I became everything my little sister had when our parents passed away. I gave up everything else to keep her safe. When the kids at school destroyed the one thing I saved for weeks to buy her, I thought that was the worst of it. I was wrong. What I saw after her principal called stopped me cold.My alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning, and the first thing I do before I’m even fully awake is check the fridge.Not because I’m hungry that early, but because I need to know how to divide what we have. What my little sister gets for breakfast, what goes in her lunch, and what I hold back for dinner.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 big brother. I’m all she has.

I work the closing shift at the hardware store four nights a week and pick up odd jobs on weekends, whatever’s available. Robin usually stays with Ms. Brandy, our elderly neighbor, until I get home.I’m 21. I should be in college, figuring things out like everyone else. But Robin needs me more, and those dreams can stay on hold.She was doing well, and for a while, that felt like enough to keep going on. But now and then, I’d catch something small. A hesitation. A glance away. Like there was something Robin wasn’t saying.It started a few weeks ago, casually, the way my sister always brings things up when she doesn’t want to make a big deal of them.We were eating dinner, and she mentioned, without quite looking at me, that most of the 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 are too aware of the situation to ask directly.Robin didn’t say, “I want one, Eddie.” She didn’t have to.I watched my sister poke at her food and change the subject, and I felt that particular kind of ache that comes from wanting to give someone something and not being sure you can