She Knows

Robbin was born in 2007, on a chilly morning when the air smelled like wet earth and warm milk tea. Outside, crows called softly from the rooftops, and the sky was a sleepy gray, as if the world wasn’t quite ready to wake up yet. Inside the house, the silence felt heavy, almost like it was alive, pressing against the thin walls and cold floors.

She was the second daughter in a home where footsteps echoed, but laughter never followed. There were no brothers to fill the quiet with playful games or soft giggles—only sisters who shared the same blood but never shared the same warmth. In the soft fog of her earliest memories, Robbin couldn’t remember what it felt like to have a sister’s arm around her shoulder, or to share whispers in the dark that made her smile, or to giggle until yawns came under shared blankets.

She never loved them. They never loved her. It felt like a story someone began to write, scribbled a few lines, and then left unfinished, the paper fluttering in a breeze no one cared about.

Her older sister was four years ahead of her and seemed to shine in every room she walked into, like a small sun that everyone turned to for warmth. Her shoes tapped proudly on the dusty school floors, and her backpack was always heavy with shiny trophies and crisp report cards covered with bright red A’s. Her smiles came easily, practiced for neighbors, teachers, and relatives who would always say:

“She’s such a brilliant child!” “A daughter any parent would be proud of!” “She’s like a princess, so perfect!”

The hardest part for Robbin was that her sister loved every bit of that praise. She would lift her chin, letting the compliments sparkle in her dark eyes, while Robbin stood quietly in the doorway, clutching her worn-out notebook to her chest, wishing that just once her sister would turn around and see her standing there, wishing to be seen.

The house was full of people, but it always felt empty in the places where love should have lived. Her father left before the sky turned blue and returned only after the streetlights glowed, his shoulders tired, carrying the scent of wind and road dust. He sighed more often than he spoke, his tired voice floating through the room before disappearing into the quiet. To Robbin, he was like a shadow moving from room to room, someone she could see but never truly reach.

Her mother was there, but it never felt like she was there for Robbin. She would sit on the cold floor, hugging her thin knees, watching as her mother braided her sisters’ hair, the soft scent of hair oil mixing with their laughter. They whispered secrets and giggled about small things, but Robbin was never called to join, never pulled into the circle that smelled of warmth and felt like home. She was like a picture hanging on the wall—always there, but no one ever really looking long enough to notice.

She was there. Just there. A quiet shadow, blending into the corners of the room, learning how to stay small so she wouldn’t take up too much space.

At night, when everyone else was asleep, Robbin would wrap herself in her thin blanket and sit by the small window, looking out at the empty street under the soft glow of the moon. She would watch the crows shifting on the wires, their feathers ruffling in the cold wind, and she would wish—just once—that someone would look for her, call her name, and pull her into a hug that didn’t need to be earned.

But the house stayed silent, and the wish would drift into the cold air, leaving Robbin to close her eyes, pretending she was somewhere else, in a home where love didn’t have favorites, where warmth didn’t skip over her, where she wasn’t just a shadow trying to breathe quietly so she wouldn’t disturb the happiness meant for others.