“I got moved around a lot after that. One family said I was creepy. Another said I was too old to be cute. The third didn’t even learn my name.”
He looked up.
“When Sylvie took me in, I didn’t trust her. I thought she’d give me back too. But she didn’t.”
He paused, breath shaking.
“She made me cocoa. She read to me. She left me notes. And paid attention to the food I loved. She let me exist in my own bubble, waiting at the edge for the moment it popped.”
He looked at me fully then—for the first time since we’d arrived.
“She never forced me to speak. Instead, she stayed. And she tried so hard to show me that she cared… and even… loved me.”
The judge glanced at me, his eyes soft. My lips trembled.
Alan looked down again, twisting the hem of his shirt, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t speak,” he said slowly, “because… I thought if I messed up—if I said the wrong thing—then Sylvie would change her mind. And someone would come and take me away again.”
I swallowed hard, tears pooling faster than I could blink them back.
He hesitated, then lifted his head.
“But I want her to adopt me. Not because I need someone. But because she’s already been my mom all this time.”
