The paper trembled slightly in my hands.
I’d read through my father’s old list three times. Most of the names listed there were familiar to me, some were donors, survivors, volunteers.
But the last one sat like a forgotten heartbeat on the page:
Leona Hayes.
I hadn’t heard that name in over a decade now.
Not since we were barely out of girlhood. Not since the halfway house where girls wore shame like second skin and dared not speak about dreams out loud, it's really been ages.
Leona had been the first person who ever told me I was more than survival, she believed in me despite everything happening, she was always their to cheer me up aside my parents.
And I forgot her, I left her. How could I?
My chest tightened.
I hadn’t just lost her.
I’d left her.
---
I sat quietly in my off
