I was seven years old when my life split cleanly in two.
One moment, I was sitting in the backseat of our car, coloring in a book that smelled faintly of crayons and vinyl. The next, I was waking up in a hospital room with pale green walls, staring at a ceiling that didn’t look familiar at all. A nurse spoke gently. A doctor avoided my eyes. Someone told me my parents weren’t coming back.
My sister Amelia was twenty-one then. She should have been worried about classes, weekend plans, and a wedding she had already started dreaming about. She had a fiancé. She had a future that was unfolding exactly the way it was supposed to.
And in a single night, she folded that future away.
She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t argue. She signed papers, packed boxes, and became the person who stood between me and the world when I no longer had anyone else.
From that day on, Amelia was everything.
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