I stared at him.
“On purpose?”
He nodded.
“I never hurt anyone. I never broke things. Nothing like that.”
“What did you do?”
“I stopped talking.”
“For how long?”
“Days. Sometimes weeks.”
He also refused outings.
Stayed in his room.
Skipped meals.
Sometimes he deliberately said things he knew would hurt the adults caring for him.
“Why?”
His chin began trembling.
“Because if another family adopted me, Emma might think I chose them instead of her.”
The room became completely still.
Suddenly, the number ten meant something entirely different.
I had always thought ten placements meant ten families had rejected Luke.
Instead, Luke had repeatedly made himself impossible to keep.
Not because he didn’t want a family.
Because he loved his sister so much that accepting one felt like betraying her.
“How many families actually wanted you to stay?” I asked.
He looked away.
“Luke.”
“Most of them.”
I remembered one foster mother Denise had mentioned.
