My tears flowed freely now, soaking into the thin mattress beneath me. I hadn’t realized how much I missed hearing that name, how much I missed her—the real Gloria. The sister who used to laugh with me, who used to love me.
It wasn’t until the moment she saved me—pushing me out of harm’s way, sacrificing herself for me—that I heard it again. "Sunshine, run!" She’d said it with so much urgency, so much desperation. It had been years since that word passed her lips, and she’d saved it for her dying breath.
Why? Why then? Why, after all those years of silence and coldness, did she use it again?
I would never know. That was the cruelty of it. She was gone, my parents were gone, and I was left alone with nothing but these questions and the crushing weight of regret. I clutched my chest, feeling the emptiness there, the gnawing void where their love used to be.
I should have gone with her that day. Maybe I could have protected her. Maybe she would have stayed my sister, the one who called me Sunshine and patted my head when I was lazy. Maybe none of this would have happened.