"She always took everything," she said. "Without even trying."
Ethan's voice was quiet when he responded. "That is not fair." He knew Maya had been better cared for than Dakota, because Dakota had been willful and wild and independent. Dakota had been the one who received the least care or affection.
Maya asked, "Is it not?"
She stood, moving without destination, the energy in her too restless for stillness. "She gets to leave. She gets to be chosen. She gets to be the one someone fights for." Her hand pressed tighter against her stomach. "And I am here. Carrying a child no one knows about yet, watching everything collapse, and feeling...."
She stopped herself. The word she had almost said was too honest, too revealing, too much to give to a room that already contained too much. But the silence that followed said it for her anyway.
