Remember me by Cindy Young (good books to read for young adults txt) 📕

Prologue

Do I know who I am?

Sometimes I ask myself this.

The answer for this question is simple:

No.

 

What I know is:

My name is Alexa Daniels; I am twenty-three years old and a very good skilled bodyguard.

I’ve got a sister, she’s eighteen and on a fateful summer day in her summer holidays (she had finished school in the Gymnasium with an average of 1.17) she was brought by ambulance to hospital and her doctor diagnosed cancer in her upper stomach and in her left lung.

Left lung.

Next to her heart.

 

It was an advanced cancer and the doctors said that she would die in the next twenty-five weeks if we don’t intervene. Every one of us was shocked.

It’s very difficult and dangerous to operate her lung therefore the operation costs nearly 100.000 Euro and I am NOT rich.

I do own 3.000 Euro in one month but that isn’t enough for the OP. Even if I’ll save money very hard, I can’t save more money than 400 Euro every month because I’ve got debts, my sister moved to my “home” in London two months ago.

My parents want to help us but I don’t want their “help”. First they aren’t rich too.

Second we don’t have a good rapport.

That’s not right.

We don’t even have a rapport.

If we talk about my sister, we don't shout and cry.

If we don't talk about my sister...

Well, we don't even talk to each other anymore because I don’t have good memories of my hometown in Hanover and my parents.

That’s the reason why I don’t want their help. If they give me some parts of the operation-money, they’ll want that my sister get back to Germany. I don’t have a good influence.

Wait. Why do I have a bad influence in their opinion?

Because I became a skilled bodyguard, I like dark colors, I’m not well paid, I am myself and the biggest reason is what happend in my hometown.

I don’t want to talk about that right now.

 

My sister is not like me; she has got a very good and kind character.

She loves pink, is fancy, is very very sweet and good looking, funny, loves chocolate, her hair is a mixture of gold and shining maroon and she has got the green eyes of my mum. She’s like my angel. She loves me the way I am.

After they diagnosed cancer, she tries to be strong, tough, and to be herself even if she knows that she’ll maybe die.

I won’t let that happen even if I have to eat rubbish and have to live in dirt.

I know it’s not easy.

She knows that there is something creepy inside of her and she can’t get it away therefore she must go to hospital every day. Doctor Krueger wants to check if the cancer gets bigger.

He is friendly, comprehensive and sympathetic and a good doctor, we are very lucky to have him.

I don’t want to lose my little angel, but I don’t know how to help her.

Sometimes we lie together in bed and cry.

Mute. Secret. Alone.

 

Just like now.

She cuddles herself into my arms and cries.

Tears warm up my clothes.

Tears drop from my eyes, run down my face and disappear in my maroon hued hair.

Tears drop from the eyes of our dog.

He cries with us.

He was and will always be a good friend of mine. He goes with us through fire and the bad days and when we’re at the end of our forces, he nudges us with his nose and that means we should go on. He loves us and has something spare for us regardless of whether we did and how we are. He is the cutest dog I've ever seen. And he is so nice.

 

Suddenly my smartphone alarm rings and tears us all out of the sad atmosphere.

I have to go to work.

Slowly the tousled head of my sister rises: “Hey,” she says, “hey, you gotta get up!”

“I know Sweetie, but what are we supposed to do?”

She forces herself a smile on her face, which acts insincere.

Former a permanent smile was part of a normal day. Since the cancer, it is not a daily routine anymore. But she tries it at least and I’m very proud of her.

“It also don’t helps me getting better if you’re lying in bed all day and snuggle”, that sounds so much like the old Sarah that I burst into a flood of tears.

She throws herself into my arms and cries too. My dog jumps with a slight leap on my legs.

He lies stretched out there, looking at me with his faithful stupid look, that's his encouragement-look.

It makes me laugh through tears: “OK, OK I’m already going to work”.

I pull my legs gently away from the dog so that I don’t hurt him and get up with my sister. She strokes the dog again who remains on the bed: “Yes, fine gentleman Lonso.”

I remembered his naming and began to laugh again. We called him in German ‘so und so’ because we didn’t know how we should call him. For once, I did not agree with my sister and she not with me.

The destiny took us the naming.

Eventually we called for him in London on the road, when we went out for a walk with him, and an older man turned around and asked us what we want.

It came out that his surname was Lonso and since then we called our dog gentleman Lonso. The real Mr Lonso became a good friend.

“You must really go now!” Sarah says and hands me one of her delicious and yummy sandwiches. Well, probably I stopped walking as I arrived in kitchen and had gone behind my thoughts.

She hands me a bottle of water again and my keys and my handbag, “Now do what you have to do, get yourself out of this house, I don’t want to see you here again before 6 o’clock in the afternoon.”

"OK, see you!” I slip quickly into my shoes and cram my stuff into my handbag. At the front door I give her a kiss on the cheek: “Go for a walk with gentleman Lonso, but be careful and bring Mr Lonso the chocolate! Don’t eat it by yourself!”

I point to a bar of dark chocolate; we always give Mr Lonso chocolate because he loves it as much as my sister loves hot chocolate. My sister laughs and nods and I wave her one last time and run to the metro station, because I’m quite late today. I get onto the Central Line and I wait seven stations before I get off again.

Arrived at the station, I hurry to the building.

Once inside, I greet “the lady behind the counter”, Abigail, and get rapidly into the elevator.

I have a lot to do today. I have to revise a few documents and curriculum vitae (also called CV) and after that I have to help seven women who want to purchase a bodyguard, they already have appointments and I have to introduce them their bodyguards.

I never was a real Bodyguard except for a very short time in my tests, I passed them very good, but the boss thought that I should work as a kind of coordinator for the moment in that time I can prepare myself to something that is huge and I can do this office job for experiences. There are so many requests for bodyguards, they all want bodyguards and they’ll fight against each other to get me.

 

Honestly, I don’t want to be bodyguard because of my sister. I wouldn’t be home all day and night. She would be very alone. However, I would get a promotion that would help my sister very much.

I am in my office and see the huge stack of work on my desk and sigh, how should I do that, I am not a fairy (I can’t conjure), because I have to be ready even before lunch break, especially because after lunch break the appointments with the women will begin.

Yeah ... so little work today (irony).

There are several stacks, not listed by importance but kind.

The first stack on the top and left on my desk includes all the requirements for bodyguards. The stubborn people fill another document, which means that they pay more and get the bodyguards earlier and they can book how the bodyguard must be. They all belong to the second batch. These special requirements are on the top and in the middle of my desk. The third type of document located at the top and right on my desk, all bodyguards, each with their protégés. Always both CVs and what and how long everything will take and how much the protégé paid.

The fourth, in the bottom on the left side, are bills and opinions of the protégés, we introduced a ten-points scheme, ten is very satisfied and zero very dissatisfied. It’s not the Salary (the Salary will remain unchanged), but if you get 9-10 points you can still get a little more additive. As reward, only this month, after that you have to re-earn the points. However, the points are always recorded and noted.

Because I've never been the bodyguard, I can’t get that additional payment. So if I am a real bodyguard, I’ll get more than my current salary, it’s like a promotion. If you’ve done your work very well, then you’ll get even more than just this promotion.

In several assessments in a month, we take the average.

And those who are really always between 9 and 10 are ranked higher to the bodyguard professionals. That brings me to the fifth stack. Here are the payments to the bodyguards. We have 17 professional bodyguards, 81 normal bodyguards and 26 working-at-the-desk bodyguards, including me.

I have to calculate their payments and evaluate, whether the bodyguards did their work well, regardless of the assessments and then again with the assessments. And then add up everything together I can find out how much they will get as payment this time.

On the sixth stack next to it are notes and all types of stuff.

I sigh.

The common everyday found me again.

I sit on my chair and take a deep breathe before swoop down on my work like mad.

Actually I’ve really finished all the documents to Lunch break and I am quite pleased when I strut in the cafeteria next door.

My colleagues are already waiting for me.

“Hey, Lex, where have you been, we’ve been waiting for you for five minutes, usually you're always the punctuality in person”, shouts my best friend Alison.

"Oh," I say, "had a bit more work to do than usual, I think our boss wants to kill me."

She knows what happened with my sister, but not what happened in Hanover.

Well, to be exact, every one of them knows what happened with my sister because on that day I collapsed on my chair at the work. I know, I’m not that type but it was to much for me and that's why they all know about it.

Jon is a friend of mine and works in the hospital, where my sister always goes; he knew it without telling him.

Alison laughs: "So much work to do? We don’t know that Mr Boss is like that, especially not to his favourite worker?" I do not know why she always says that I’m his favourite worker.

Maybe it's because I already knew him as little child, my parents are good friends of him and he knows my whole life story. Well, at least the published version of it.

Even just thinking about it prepares me a headache, so I prefer to leave it.

After the Lunch Break I help the ladies with their bodyguards, they all are very happy to get one.

 

And this day ends with a little smile on my face.

Even my sister is happy today.

And my dog is happy, too.