His Voice Alone

Leia’s POV

*Three Years Ago*

The window was cold against my forehead, but I didn't move. Because apparently, I'm a masochist who enjoys the sharp bite of glass against skin.

Outside, the driveway sat empty and pristine, like everything else in this house—waiting for someone to come along and mess up the perfect suburban tableau.

The Grahams' house always felt like that. Quiet. Too clean. Like we were all living in some IKEA showroom where actual human emotions weren't allowed to leave fingerprints on the furniture.

Nothing out of place, no warmth either. Just beige walls and matching beige personalities.

Two and a half years I've been here since they adopted me. Long enough to master the art of being the perfect little poster child they ordered from the foster care catalog.

They weren't cruel—I'll give them that much credit. Just... distracted. Like I was background music they occasionally remembered to turn up when company came over.

They wanted good reports, not real conversations. Straight A's, not actual thoughts.

I gave them what they wanted because I'm nothing if not efficient: perfect grades, zero backtalk, polite smiles that never reached my eyes when their book club friends visited to coo over their charitable good deed.

But today? Today felt different, and not in the ‘oh wow, maybe I'll finally feel like I belong somewhere’ kind of way. More like the ‘someone's about to drop a nuclear bomb in my carefully constructed emotional bunker’ variety.

My stomach had been doing gymnastics since morning—not the graceful kind, more like a drunk toddler attempting a backflip. They were bringing someone home.

Someone they'd mentioned in those careful, euphemistic tones that adults use when they're trying to make disaster sound like opportunity.