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.
