Mums constant nagging about me not helping enough with my poorly brother made me bolt after school. She kept going on about how I wasnt doing my bit, so I grabbed my stuff and just left.
Emily sat on a bench in Hyde Park, watching the leaves swirl in the crisp autumn breeze. Her phone buzzed againanother message from her mum, Margaret: “Youve abandoned us, Emily! Williams getting worse, and youre just carrying on like nothings wrong!” Each word cut deep, but Emily couldnt bring herself to reply. Guilt, anger, and heartache twisted inside her, pulling her back to that house shed walked away from five years ago. At eighteen, shed made a choice that split her life into “before” and “after.” Now, at twenty-three, she still wondered if it was the right one.
Emily had grown up in her little brothers shadow. William was just three when the doctors diagnosed him with severe epilepsy. From then on, their home felt like a hospital ward. Their mum, Margaret, poured everything into his caremeds, doctors, endless tests. Their dad? He packed up and left, couldnt handle the pressure, leaving Margaret to raise two kids alone. Emily, only seven at the time, became invisible. Her childhood vanished into the relentless cycle of looking after William. “Emily, help me with your brother,” “Emily, keep it down, youll set him off,” “Emily, not now, wait your turn.” She put up with it, but every year, her own dreams slipped further away.
As a teen, Emily learned to be “practical.” She cooked, cleaned, watched William while Mum raced between hospitals. Her schoolmates invited her out, but she always said nosomeone always needed her at home. Margaret would say, “Youre my rock, Emily,” but the words felt hollow. Emily saw the way her mum looked at Williamfull of love and desperationand knew shed never get that same look. She wasnt a daughter; she was a carer, there to ease the familys burden. Deep down, she loved her brother, but that love was tangled with exhaustion and resentment.
By sixth form, Emily felt like a ghost. Her friends talked about uni, parties, future plans, while all she could think about were medical bills and her mums tears. One evening, she came home to find Margaret in floods: “William needs a new treatment, and we cant afford it! You have to help, Emilyget a job after A-levels!” Thats when something inside her snapped. She looked at her mum, her brother, those suffocating walls, and realised: if she stayed, shed disappear forever. It hurt, but she couldnt be who they needed anymore.
After her exams, Emily packed her rucksack. She left a note: “Mum, I love you, but I have to go. Forgive me.” With £400 saved from odd jobs, she bought a train ticket to London. That night, curled up in her seat, she cried, feeling like a traitor. But there was something else in her chesthope. For the first time, she wanted to live, study, breathe, without hospital corridors haunting her. In London, she rented a bed in student digs, waitressed, enrolled in night classes. She finally felt like a person, not just a cog in someone elses life.
Margaret never forgave her. The first few months, she called, screamed, begged: “Youre so selfish! Williams suffering without you!” Her voice cut like glass. Emily sent money when she could, but she wasnt going back. Over time, the calls grew fewer, but every message was laced with blame. Emily knew William was worse, that her mum was shattered, but she couldnt carry that weight anymore. She wanted to love her brother as a sister, not a nurse. Yet every time she read her mums words, shed wonder, “If Id stayed, who would I be now?”
These days, Emilys making her own way. Shes got a job, mates, plans for her masters. But the past keeps creeping in. She thinks of William, his smile on the rare good days. She loves her mum, but she cant forget the childhood she lost. Margaret still texts, and every message echoes that house she fled. Emily doesnt know if shell ever go back, explain, make peace. But one things certain: the day that train carried her away from home, she saved herself. And that truth, however bitter, keeps her moving forward.
