I learned early that being chosen was a privilege.
No one ever said it outright. Not in the way that mattered. My parents never sat me down to explain that love could thin if I became too difficult, too loud, too much. But adoption teaches you things without words. You learn them in pauses. In instructions that sound like corrections. In the way people are careful with you, as though you might tip the balance if you lean too hard.
I was loved.
I know that, in theory.
But love, in that house, always felt like something I had to earn.
So I learned to be grateful before I learned to be safe. I learned how to behave, how to smile at the right moments, how to read a room before I spoke. I learned which questions caused silence and which ones were better left alone. I learned how to take up just enough space to be seen never enough to be a problem.
By sixteen, it came naturally.
I noticed it first in the way my attention sharpened. In the way my phone felt heavier in my hand whenever it buzzed late at night. In how being looked at lingered longer than it should have. Attention from boys felt different from family love less careful, more immediate. Like something I could hold onto.
Wanting me felt like proof.
Am I invisible?
Am I worth keeping?
Those thoughts settled in my head and didn't leave.
No one warns you how quickly you can get used to that feeling.
At school, I listened more than I spoke. I learned how to look uninterested even when something in me leaned forward. I learned how to pretend things didn't matter.
But they did.
They mattered when he started sitting closer.
When his knee brushed mine and didn't move away.
When he laughed at my jokes like they belonged to him.
I told myself it was nothing. Just attention. Just curiosity.
What I didn't know yet was how easily attention could replace affection when you've grown up afraid of being unchosen.
The first time he touched my hand, it happened during class. Everything else stayed normal the teacher's voice, the scratching of pens, the slow passing of time. But my focus drifted. I noticed his scent before I noticed the contact. Clean. Familiar. Too close.
My hand stayed where it was.
The room felt suddenly smaller, like the air had shifted. My heart picked up pace, not from fear, but from the strange relief of being held in someone else's awareness.
If I moved, the moment would end.
So I didn't.
I let it happen.
I always did.
Later that night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, replaying fragments his voice, his proximity, the weight of my phone resting on my chest. I told myself not to overthink it. I told myself it didn't mean anything.
Still, I kept my phone close.
He didn't text.
The quiet stretched.
I waited anyway.
I didn't know yet how long I would keep choosing that feeling.
I only knew that being wanted felt like relief
and relief was something I was already learning to chase.