**Monday, 12 October**
Mum keeps blaming me for not helping with my sick brother, but after school, I packed my things and ran away from home.
Emily sat on a bench in Hyde Park, watching the autumn leaves swirl in the crisp wind. Her phone buzzed again—another message from her mother, Margaret: “You abandoned us, Emily! Oliver’s worse, and you’re off living your life as if you don’t care!” Every word stung, but Emily didn’t reply. She couldn’t. Guilt, anger, and grief tangled in her chest, pulling her back to the house she’d left five years ago. At eighteen, she’d made a choice that split her life into “before” and “after.” Now, at twenty-three, she still wondered if it had been the right one.
Emily had grown up in the shadow of her younger brother, Oliver. He was three when the doctors diagnosed him with severe epilepsy. From then on, their home turned into a hospital ward. Mum, Margaret, poured everything into his care—medications, doctors, endless tests. Dad left, unable to cope, leaving Margaret alone with two children. Emily, just seven, became invisible. Her childhood dissolved into tending to Oliver. “Emily, help with your brother.” “Emily, keep quiet—he mustn’t get upset.” “Emily, be patient; now’s not the time.” She endured it, but with each year, she felt her own dreams slipping further away.
By her teens, Emily had learned to be “easy.” She cooked, cleaned, stayed with Oliver while Mum rushed between hospitals. School friends asked her to hang out, but she always refused—she was needed at home. Margaret would say, “You’re my rock, Emily,” but the words felt hollow. Emily saw how Mum looked at Oliver—love laced with despair—and knew she’d never be looked at that way herself. She wasn’t a daughter, just a helper, meant to make their lives easier. Deep down, she loved Oliver, but that love was tangled with exhaustion and resentment.
By sixth form, Emily felt like a ghost. Her classmates talked about university, parties, futures—she could only think of medical bills and Mum’s tears. One afternoon, she came home to find Margaret sobbing: “Oliver needs new treatment, and we can’t afford it! You have to help, Emily, get a job after school!” Something inside her snapped. She looked at Mum, at Oliver, at the walls that had suffocated her for years, and realised: if she stayed, she’d vanish forever. It hurt, but she couldn’t keep being who they wanted.
After A-levels, Emily packed a rucksack. She left a note: “Mum, I love you, but I have to go. I’m sorry.” With £200 saved from odd jobs, she bought a train ticket to London. That night, staring out the window, she cried, feeling like a traitor—but beneath the guilt, something new pulsed in her chest: hope. She wanted to live, to study, to breathe without glancing at hospital corridors. In London, she rented a shared flat, got a waitressing job, enrolled part-time at university. For the first time, she felt like a person, not just a caretaker.
Margaret never forgave her. The first few months, she called, shouted, begged her to return. “You’re selfish! Oliver’s suffering without you!” Her voice cut like a knife. Emily sent money when she could but refused to go back. Over time, the calls became rarer, but each text still dripped with blame. Emily knew Oliver struggled, knew Mum was exhausted, but she couldn’t carry that weight anymore. She wanted to love Oliver as a sister, not a nurse. Yet every time she read Mum’s words, she’d ask herself: “If I’d stayed, who would I be now?”
Now, Emily has her own life. An office job, friends, plans for a master’s degree. But the past lingers. She misses Oliver, his smile on good days. She loves Mum but can’t forgive her for the childhood she lost. Margaret still writes, and every message echoes the home Emily escaped. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever return, explain, make peace. But she knows this: the day the train carried her away from Manchester, she saved herself. And that truth—however bitter—keeps her going.
