Chapter 4: Eyes That Forgot Me

That single word was a death sentence.

I stood rooted to the spot as I stared at her. My tongue felt like a dry stone in my mouth. Just four quiet syllables, yet they were enough to tilt my entire world off its axis, sending everything I knew into a freefall.

I watched Tom’s reaction, it was instinctive, the way a predator protects its own. His arm curled around Mia, pulling her back toward the house as if she needed shielding from a monster. From me.

My eyes stayed with her until the door was shut to my face, and with that finality, something in my chest caved inward, it was like, watching everything I’d built collapse in slow-motion.

I felt like a ghost walking through my own life. But Mia's eyes. Those were what cut deepest. Three years. For three agonizing years, I had held onto the memory of her like a prayer. Her breathless laugh. Those dimples.The tiny weight of her hand reaching for mine. I kept those moments sacred. But she looked at me now like I was dirt on a window.

Truth is I doubt I would ever forget those blue eyes that looked at me like that with such disdain.

I soon found out from my research about Tom Rivers. He was a year older than I, and most importantly, he was Nana Nancy's grandson. To Mia, the Rivers wasn't just a refuge. It was home. Nana Nancy was the grandmother she knew and Tom was the brother she had always wanted.

And me? I was just a shadow from a past she had forgotten. I didn't really blame her. She was still small when Nana took her. It made sense she might not remember much.

That still didn't stop my chest from aching so bad I couldn't take a full breath. I was shattered, yes. Completely undone. But seeing her wrapped in the warmth of the Rivers family gave me a strange feeling of peace. At least she was loved.

Tom didn't just guard her. He worshipped her. I stood on the outside, a silent witness to a girl who was no longer mine to carry. She was the Rivers' princess now.

I walked away that day with a bruised heart, the pain deeply rooted in my bones. But my mind was a steel trap, especially when I remembered how complete I felt when she was in my arms. I wouldn't let her go. Not now. Not ever.

Fast forward to Mia's next birthday. I had bled my savings dry for a cake. I gathered all my allowance, bought her expensive gifts, and traveled for hours just to catch a fleeting glimpse of her.

But when I reached the wrought iron gate, there was no welcome mat. Instead, the door swung open to reveal Tom.

He stared at me as recognition smeared his face, followed fast by a sharp, protective scowl. The next thing he did was to slam the door to my face.

I stood by the fence, the weight of the birthday cake heavy in my trembling hands. To the world, I was just a stranger. To this family, I was a threat.

Inside the house, Tom River's heart hammered against his ribs. He hated how much that boy got under his skin. And when he remembered how Maurice looked at Mia. With a raw, aching tenderness that felt too deep for someone so young. It scared the hell out of my Tom. He had watched Mia take her first steps in this house. He had seen her become the heartbeat that saved his crumbling family.

He still remembered the day he overheard his father and Grandma talking about Mia when she newly arrived.

"Mom, whose baby is this?"Grandma Nancy had sighed, a bone-weary sound.

"It's a long story. For now, just know the baby is mine."

"Yours? How? Don't tell me you stole and brought home the child of the people you were working for," his father had spat, his voice laced with the bitterness of their old life.

"Not exactly," Nancy replied softly. "A little boy gave her to me. You don't have to worry, she is technically my daughter now. I want you to raise her as your own."

A little boy.

Tom had never forgotten those words. He just hadn't put a face to that "boy" until Maurice showed up at the gate.

He glanced toward the hallway where Mia had vanished, a cold knot tightening in his gut.

He loved her fiercely. She was the sun they all orbited, the "little princess" whose laughter had rewired their joy.

His parents didn't just love her; they worshipped the ground she walked on.

They had welcomed her so completely that it was easy to forget there had ever been a "before."

Especially because Mia hadn't come alone. She had brought a shift in their fortune. Everything she touched turned to gold. She had come with warmth, and an impossible streak of luck.

Back then, his father had left the military under a dark cloud, a near-disaster that almost ruined them, someone set him up, and it was quite serious, he was even sent away due to that event.

But he had looked at Mia one day and made a reckless gamble to start a business. To everyone’s shock, the business hadn't just survived; it had flourished into an empire.

They went from scraping by to overnight wealth. Even when the military eventually cleared his name and begged him to return, he refused.

His focus was on the empire he’d built, the one that kept Mia in lace dresses and filled the garden with her songs.

Mia was their miracle. Tom’s jaw tightened. He wasn't just protective; he was terrified.

If Mia was ever taken away, or worse, if her heart turned toward the boy who had "given" her away, the foundation of their lives would shatter.

Tom had already decided: nothing on earth would separate Mia from this family.

The boy with the cake could keep coming. But the door would stay locked.

Mia was a living charm as far as the Rivers’ household is concerned.

His mother often whispered that their wealth and his father’s narrow escape were gifts from the day Mia arrived. Tom didn't care for superstitions, but he couldn't deny the timing.

Although, he didn't love her because she was lucky. He loved her because she was his; the little sister he never had. And she was sweet and beautiful in every way.

His mother played her part perfectly, convincing the neighborhood that Mia was their own blood.

Tom played along, but the secret lived in the back of his mind like a sharpened blade. He spoiled her until she was the undisputed princess of the block, a fierce guardian to the girl with the gem-like blue eyes.

But every year, like a recurring fever, Maurice appeared on the sidewalk. Tom’s panic grew with every birthday. He became a master of distraction, closing curtains, locking gates, ensuring Mia was always in the furthest room, occupied and oblivious.

But Maurice’s stubbornness was haunting. His quiet devotion, his refusal to disappear, scared the hell out of Tom. It forced Tom to harden his heart. He had to get rid of Maurice at any cost.

He continued to shut the door in that boy’s face before a single word could be exchanged. He truly believed he was protecting her.

What Tom didn't know was that the wall he’d built was already cracking. Mia had already noticed him. The memory of that first day in the garden had never left her.

She remembered watching a butterfly when a sudden weight settled over her, the magnetic, heavy pull of a stranger’s gaze.

She had turned to find a boy with almond-shaped eyes watching her with a depth that felt like an intrusion. It had terrified her back then, because it felt "creepy" especially with the intensity through which he had looked at her.

Something else also happened that frightened her that day. When her eyes locked with his, it felt like an electric shock went through her, something almost extraordinary, something she had never felt before bloomed in her chest.

She didn't know what to do with that strange feeling, so she had begged Tom to take her away.

She felt Maurice was to be blamed for that confusing storm and feelings she had felt.

But that night, when the curtains were drawn and the door was locked, Mia had crawled under her covers and sobbed.

She didn't even know why she was crying, only that those eyes had penetrated her soul in a way no one else ever had.

By her next birthday, the fear had morphed into a quiet, desperate curiosity. From behind the lace of her bedroom curtains, she watched the gate.

And then, like a ghost appearing through the mist, Maurice showed up again.

She saw him standing there, a lonely, figure holding a cake. But she was shocked when she saw Tom driving him away like a stray dog.

She couldn't stop staring at the boy's silhouette, especially the way he had just stood there, silently, without saying a word, and clutching a pink box with a strength that broke her heart.

As soon as the last candle went out and the house sank into a tense, restless silence, Mia rushed out. She ran to the fence with a raising heart, but the sidewalk was empty, nothing but gray concrete under the night. He was long gone.

Disappointment hit her like a blow. She turned back toward the house, her shoulders drooping, her chest hollow with the kind of sadness that steals the air from your lungs. Then surprisingly she saw it. A flicker of pink box buried deep in the shadows of the hydrangeas. A box, the same one he had been holding earlier, with a tiny teddy bear tied neatly to the ribbon.

In an instant, the darkness inside her shattered.

She snatched the box like it was something sacred or stolen from a dream. She rushed into her room, and wasted no time in unwrapping the box, Inside was a cake, warm with the scent of vanilla and sugar, so sweet it felt unreal. Beside it lay a small MP3 player. Her fingers trembled as she pressed play.

Then she froze. Every song inside aligned with her. Every melody she had hummed quietly to herself that year, every tune she had loved in silence, every secret note she had never knew existed.

Joy rushed through her so fiercely it almost hurt.

That was how it began. Their silent ritual. Every year, without fail, the miracle returned, a box, a cake, her favorite flavors, the exact gifts she had been longing for in the quietest corners of her heart. It was as if he could hear every wish she never dared to speak, even from the other side of the iron gate.

It became their secret rhythm. The mystery boy who brought, and the girl who found.

Until she turned twelve.

On her twelfth birthday, curiosity stopped being a question and became a fire. Mia was done hiding behind windows and half-seen glances. This time, she would find him. She would wait at the gate, catch him before he vanished, and give him the hug she had been carrying inside her for years.

She was too restless to pretend. Too shaken to smile for the guests. While the house filled with music and voices, she stayed curled by the window, staring past the glare of the streetlights, eyes burning as she searched the dark for even the faintest silhouette.

But no one came.

The second the last guest left, she ran to the fence. The night air bit into her skin. Her breath came in ragged white clouds. Still, the sidewalk was empty. No box. No cake. No boy with almond eyes. Nothing. Only silence.

That day, she was depressed. She waited for her next birthday, hoping he would come this time, but he never came.

Mia cried her eyes out and decided that she would wait for the next one.

But one year slipped into the next, he still did not show up, and every birthday became less a celebration and more a vigil. She stopped caring about the expensive food her parents laid out. She barely tasted anything at all. Her eyes stayed fixed on the gate that never opened, on the stretch of darkness that gave her nothing back.

Worry settled deep inside her, until it became something physical, coupled with the constant ache in her chest, and the sleeplessness that waited with her in her room night after night until she couldn't take it anymore.

One time she fell very ill, and while the Rivers family rushed her to the hospital to get the best doctors, all she thought about was the silhouette of that mystery boy, worse, she doesn't even remember what he really looked like.

Mia soon started to wonder what exactly could have happened to him.

Where was he? Was he hurt? Or worse, had he finally grown tired of waiting?

The thought of his well-being gave her sleepless nights for days, but she never saw him again.

Mia remembered how she hid from his gaze, but now that it was gone, she realized she was shivering in the cold.