I was eighteen when I found out I was pregnant, and overnight my home stopped feeling like home. My parents didn’t shout. They didn’t argue. My father simply said, “You can’t stay here under these circumstances.”
That night, I packed in silence. I kept hoping someone would stop me. No one did.
My thirteen-year-old sister stood in my doorway crying. She begged me not to go. I held her, promised I’d be okay, and walked out without looking back—because if I had, I would’ve begged to stay somewhere that no longer wanted me.
I disappeared. I built a life from nothing. I worked. I struggled. I became a mother. Strength wasn’t a choice—it was survival.
But I never stopped thinking about my sister.
Years later, there was a knock at my door.
When I opened it, she stood there—taller, older, carrying years in her eyes. The moment she saw me, she broke down.
“I found you,” she whispered, holding me like I might vanish.
Then she told me she never stopped looking. That she begged our parents every year to search for me. That she refused to let me be forgotten.
When my parents stepped forward behind her, I realized the truth.
I hadn’t been erased.
I had been remembered.
Because my sister never let me go.
