your best american girl ✓

19 | sneak attack

"What is your mom planning on doing? Finding another job?" Faye asks, handing me a stack of two Mahjong tiles from the pile closest to her. She's in the seat facing the east, meaning that she's the dealer for this round. Next to me, Kassie leans over to steal the following two, lining them next to the ones she already has standing up.

"Yeah. She still has her job at the nail salon and we have some money saved up, so we should be fine for now," I reply, rearranging the order of my tiles. In front of me, I have a pretty bad hand: only one pair, and I have a feeling I won't be able to find matches for any of the stray tiles.

"How about Lulu? Does she have any luck finding a job?"

"No," Kassie answers solemnly, though I know it's been worrying her more than she's letting on, "she had an interview yesterday for a janitor position, and it didn't go...well."

Truthfully, she's in a worse position than my mom and I are. Realistically speaking, she can't stay at Faye's house forever, and there's a risk that if Kass gets a job, they might find out her true identity. Fully digesting this information makes me wonder if we're making the right decision fighting her family. Playing with fire rarely ends well, especially if you don't have a back up plan. If this does blow up in our faces, then what are we going to do next?

"Lee don't worry about it," Kassie says with a shrug, running a hand through the left side of her short hair. The other side is freshly shaven off. "We'll be fine, I promise."

Her words do little to console me, but nonetheless, I offer a small smile.

To kick off the game, Faye draws the first tile, adds it to her line up, and discards the one on the end. The bamboo 3. Doesn't match any of the ones I have, so I grab another from the pile. Zhong (middle). In terms of strategy, it wouldn't make a difference if I kept it or not since I don't have many eyes (pair). My gut is telling me that it's likely I will encounter another one, so I keep it and remove my bamboo eight instead.

"Pong," Kass declares, taking the tile I put down and putting it next to her pair of bamboo eights.

We continue to play for a couple more rounds, and it seems like every move I make benefits my opponents more than it benefits me. Mahjong isn't necessarily a game that relies on strategy. There's a lot of luck involved, and unfortunately, as of recently, that doesn't seem like something that's been on my side.

"I win, bitches," Faye announces, turning her tiles over to show her hand, "pay up."

"You're really gonna take my life savings away like this?" I mutter, pulling a dollar out of my leather bound wallet.

"I was joking, but since the money's already out, I might as well take it," she says, snatching the bill from my hand.

"Kassie?" Halle enters the living room, face twisted with concern, an envelope in hand. Tentatively, she lingers near a crinkled column.

"Yeah?" Kassie responds, tucking in her seat and making her way towards her sister. One glance over her shoulder, and she grimaces. "Uhhhh...that can't be good."

I frown. I've never seen them so on edge before. "What's wrong?"

The two of them exchange a look before the older one of the two sighs and folds the paper back into the ripped open envelope. "Our transplant appointment got cancelled. They said they don't do them anymore...but that can't be true, right? We made it quite recently..."

"Wait this is the hospital my parents work at right? Last time I checked, they do transplants," Faye says, stacking the tiles one by one in their respective cases. The glossy surface reflects the light, brightening the green backing.