Part 128th Runaway, I Let Her Go.

It was New Year’s Eve, and the whole family was outside setting off fireworks.

The trouble started with a single, simple act: I handed a sparkler to Gina, my younger daughter, just because she was standing closer to me.

That was all it took for Aria, my older daughter, to snap every remaining sparkler in the box.

She pointed a trembling finger at Gina and screamed, "Go on, play with it! You always have to have everything! Why don't you just drop dead?"

Then the tears came, a wrenching, theatrical sob as she turned on my husband and me. "Why didn't you give it to me first? Why are you always so unfair? I don't want you as my parents anymore!"

Before we could react, she bolted, running out of the yard and into the night.

We couldn't catch her.

We called the police, then spent three agonizing days and nights driving through every street, searching for her.

When we finally found her at the police station, she was putting on another show, wailing that she refused to come home with us.

"I don't want parents who play favorites! I'm not going back!"

I looked at her, my voice eerily calm. "Aria, are you sure about that?"

Her crying hitched for a second.

"Because if you don't want us anymore," I continued, "then we… don't want you either."

* * *

Aria froze.

Then, the crying erupted again, louder and more desperate than before.

A young policewoman rushed over to mediate. "Ma'am, she's just a child. Don't be so hard on her."

I wasn't being hard on her. I was just tired. So incredibly tired.

By my count, this was the twenty-eighth time Aria had run away from home.

It was always over something trivial, some perceived slight that no one else would even notice.

If I served Gina a slightly larger portion of casserole at dinner, Aria would throw a fit. She would meticulously pick apart her food, counting every single piece of scrambled egg on her plate. If Gina accidentally got one more, it was a catastrophe. She’d snatch her sister’s plate and scrape the entire meal into the trash.

"If you're going to be unfair," she'd snarl, "then nobody gets to eat!"

To keep the peace, we actually bought a food scale. Every meal was portioned out to the gram, a ridiculous ritual to prove our impartiality.

It wasn’t just food. It was everything. Clothes, shoes, toys… Aria always had to have the first pick. If she didn't get what she wanted, she'd run.

We couldn't discipline her. We couldn't even scold her. A single sharp word and she’d have one leg over the windowsill, threatening to jump. My husband, David, and I tried talking to her, reasoning with her, but it always devolved into hysterical screaming about how we favored her sister. Then she'd run outside without her shoes, telling anyone who would listen that we didn't want her anymore now that we had a second child, that we were so cruel we wouldn't even give her shoes.

We could never explain. All we could do was endure the whispers and the judgment, and gently coax her back home.

But this time, the twenty-eighth time, was different.

I felt a profound, bone-deep exhaustion. Her screams were like a bomb that had finally obliterated the last of my patience.

David, however, still had some left.

He sighed, kneeling in front of Aria, his voice soft and placating. "Sweetheart, it's all our fault. Please, just come home with us."

At the sight of her father’s surrender, a flicker of triumph crossed her face. I knew that look. It was the look she got when she knew she had us wrapped around her finger.

And now, the demands would begin.

"Fine, I'll come back," she said, sniffing. "But you have to agree to a few things."

"Anything," David said instantly. "You name it, we'll get it for you."

"I want that new laptop we saw, and the new Nintendo Switch from the mall. You have to buy them for me."

"And," she paused, her lower lip jutting out, "you have to send Gina to live with Grandma. I don't want to live with her anymore. I hate her!"

"...Aria, honey, Gina is your sister. You can't just send her away."

The moment she was denied, Aria shoved David away. "She is not my sister! Did you even ask for my permission before you had her?"

She was winding up for another tantrum. David, flustered and desperate, shot me a helpless look. What do we do? he mouthed.

I took a deep breath, pulled him up from the floor, and faced our daughter.

"Aria, you're twelve years old. You're not a little kid anymore."

My voice was steady, devoid of the emotion she fed on.

"You and Gina are both our daughters. We are not sending Gina away. No matter how much you scream or cry, it is not going to happen. So, are you coming home with us or not? If not, we're leaving."

With that, I grabbed David's arm and walked toward the door.