“Never say that about Gabriel again, and never make me hear it ever again,” Mom snapped sternly.

She left through the back door with the pie, leaving me alone in our dim kitchen, feeling ashamed, furious, and entirely certain that Gabriel had replaced me in her heart.

After that terrible afternoon, I hated him with the intense focus only a heartbroken child can manage.

Whenever I walked past the dump after school, Gabriel tried waving at me to show friendliness.

Once, he carved me a small wooden songbird and offered it to me with a shy smile.

I deliberately dropped the wooden bird beside his worn shoes and kept my head held high.

“You do not have to like me,” Gabriel said softly as he picked up the carving.

“But your mother worries whenever you walk too close to traffic after school.”

I ignored his words and kept walking briskly, pretending his genuine concern was just another trick designed to steal even more of Mom’s affection.

As far as I knew, Gabriel had no parents, no home, and no job in our small town.

Mom never explained why she seemed to feel so deeply responsible for his survival.

Years passed, and Gabriel vanished from the dump sometime before I finished high school, while Mom stubbornly refused to explain where he had gone.

The moment I graduated, I moved three hours away to a small apartment in Pine Ridge, accepted the cheapest lease available, and rarely called home.

Mom and I spoke only on birthdays, then major holidays, and eventually only when one of us felt guilty enough to try reaching out again.