Page 35 of Where Darkness Falls

I really hope so.

My heart is racing as I tap my foot against the wooden floor.

Knock!

Cara enters wearing a matching lavender dress, but with an added pink sash around her waist.

“Today is the day,” her sing-song voice rings out.

I smile sheepishly.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, sitting down beside me.

“Nothing. It’s just… Are you sure that Rolph and Amelia desire this? It is one matter to have an orphan living with you out of kindness, but another entirely to adopt them,” I reply.

“Mae—”

“I am so grateful for everything they have done for me,” I say, interrupting Cara. “I don’t know where I’d be without all of you. I just…”

A sob catches in my throat.

“Just what, Maeva?” Cara asks.

“I don’t wish to be a burden. After all, I will be nineteen soon, and I could leave so I am no longer an inconvenience. I-I couldn’t bear it if you abandoned me too,” I say, releasing a breath.

“You’ve never been an inconvenience to this family, Maeva,” Cara says. “If anything, you’ve added another beautiful element to it. From the moment Mama and Papa brought you home, I felt as if I’d known you my entire life. We love you and want you here.”

“She’s right,” calls Amelia from the doorway. “We love you and have seen you as one of our own for some time now. We’d love nothing morethan to have you as our legal daughter, but this isn’t something we’ll force on you. If you don’t wish for us to adopt you, we respect your decision. If you wish to leave in a few months, we’ll allow you to go, even if it’ll break our hearts. If you choose to stay and become a Cale officially, you will always have a place here.”

Cara grabs my hand as I wipe tears away.

“You’re my sister, Maeva. I promise that I’ll never abandon you. You’re family… forever and always.”

If only that were true now.

The walls feel like they’re closing in around me. My room is stifling and suffocating. I quickly throw off my nightgown and replace it with one of my smock blouses and dusty-blue, mid-length skirts. I tie the upper half of my waves back with a ribbon, matching my skirt. Then I storm out of the room and down the stairwell.

Maybe in a few hours, she’ll be willing to talk.

Maybe then my heart will have enough time to stop aching from her words:

“You need to leave, Mae.”

“Is everything you ever said a lie?”

“You are not my blood.”

All my fears of being unwanted are flooding to the surface?—

She did not mean those words,interrupts the voice.

Right, because she said them out of the kindness of her heart,I deadpan.

They were spoken out of fear, my dear. Fear has a way of warping even the strongest of minds,the voice replies.

While that might be true, it doesn’t stop the onslaught of words from ricocheting in my mind.

Orphan. Forgettable. Replaceable. Easy to abandon. Null.