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.

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.