My sister died at 19, and I was the last person she spoke to. That morning, we had a terrible fight, and in anger I told her, “I wish you were dead.” She died that night, and for the next nine years, I carried those words like a sentence. Not a day passed without me wondering if I could have changed what happened.

Last week, while searching through my mother’s attic, I found my sister’s old phone in a box. Somehow, it still had enough battery to turn on. There was one unsent draft from the night she died. My hands shook as I opened it, terrified of what I might find.

The message said: “My little brother always says stuff he doesn’t mean when he’s mad. I do too lol. He’s actually the best thing in my life and I never tell him that. Gonna fix that tomorrow.” She never got the chance to send it, and she never got to keep that promise.

I’ve read those words hundreds of times since finding them. They don’t erase what I said, but they remind me that one terrible sentence was never the whole story of our relationship. She knew I loved her, and she loved me too. I’m still grieving, but I’m finally trying to forgive myself for being human in one painful moment.