Chapter 11

I spend the night in the hospital, and I can’t help but sleep well.

I’ll finally be done with the Landrys, and my heart is at ease. Brittany’s in the VIP room next door.

Everyone’s over there, checking on her. Nobody comes to see me, I’m not surprised. Even Mom, who always acted like she loved me, is nowhere to be seen.

Until the moment they wheel me into the operating room, Mom shows up.

“No, don’t do this! My precious daughter!”

Mom’s crying so hard.

“Mrs. Landry?”

I’m confused. Mom hears that, and she starts crying even harder.

“Don’t call me Mrs. Landry! I’m your mom! I carried you for nine months, you’re my daughter!”

I look at her, and from the look in her eyes, I realize she’s telling the truth.

“Brittany’s adopted. You’re our real daughter Your dad said that you were bullying someone in school, which might hurt the business, so we faked the papers!”

“I’m sorry, your mom never protected you, you suffered so much!”

“I was wrong! Forgive me!”

A thousand thoughts are going through my head. Chad already knew about this.

“Mom, she just came back! If we tell her, and if she’s still not behaving, we did this for nothing! She’ll take us to the cleaners!”

“Shut up!”

Mom yells.

“Do you know what your sister went through? You all hid this from me!”

“Honey, I promise, I’ll find out who did this to you!”

Brittany looks at Chad and shrinks back in his arms. I look at Mom, who says she loves me.

“Mom, why didn’t you believe me?”

I said I didn’t bully Brittany, but she didn’t listen. She helped fake the papers. Mom freezes.

Everyone expects me to leave, but I donated the kidney. Brittany didn’t expect this, and she doesn’t say anything.

We get wheeled in together.

“Are you crazy?”

Mom screams. I close my eyes. Everyone in that hospital was crazy. I should have died during the first month I was at the hospital.