I let out a quiet laugh, even as something inside my chest tore. "After her one-night stand, she gave birth to me and dumped me with my grandmother. She didn't marry Morgan Henson until the following year. It wasn't until Nora went missing at five that she brought me home as a replacement."
Leila's eyes went wide. She stared at me, stunned.
She hadn't expected me to know any of this.
Her composure shattered. She lashed out, shrieking: "Don't listen to her nonsense! After we kicked her out of the family, she lost her mind!"
"She's just a girl I adopted from an orphanage—we have the paperwork to prove it!"
After my grandmother died, I'd been sent to the orphanage.
I never had enough to eat. The older kids beat me daily. I was seven years old but so malnourished I could've passed for four. My body was covered in bruises, every shade of purple and green.
I still remembered the first time my mother saw those marks.
She cried the entire day.
I felt her guilt, her regret. After that, she tried to make up for everything at the Henson house. For years, I truly believed she loved me.
But that love was too fragile.
Too fragile to survive even a few whispered words from Nora.