Leap of Faith

Day Thirty

“What do you think, Cate?” Mom asks when she spots me hovering behind my sister.

Anna and Libby promptly turn to face me, both hurrying to their feet and rushing towards me, excitedly uttering words that didn’t sound like English. In fact, the noise they were making didn’t sound like anything on this planet. It was weird.

“We’re borrowing Catherine,” Anna said. She only ever used my full name when she was trying to get on my mom’s good side. Before Anna got a reply, she took me by my arm and dragged me up to my room, Libby following behind us. As soon as all three of us were in my room, Anna pounced. “So? Did you choose yet?”

I give her a blank stare. “Choose?”

“New Year’s Eve guy,” Anna prompted me. “Or TJ?”

“Annabelle-”

“Don’t ‘Annabelle’ me,” Anna interrupted. “Answer the question, or I will go all shrinky on your ass.”

I sigh and head towards my bed. “It’s not that easy, Anna.”

“Actually,” she says in that listen-to-me tone. “It is that easy. You choose TJ. There, decision made.”

I groan and throw myself face downwards on my bed and scream into my pillow. I feel the bed dip beside me and someone brushing my hair down my back. I knew instantly that it was Libby. Whenever I was upset as a kid and Libby wanted to cheer me up, we would sit together and she would always play with my hair to calm me down. It was nurturing in a maternal way, and it never filed to get me to smile. I twist around to see my sister and give her a small smile in return.

“Do you want to dance this out?” Libby asks.

That’s another thing about my sisters- they always know how to have fun. Being so different, Libby, Anna and I could never agree on songs, but there was one that we all loved, if only because it was a ladies anthem.

Anna moved towards my iPod docking station and searched for our song. Once she found it, she nodded conspiratorially at Libby who started to shake uncontrollably in excitement. Anna pressed play and as soon as the music began to play, Libby got to her feet and pulled me to join her. We swayed to the beat, but seconds before the lyrics started Anna grabbed my hairbrush from my dresser and jumped up onto my bed.

“I come home in the morning light,” Anna sang in time to Cyndi Lauper. “My mother says when you gonna live your life right. Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate one, and girls they want to have fun. Oh girls just want to have fun.”

“The phone rings in the middle of the night,” Libby continues as she joins Anna on my bed and steals away the hairbrush. “My father yells what you gonna do with your life. Oh daddy dear you know you're still number one, but girls they want to have fun. Oh girls just want to have.”

For the music interval, Libby pulls me up to join her and Anna. They grab an arm each and start to pull me as we dance. The longer we danced, the more I started to relax and enjoy myself. I was laughing uncontrollably by the time Libby handed the hairbrush over to me.