The Plan

By the way, I should probably explain this ‘plan’ of Charley’s that keeps coming up.

When she was thirteen, a year into secondary school, Charley came down to dinner one night and made a big announcement: she had planned out the next forty years of her life. My stepmum looked slightly bemused. Dad cracked a proud smile. Ten-year-old me was probably just staring at Charley’s face and drooling or something, not paying attention to what she was actually saying.

But over the next few years, I got the gist. Most of it was to do with academics – secure the best GCSE and A level results possible, make head girl at school and do enough with her extracurriculars and volunteer charity work to make her college essay so good that she was pretty much guaranteed a place a Stanford, her dream school because at the time she still missed San Francisco, the city she’d grown up in before her mum moved to London for work.

From there, it would just be more of the same, but with the addition of networking and securing internships, in order to secure the highest paying job possible straight out of university, whether that be in the US or UK. Hence JP Morgan.

And then, at forty when she had saved enough money, she would ditch the corporate life and start working for a charity that specialized in pancreatic cancer, as well as donating as much money as she could while still keeping enough to live comfortably on the minimum wage salary she’d most likely be making as a charity worker.

All this was because her real father had died of pancreatic cancer when she was three. I don’t think she remembered him very well, but the situation had still been pretty harrowing for her and her mum growing up, so she had resolved to do her best to try and stop the same thing happening to as many people as she could.

So yeah, on top of being hot and smart, she was also a good person. Man, she was really annoying.

Anyway, long story short, Charley had pretty much planned out the rest of her life, to the hour. There was other stuff that wasn’t just work related, of course – some of it to do with meeting her future husband, but I tended tune that stuff out automatically whenever she spoke about it.

If it was anyone else, you would either just view it as childhood naïveté, or possibly book her an appointment with a psychologist to discuss the possibility of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. But the thing is, she just made it work. Year by year, she achieved every single thing she needed to in her plan. And now, ten years deep, she was exactly where she had seen herself at this stage of her life.

Anyway, naturally it was on my mind again later that night, as I brushed my teeth and stared into space. I was only snapped out of my trance by a slap on my back.

“Now this is nostalgic,” Charley said. She gently barged me over to make space for her to use the sink as well.

I sighed. “And so, it starts.”

“Uh huh. Get used to it.” She squirted some toothpaste out on her brush and went to work. She was wearing bright blue pajamas that I remembered she’d had since she was in school, and she’d taken her makeup off, but she still looked amazing.

I shot her a look of disdain, and she grinned back at me as she brushed, foamy toothpaste all over her teeth and gums.

“Just no sense of decorum, whatsoever.” I grumbled.

She giggled as she spat out the toothpaste. “No sense of decorum,” she replied, mocking my English accent. “Man, I’ve missed you so much.”

I did my best to ignore the small endorphin boost that statement gave me and quickly washed my face. “Whatever. Goodnight.”

I hurried back to my room and booted my Playstation back up, yet again eager to think about anything else other than my stepsister.

Dodge roll.

Shit, this move is tough to learn.

Charley’s in the next room.

Waterfowl now, really?

Charley’s here.

Charley.

I hate my life.