide first. My eyes or my mouth.

I drop the remainder of my sandwich and look at my sister straight on.

“Like accepted accepted?” I sound like I’m in disbelief and in a way I am.

We’ve been trying to get Charlie into that school from day one of her coming to live with me. It’s one of the highest rated schools in the city, if not the state and for that very reason the waitlist is a decade long. Charlie’s application was submitted close to a year ago and since she’s in her second year of high school, I for sure thought that we would never see the day where she would get an acceptance or rejection letter.

“Like accepted accepted,” Charlie lets out, absolutely beaming at her words.

It only takes me two seconds to register what she just said before I’m going over to her side of the counter and we are jumping up and down and screaming and celebrating the fact that she got into one of the most prestigious schools known to man.

“Omigod. Omigod. Omigod!”

So many squeals fill our small kitchen and I’m sure the neighbors could hear us, but we don’t give a shit.

This is big news.

“I just wish that I could accept it though,” Charlie lets out once all the giggling has stopped and I have my arms tightly around her.

Her words have me pulling back and giving her a good look. I’m sure if I were to look in a mirror right now, my eyebrows would be bunched up.

“Why wouldn’t you accept it?” I asks her, trying to find something in her facial expression that will give me an answer. All I see is joy but also sadness.

“Because it’s expensive. We can’t afford to send me there.”

So much dread swims through my body as the words leave my little sister’s mouth.

I’m failing.

Bringing her to come live with me five years ago was so that I can give her a better chance at life. To give her every single opportunity that our grandmother and parents were so determined to take away from her.

But even though I have been giving her a better life, and a decent roof over our head, we are still struggling. We still live paycheck to paycheck, and worry about how we are going to pay rent the next month and how much food we can buy.

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