I couldn’t let her think that.

I couldn’t let there be a single day where my little sister believed I’d picked someone over her.”

He wiped his face with the heel of his hand.

“And the second reason,” he said, and his voice dropped very low.

“Leaving hurts less when you’re the one who decides it.

If I made them send me back, then I was the one who left.

I wasn’t being thrown away again.