Her voice softened into something fragile. “Only if you want to come home with me, Emily. It’s not a big house, and my cat is a bit of a jerk, but you will never, ever be a burden there.”

I looked at the woman who’d held my hand through the darkest nights of my life. I didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” I cried, the tears finally falling. “Please.”

Chapter 3 — The Second Diagnosis

Three years passed. The legal system moved slowly, but eventually the ink dried on the adoption papers, and I moved into Laura’s small, creaky house on a quiet street.

For the first time in my life, I knew what it was to be loved without a price tag attached.

I thrived. I poured my trauma into textbooks, obsessed with biology, with the body, with the medicine that had saved me.