My alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning, and before I even rub the sleep out of my eyes, I open the fridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because I\u2019m hungry\u2014but because I need to plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Robin gets for breakfast. What goes in her lunch. What I can stretch into dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019s twelve. She doesn\u2019t know I skip lunch most days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I intend to keep it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because I\u2019m not just her older brother anymore. I\u2019m everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m 21, working closing shifts at the hardware store, picking up whatever extra jobs I can find on weekends. Robin stays with our neighbor, Ms. Brandy, until I get home. It\u2019s not the life I imagined for myself\u2014but it\u2019s the one I chose the moment we lost our parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for the most part, it\u2019s been enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Robin smiles. She does well in school. She still laughs at things that shouldn\u2019t be funny. That\u2019s how I know I\u2019m doing something right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a few weeks ago, I started noticing small things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pause when she talked. A glance away. That quiet way kids carry something heavy without naming it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then one night at dinner, she mentioned\u2014casually, like it didn\u2019t matter\u2014that most of the girls at school had these denim jackets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t ask for one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw the way she picked at her food after, like she\u2019d already decided she didn\u2019t deserve to want it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That kind of thing stays with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I started doing math in my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Extra shifts. Smaller portions. Saying \u201cI\u2019m not hungry\u201d until my body stopped arguing with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three weeks later, I had enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I bought the jacket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t just fabric. It was proof that I could still give her something normal. Something good.Read More Below<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning, and before I even rub the sleep out of my eyes, I open the fridge. Not because I\u2019m hungry\u2014but because I need to plan. What Robin...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailystori.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}