My sister threw me out of the house after our father died

But I never did. And over the years, I realized that Charlotte had never seen me as her sister. I was just a burden in her otherwise glamorous life, an appendage, a shadow. She never read me bedtime stories, never spent time with me, never treated me like a family member. If Dad invited us on an ice cream for once, she barely lifted her gaze from the mobile phone, always distant, always aloof.

But despite everything, I clung to hope – naively, as I now see – that she was worried about me. That she would be there for me if it really mattered.