Through Meteorites
The day our family went on vacation to an island resort, my younger sister, Alana Fisher, climbed over a safety railing to get the perfect photo. She lost her footing and, in her panic, dragged me into the ocean with her.
The rescue crew was about to pull me out first since I was closer when Mom suddenly took a yellowed paper coupon from her wallet and tossed it toward me.
"Corinne, let Alana get on the rescue boat first! This is the last thing your father and I will ever ask you to grant!"
When I was seven, I couldn't afford birthday presents for my parents, so I drew a hundred wish coupons by hand.
Each one read: [Redeem this coupon for one wish. Corinne has to say yes, no matter what.]
Years later, when Alana wanted my bedroom, they used one.
When she decided she wanted to be an only child, they used another. From then on, I wasn't even allowed to call them Mom and Dad. I had to call them Mr. and Mrs. Fisher.
Even the college tuition I'd spent three years working part-time to save was taken from me with the ninety-ninth coupon and used to pay for Alana's dance training.
Now, only one coupon remained. I stared at it floating on the surface of the water and suddenly stopped struggling.
Then I slipped the only rescue line around Alana and pushed her toward the boat myself.
My parents were too busy wrapping her in a blanket and checking her for injuries to notice anything was wrong with me.
As the rescue boat headed back to shore, not one of them realized my calf had already cramped so badly that I could barely hold on to my flotation board.
Mom only turned back long enough to shout, "Corinne, hang on! We'll come back for you!"
I watched them disappear into the distance, a bitter smile pulling at my lips.
When I was seven, I believed that if I granted all one hundred wishes, Mom and Dad would finally love me the way they loved Alana.
It wasn't until the freezing ocean water closed over me that I finally understood. A hundred wish coupons hadn't been enough to make them choose me even once.
But they had been enough to cost me my life.