I couldn’t stop hearing the way Daniel’s voice faltered on the word “fire,” as if smoke still lived in it. He shared memories in fragments—matching bikes, a blue plastic slide, the sharp mix of marshmallows and gasoline—and though I told myself I was only listening out of courtesy, my body reacted first: a flinch at loud sounds, a wash of heat along my arms, the eerie sense that his laugh was already familiar.
When my parents finally told the truth, it was painfully plain. They chose the version of me that was easier to save—the tidy file, the adoptable story they could carry forward. Daniel was the piece they tried to bury. Now I live suspended between two lives: the one I was given and the one that burned away, unsure which hurt more—the fire itself, or the silence that erased it all over again.
