I scoff, smiling, and finally make my turn. “No, thanks. I’ve seen them enough to last a lifetime.”
She laughs but quickly sobers. “Seriously. What’s going on?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.” I grip the wheel tighter.
I know I can handle the job. I was trained for this. I studied, prepared, got the damn degree, and passed the licensing exams. Then, I studied again to transfer my license to South Dakota. I know the rules, the assessments, the legal protocols.
But I didn’t train for thisfeeling. And no matter how many bad things you see, it never gets easier.
Neither does the weight of deciding whether a baby ends up in the arms of a stranger with no history. Not when you know that if you get it wrong, it won’t just be a mark on a file, it’ll shape someone’s entire life.
Something I can relate to all too well.
“I’m not used to being on my own in this,” I admit. “Back at Safe Haven, we had a process, support, and backup. People I could go to if something didn’t sit right.”
“You had a village.”
“Exactly,” I whisper.
She’s quiet for a long moment, and I keep my eyes on the road, refusing to let myself unravel. Instead, I take the next turn, jaw tight, and glance at the GPS again. My chest stutters with quiet relief when I see the mile countdown flash—two minutes away.
“Hey, Georgia?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t forget… you’re not alone just because you’re far away.”
And there it is.
The reason I refuse to let go of Abigail Murphy, even when my broken brain tells me to run before I lose her, too.
My eyes sting, and I blink fast, like that'll help. Like I can shove the emotion back down where it belongs, but an undeniable sniffle slips free. A reflex.
Abby’s quiet voice cuts through the car, sharp with suspicion. “Wait. Are you… are you actually crying?”
I suck in a breath. “No.”
“Oh, my God! You are.” Her voice climbs an octave. “You never cry! What the hell? I’m officially worried. Come home. Or, no—better yet, I’m coming to South—”
“I’m here, gotta go!” I jab at theendbutton on my steering wheel.
“Don’t you dare die!” she yells just as the call cuts out.
I let out a long, uneven exhale, my fingers trembling slightly as they drop from the wheel. My chest feels tight, heart thudding like I just ran a mile instead of having an existential crisis in a car so silent, it feels like I’m emotionally unraveling inside a padded cell.
“You have arrived,” the GPS with a robotic, British accent, announces.
“Thank fuck,” I murmur, just as a dilapidated, off-white structure tucked between overgrown fields and crooked laundry lines comes into view. I flick on my blinker and ease into the nonexistent driveway, pulling up next to a beat-up station wagon.
The second I park, the front door creaks open with the kind of haunted house groan that makes my spine lock straight.
My arm hairs stand at attention.
This is happening. Like,right now.
“Shit,” I choke out, wiping my clammy palms on my slacks as I check my reflection in the rearview and immediately regret it.
My eyeliner is smudged, and my skin is pale. I look like a business-casual vampire trying to blend in at a tractor pull.
