Page 175 of Wasted Grace

I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. But once I said it, I couldn’t take it back. I remember the way both of their faces went still—my parents.

The way they looked at each other, eyes full of dread and love andmemory.

And then they sat me down. No sugarcoating. No delay. They told me the truth. That,yes, I was adopted when I was three. Surprising because I don’t remember a life without them in it.

I was a nameless child who never stopped crying. The wardens used to call meRotli Chhutki—the crying small one.

I thought I was being mature, handling it all so well at fourteen. But then I broke.

Right there. Right in their arms.

They held me through it. Every second of it.

And then asked gently, if I ever wanted to find her—my birth mother. I saidno. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Because the life I was given... the love I was raised with... it makes the idea of “what could’ve been” feel like a shadow I never want to chase.

When I look at Aarambh, I sometimes wonder—what if they hadn’t adopted him? What if he was stillthere, in that old musty room with peeling paint and too many crying children?

That could’ve been his life.

That could’ve beenmine.

It actuallywasmine—until they chose me. But since that day two years ago, when I learned the truth—they keep telling me thatIchosethem.

So no. I don’t need to go searching. Not when I’ve already been found.

Not when I’ve already been named.

Loved. Raised.Claimed.

Not when I already have a mumma who smells like jasmine and chai, who holds me like the world could fall apart and she’d still protect me with her life.

Not when I have a papa who taught me to ride a bicycle and then held me when my crush made fun of me.

I know who I belong to.

“What’s going on?”

I hear Papa’s voice as he returns from the kitchen.

My fingers freeze above the open box—sleek black and silver handles glinting under the sunlight from the window.

It’s a throwing knife set.

My birthday present.

From Mumma.

Our tiny little secret.

I’d walked in on her a year ago—in her home office—mid-throw, blades thunking into a wall-mounted wood plank like she was playing darts… except, well, lethal darts. I wasn’t allowed in that room, but the grunts were too hard to miss.

She hadn’t heard me at first. Her brows were furrowed, breathing even, like it was meditation. Ortherapy.

And me? I was a wreck, almost fifteen and spiraling over the wholeI-was-adoptedthing.

She let me try once I promised not to tell Papa.