I'm Really Excited

By Cathy Caudill

“Look, Cathy,” over the phone I could hear her voice was choked with tears. “I have been working my ass off to make this relationship work, and if you’re not going to do the same, then I don’t think we can be together anymore.”

Before I could respond she burst into laughter.

“No, no," she gasped, "before you say anything I have to tell you: this old guy was walking past me when I was saying ‘I don’t think we can be together anymore,’ and he gave me this sympathetic, all-knowing look. Like, I think he thought I was talking to my boyfriend or something.”

I started laughing, too. I pictured my little sister standing on some street in New York City, fake-crying about our fake-relationship, while this little old man passed by this 19-year-old girl. He hears a clip of the conversation—probably she has dramatically contorted her face into an expression strained with grief to match her ton—and starts feeling bad about her love-life.

My little sister could always brighten my day. It pained me that I hadn’t seen her in two months since we both went back to college, but I was going to see her in just a week—she was going to fly home to visit me during my fall break.