THE SCHOLARSHIP

My name is Baylee, and when I was nineteen years old, I had to make a decision that changed the rest of my life.

The strange thing is, nobody expected it from me.

I was supposed to be leaving.

I had worked hard through high school, and by my senior year, I had earned something I had dreamed about for years—a full softball scholarship.

College.

A new state.

A new beginning.

For the first time, I could imagine a life that belonged completely to me.

But there was one problem.

I had four younger siblings.

I had watched them grow up through years of changes in our family. My parents had separated when I was young, and as the years passed, I found myself becoming more and more involved in taking care of the younger kids.

I helped with meals.

I helped with school.

I helped when they were scared.

Sometimes I felt less like their older sister and more like the person they looked for whenever something went wrong.

Still, I kept telling myself that college was coming.

I would leave.

I would build my future.

Then I would come back and help whenever I could.

At least, that’s what I thought.

One evening, I was sitting with the kids when one of them looked at me and asked a simple question.

“Baylee, you’re not leaving us, are you?”

I smiled.

“Of course I’m not leaving you forever.”

But after they went to bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about those words.

Because I knew something they didn’t.

I really was leaving.

And for the first time, I started wondering what would happen after I walked away.

Would they be okay?

Who would take care of them?

Who would make sure they got to school?

Who would be there when one of them got sick?

And then the question that frightened me most came into my mind:

What if nobody was?

The next morning, I made a decision that would cost me the future I had planned.

I called the college.

And I told them I wasn’t coming.

But giving up my scholarship was only the beginning.

Because if I was going to stay, I had to find a way to keep all four children together.

And I had no idea how difficult that would become.