“No, you’re not,” she said. “And after prom… I’m leaving.”
My heart stopped.
“Why?” I whispered.
She swallowed hard.
“Stephanie told me the truth about you.”
The room went cold.
“What truth?”
Ruth’s eyes narrowed.
She looked at me like I was a stranger.
Then she said it.
“That you prayed for Stephanie.”
“That you promised God that if you got a baby, you’d adopt a child.”
“That’s why you got me.”
I sat on the edge of her bed, my phone forgotten in my hand.
She shut her eyes like she was hoping I’d deny it.
Like she was begging for a lie she could live with.
I didn’t lie.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I did pray. And I did make that promise.”
Her face twisted.
“So I was a deal,” she said. “Payment for your real child.”
That sentence split something open in me.
Because I could hear exactly what story she’d been telling herself.
And I knew how impossible it would be to erase it with words alone.
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