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REN

2018

WHEN I RAN from the Mclary’s, took a baby that wasn’t ainst all odds, I never stopped to wonder…how

How did we survive all those years?

How did I keep myself alive, let alone baby Della?

How did one choice changeme, before it was too late, that not everyone was evil

Della Mclary successfully stoppedme to know the opposite of hate I supposed, if soainst the man I became, they’d say she saved me

They’d say, without her, I would be a very different person

Probably one a lot less forgiving, understanding, and erous

They’d be right

Those tendencies were still there, born fro abused and unwanted, forever a part of me whether I wanted to admit it or not But I was also so er

I chose kindness over cruelty, honour over disgrace, and propriety over indecency

And it was the last one that made me leave

The last one causing my current state of unhappiness

It also s of how, completely irrelevant Because who cared how it happened? Only that it did, and it was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me

But now I had nothing, and I couldn’t stop scratching at the scars, wondering what caused ive everything for, only to endure the worst thing I’d ever ireatest sacrifice I could

Her

She was reatest sacrifice

And I did it to protect her fros

But the question was back Tauntingme

How

How did she get into that backpack in the first place?

It was night She was a baby I didn’t knohere she slept, but surely, she had a crib with bars or a room with a door The backpack was discarded where it alas by the door It wasn’t a plaything for a child and it wasn’t sanitary for a baby

But somehow, she’d ended up in it

How had Della been in that bag at the exact same time I decided to run?

Was it purely coincidence? Did fate know farthat Della wasn’t born for the Mclary’s but for me? For me to learn how to love For me to have someone to hold For me to protect and treasure and focus on rather than spiral into a place I shouldn’t go?

Or…had Mrs Mclary put her there?

Had she seen re rations I’d hter in the stuffy, weathered ex-ar?

And if she did, that changed my question from hohy

Why did she give up her only blood?