My parents turned the report over and over in their hands, reading it again and again, then threw their arms around each other and sobbed with joy.
I was shaking too.
I knew I was saved.
But I couldn't agree to donate right away.
If I said yes too quickly, my parents would figure out the truth: the one who was really sick was me.
Not only would I never see a dime, I'd probably be thrown out of the house for lying.
I needed to build momentum. I needed to put my parents over a fire so hot they'd have no choice but to agree to let my sister donate her bone marrow to me.
No choice but to spend the money to get me treated.
So when they asked me when I was free to go to the hospital for the transplant, I refused. Stone-faced.
They froze.
"Why?" they demanded. "She's your own sister!"
"Are you really going to stand by and watch her die?"
They called me an ungrateful wretch. Heartless. A monster.
No matter what they said, I wouldn't budge.
"Mom, donating bone marrow has side effects. Sure, I'm young, it probably won't matter now. But what about when I'm old?"
"Will you still take care of me then?"
Mom swore to the heavens without missing a beat. "As long as you donate to your sister, no matter what happens to you down the road—even if you end up paralyzed—we'll look after you for the rest of your life!"
I smiled. It didn't reach my eyes.
They made it sound so noble. All those years, every time I had a cold or a fever, had they taken care of me even once? They'd shove some expired medicine at me and tell me to drink more water.
But when Laurel so much as nicked her finger, Mom would rush her to the emergency room.
When I refused to donate, my parents bombarded me with messages every single day.
They even showed up at my office in a pack, making a scene right at the entrance. They told my company I was a heartless ingrate who wouldn't even save her own sister.
Then they took it online, sobbing about how close Laurel and I had always been, how good they'd been to me growing up. Now that my sister was sick and needed a bone marrow transplant, I'd already been typed as a match—and I was refusing.
They wept and wailed across social media, snot and tears streaming, rallying strangers to pressure me.
To blow it up even further and force my hand, Dad actually paid to get the story onto the trending topics.
It worked exactly as they'd hoped.