After our parents died, I became everything my little sister had left. I gave up everything else to keep her safe. When kids at school ruined the one thing I had saved for weeks to buy her, I thought that was the worst part. I was wrong. What I saw after her principal called stopped me in my tracks.
My alarm rings at 5:30 every morning, and before I’m even fully awake, I check the fridge.
Not because I’m hungry that early, but because I need to figure out how to stretch what we have. What Robin gets for breakfast, what goes into her lunch, and what I save for dinner.
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Robin is 12, and she doesn’t know I skip lunch most days. I’d like to keep it that way. Because I’m not just her older brother. I’m all she has.
I work closing shifts at the hardware store four nights a week and pick up whatever odd jobs I can on weekends. Robin usually stays with Ms. Brandy, our elderly neighbor, until I get home.
I’m 21. I should be in college, trying to figure life out like everyone else. But Robin needs me more, and those plans can wait.
She had been doing well, and for a while, that was enough to keep me going. But every now and then, I’d notice something small. A hesitation. A look away. Like there was something she wasn’t telling me.
It started a few weeks ago, casually, the way Robin brings things up when she doesn’t want to make a big deal of them.
We were eating dinner, and she mentioned, without really looking at me, that a lot of girls at school had been wearing these cool denim jackets lately.
She described them in that offhand way kids use when they want something but know better than to ask directly.
Robin didn’t say, “I want one, Eddie.” She didn’t need to.
I watched her push her food around and change the subject, and I felt that familiar ache—the kind that comes from wanting to give someone something and not knowing if you can.
I didn’t say anything that night. But I started doing the math in my head.
I picked up two extra weekend shifts. I made my portions smaller for three weeks and told Robin I wasn’t hungry, which wasn’t entirely a lie. I’ve gotten good at convincing myself I’m not hungry when something else matters more.
Three weeks later, I had enough, and I bought the jacket, feeling like I’d pulled off something I wasn’t sure I could manage.
I left it on the kitchen table when Robin got home, folded neatly with the collar up like in the store. She dropped her backpack by the door and froze when she saw it.
