settled heavily inside my chest.

Heavy. Familiar.

“So that’s really it?” I asked quietly. “All these years. I never belonged.”

Mom’s expression hardened.

No more sweetness. No more persuasion. Only words that were difficult to hear.

“You were never like us. You never fit in. And yes, perhaps you tried to buy your place in this family. But that was your decision.”

Everything around me seemed to stop.

It was something I had suspected throughout my life but had never wanted to accept.

And now there it was, spoken aloud,