I hated that sentence.
I hated it when other girls showed up in new clothes while I wore secondhand ones. When they upgraded phones and I carried one with a cracked screen. I hated him for saying no so often that I cried into my pillow at night, convinced he just didn’t want to give me more.
I didn’t understand then what sacrifice looked like.
Then he got sick.
The man who carried my entire world on his back suddenly couldn’t climb the stairs without stopping to breathe. His laugh disappeared. His hands trembled more. And for the first time, I realized something terrifying:
If I lost him, I lost everything.
When he died, my life went quiet.
I stopped eating.
I stopped sleeping.
I moved through the days like a ghost inside my own body.
Two weeks after the funeral, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
