Not like this.
“I thought I was ugly.”
Someone whispered, “Oh, sweetheart.”
Mia heard it.
She smiled faintly.
“I thought I was broken.”
That word hit me like the crash all over again.
Broken.
She had called herself that many times in those first months.
The broken girl.
The girl who used to run.
The girl who used to dance.
The girl who used to climb trees.
Every sentence had been about the person she believed she had stopped being.
I covered my mouth.
Mia looked toward me.
For a moment, she was not addressing the ballroom.
She was speaking only to me.
“But my mom keeps telling me I’m still me.”
I started crying.
Not quietly.
I didn’t care.
Mia turned back toward Donna.
“And Claire still invited me here.”
Claire wiped her eyes.
“And Uncle Ben built that little ramp by the garden because he wanted me in the wedding pictures.”
