I adopted my best friend’s daughter after her sudden death. When the girl turned 18, she told me, “YOU HAVE TO PACK YOUR THINGS!”
I grew up in an orphanage. No parents, no relatives, no one to claim me.
My best friend, Lila, also grew up there: two girls without last names that no one cared about. We promised each other that, when we grew up, we would make the family we never had.
Years later, life gave us a brief moment of happiness. Lila got pregnant. The father ran away as soon as he found out. She had no siblings. No parents. No safety net. Just me.
I was by her side in the delivery room when she gave birth to her daughter, Miranda. I became the “aunt,” the extra hand, the person Lila leaned on when she had no one else.
And then… the accident.
One rainy morning, a truck skidded on the road, and Lila disappeared.
Miranda was five years old. There was no one, absolutely no one, to take her in.
Except me.
I was 27 when I signed the adoption papers. I refused to let her grow up the way we did: counting beds in the orphanage, watching children come and go, learning too soon that the world is colder than it seems.
For 13 years, I raised her as best I could. Birthdays, school projects, scraped knees, first heartbreaks. I hugged her when she cried for her mother. I told her she was wanted. Chosen. Loved.
And then, a few days after her eighteenth birthday, she appeared in my bedroom doorway with a look I couldn’t decipher.
“Miranda? Are you okay?” I asked.
She hesitated for a moment, looking away and then back at me.
“I’m eighteen now,” she said softly. “I’m legally of age.”
“Of course,” I smiled. “I know, honey,” but she didn’t smile back.
“That means… things are changing,” she said. “And you… YOU HAVE TO PACK YOUR STUFF!”
I blinked, confused. For a second, I even laughed.
“Pack my stuff? Miranda, what are you talking about?” (Full story in the comments.) 🔽🔽
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