It was not, I think, entirely noble.

Nobility implies a free and clear-eyed choice, and mine was neither.

Fiona chose that week deliberately, when Arthur lay in critical care and I was at my most frightened and my most susceptible, precisely because she understood the particular shape of my heart — understood that a woman who grew up an orphan, moved from placement to placement, never belonging anywhere, would ache toward the idea of family with a hunger that could be used against her.

And she used it.

What looked, from outside, like my great sacrifice was in part her great manipulation, exploiting the deepest and most tender wound I carried.

I did not choose freely to give up five years of my life.