PART 3
The same people who had looked past me minutes earlier were now staring.
Some looked curious.
Some looked uncomfortable.
Some looked like they were trying to remember if they had ever met me before.
I ignored all of them.
I only looked at Amelia.
When I reached her, she took my hand.
“Aunt Elise,” she said into the microphone, “before I say anything else, I want everyone here to understand something.”
She turned toward the crowd.
“This woman is the reason I am alive today.”
A murmur moved through the ballroom.
My father’s expression hardened.
Damian crossed his arms.
Amelia continued.
“When I was sixteen years old, my life was falling apart.”
She looked down for a moment.
“My parents were going through a terrible divorce. I stopped going to school. I stopped talking to people. I stopped believing that anyone cared what happened to me.”
Her fingers tightened around mine.
“Then I met Elise.”
I swallowed.
I remembered that day.
A teenage girl sitting alone at a bus stop in the rain.
A girl who reminded me of myself.
Lost.
Angry.
Abandoned.
I had sat beside her and asked one simple question.
“Are you okay?”
She cried for twenty minutes.
And somehow, that small question changed everything.
“When everyone else told me I was being dramatic,” Amelia continued, “Aunt Elise listened.”
“When everyone else told me to get over it, she stayed.”
“When I didn’t have anyone to call…”She looked at me.
“She answered.”
The room became quiet.
My father shifted uncomfortably.
Because he was hearing something he never expected.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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