Everything Comes at a Price

Kyrra

I found it in the gutter — a soggy black notebook with raised gold bands and an impossibly smooth cover. I carefully smoothed open the first page to see five words scrawled in whimsical, delicate script across it: Everything comes at a price.

The pages, though wet and delicate, were not ripped. I didn’t want to change that by leafing through it, but my curiosity was piqued by the words I had already read. Stuffing the small book into my purse, I straightened and stepped lightly over a puddle as the scent of petrichor lingered in my nostrils. Raindrops dripped from drooping wisteria blossoms and onto my nose as I traipsed through my fragrant front yard and lightly opened the door.

My cell phone rang, a call from my banking service. I squeezed my eyes shut and didn’t answer.

Emily

I bought it at the grocery store in the school aisle — an elastic-closure, classic notebook with a black cover and rounded corners. Simple, but sturdy. I nodded matter-of-factly and placed it in my cart, checking the words goal notebook off of my shopping list.

“You,” I said, under my breath so no one could hear, “are going to help me this year.”

I squared my shoulders and pushed the cart further down the aisle, towards the note cards.

Kyrra

My phone showed a missed call. I clicked off the screen, not ready to think about that right now, and directed the blow dryer at my roots. The notebook on the bathroom counter in front of me had already undergone the treatment my hair was now receiving, and the brittle pages were finally dry enough to turn.

I'd been almost afraid to open the pages as I'd dried them, not only concerned about tearing them, but also about losing the cryptic sort of feeling that notebook had provided me with; the distraction from everything else. It would be almost a shame to turn the page and understand what the notebook was about — or worse, realize it was just plain empty. Its air of mystery was too poignant to be lost.

Still, I had finally braved the task. What I'd found was both unexpected and somehow also right. Following the strange first page, the words were all written stanzas of wishes, penned in all sorts of different hands — as if this journal had been passed through a myriad of people. A traveling wish journal.

The concept was appealing to me, as it only intensified my curiosity. I was afraid to write my own wishes, though, as the pages were so fragile from water ruin.

“Kyrra?” a warm, familiar voice called from my front room, and I turned off the blow dryer.

“Cousin Mae!” I hurried into the front room to give the woman a hug.

Her forehead was tenderly furrowed, and she looked at me with a sweetness that made my heart turn. She acted as a motherly figure to me, with good reason. “Kyrra. How have you been?”

My eyes flicked to my phone in my hand, and I set it down quickly on the living room table. “I’m great, now that you’re here. I missed you. How was your trip?”

“Nerve-wracking,” she sighed, sitting down on the couch and beckoning me to sit next to her. “And of course I missed you, too. But it was wonderful. I wish I could have brought you.”

“That’s okay,” I said with a grin. “I’m glad you could visit your boyfriend.”

The corner of her mouth tugged up at the mention of him. “Me, too.”

“Was his family really that scary?”

Mae sighed. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

Suddenly, I knew what she meant. The bus. Across the country.

I’d have been terrified, too.

“Oh, Mae. Now I really wish I’d been with you.”

“No. That’d have made it worse. Too much deja vu.” She sighed and closed her eyes. I knew exactly what she was thinking. Although we hadn’t become close until our eighteenth year, we’d shared something that couldn’t have resulted in anything but the close relationship we had.

“Do you ever think about it?” she asked softly. “How stupidly ironic it is that we were the only ones who survived, because of our bad attitudes? Everyone who went on that bus died, and the stupid teenagers who were too cool for a family vacation…” She trailed off. Her eyes glimmered. “It still gets me.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “Me, too. But… at least we’re not alone.”

“You’re right.” Mae smiled, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Come here, you.” She gave me another hug, this one longer and tighter.

The embrace seemed to squeeze all the tension out of me. “I’m having money problems,” I blurted, then immediately regretted it.

Mae stepped back. “What about your inheritance?”

“My parents had a lot of debt, and most of their estate was sold to pay it off.” I hung my head. “So… I’ve been using credit cards a lot. I don’t have a job”

“Oh, Kyrra,” Mae sighed. “Remember that whenever you choose a solution, you're also choosing a problem. Just please make sure you choose your problems on purpose.”

Emily

“You know what you are?” Ashley said, poking her head into the room for the fifth time that night.

I sighed and put my pencil down on the desk. “What?”

“A workaholic.” She raised a slanted eyebrow and shook her head. “I can't believe you won't come out with us tonight.”

“You know I can't do that. I have to study.”

“It's college. You have to live a little!”

“I can live a lot for the rest of my life if I get this scholarship next year,” I said pointedly. “I saved enough for my first year of tuition, but college is expensive. If I get it paid for for the rest of my degree, I could have enough money later for a house, which will save me rent money. It's a spiral that just keeps going up.”

She made a face. “You have a job already, why do you need more money? A social life is important, too, you know.”

“And that's why I'll go out with you on weekends. Now, you go have fun. Also, I'll probably be asleep when you get back, so please, I beg of you, no wild after-parties in the front room.”

Ashley rolled her eyes and began to retract. “See you later, roomie.”

I smiled and returned my attention to the notebook in front of me, opening the expandable pocket in the back to cross off an assignment from my to-do list. Then I opened to one of the bookmarks, nearer the front, and tapped the pencil to my cheek. The top of the page read, Goal #3: Waking up Early.

This one had been a little tougher than I'd expected, but it was also making me more productive. And the daily tracking of success and experiences with these goals was really helping.

“You know,” I said, speaking to the notebook in front of me, as I often did, “I think I was right about you. You're a pretty magical thing.”

And I began to write.

Kyrra

The black wish notebook sat on my bedside, as it had for the past two months. Heaven knew I could use the luck. I couldn't get a job, unless it was something insultingly low-paying like fast food. What was the point?

I'd also stopped going to classes. It was too hard to listen to the lectures when my head was constantly wrapping around and around my financial situation. The only way out of that stupid mind trap was Netflix.

I sighed as I cracked an egg into my greasy frying pan. I’d tried to buy Starbucks for breakfast, but my credit card had been declined. It was finally happening.

My phone rang, and this time I couldn't ignore it. I bit my lip, answered on the second ring, and pressed it to my ear, feeling my hand tremble. “Hello?”

“Kyrra Love?” the voice at the other end said.

“This is she.”

“We've been trying to contact you for awhile. You've missed a large number of credit card payments, and we've frozen your accounts. If we don't receive the payment you owe us, we'll be forced to file a judgment against you. You can do this the easy way, or we'll settle it in court.”

“H-how much do I owe?” I asked. I had given up looking at my banking app weeks ago. It was much too depressing.

“Nineteen thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven dollars.”

I blinked, hard, scrunched up my face, and dissolved into tears. “I don't have any money. I can't pay it off.”

“Well, you spent that money,” the voice said unsympathetically. “You'd better get ready to file for bankruptcy.”

The phone clicked. The call ended.

A sob escaped me. Then another. I threw the frying pan into the sink, eggs and all, and ran into my bedroom to collapse onto the bed.

Twenty minutes later, I lifted my head. The first thing I saw was the traveling wish notebook, just sitting on my nightstand.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had gotten up and was searching for a pen. If there was ever a time I needed a miracle, it was now. The united wishes of everyone before me had to have some power.

As I stood by the nightstand, pen poised in hand, I paused for a moment to consider the script on the front page. Everything comes at a price. It kinda sounded like what Mae had told me that one day a few months ago. I wondered briefly if it meant something significant.

Then I opened the book to the last written-in page, and scrawled out my ultimate wish — more than that — my ultimate need:

I wish for $20,000.

Emily

My left writing hand was stained silvery from pencil lead, and my fingers cramped, but I was almost finished. The last of my semester to-do list had been crossed out, and less than a page was left in the notebook for my goalkeeping section.

I scribbled faster and faster, tingling with anticipation but simultaneously almost wishing it didn’t have to be over yet. There was so much more to write; to do.

I supposed that was what buying new notebooks was for.

The page filled out, and I grinned in triumph. At the same time, my phone chimed with an email. An email from the university scholarship department.

“Dear Emily — We are pleased to offer you the Rising Star scholarship, which consists of a $20,000 yearly stipend for the rest of your university experience…”

I didn’t read the rest. My heart pounded a staccato beat of exhilaration. I did it! After all this work and sacrifice, I had reached my culminating goal of the semester.

And the price I had paid was almost part of the reward. I couldn’t wait to see how much further these success habits would take me.

Kyrra

The phone rang again a few days later, an unfamiliar number. I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Is this Kyrra Love?”

“Yes.”

“I’m calling concerning a Mae Powers. She’s your relation, correct?”

“My cousin.” What could this be about?

“Good. Well, I’m sorry to inform you that she was in an accident a few days ago, and has passed away. As her closest and only living relative, her estate will be transferred to you.”

My heart went cold and numb. “What?”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Her liquid assets amount to about $20,000, and her non liquid assets also belong to you now.”

Against the wall, I slid down to the floor. The front page of the wish journal flashed before my eyes.

Everything comes at a price.