A Missing Heart Read Online Free Page A

and their new daughter. But she’s not their daughter. She’s mine! I didn’t agree to give her up. I didn’t have a say. This isn’t fair.
    “What kind of adoption is this?” I ask. I don’t know jack about adoptions. I’m seventeen. The thought never crossed my mind. Why would it? I thought we were on the same page. Though, thinking about it now, Cammy never expressed what was on her agenda. I assumed we were on the same page, but as it turns out, we weren’t even in the same chapter. Dad has always told me what assuming does to a man, but I'm not the ass in this situation. No way. Not this time.
    The man and woman look at me, puzzled, as if my question is odd or out of place. As if...wondering why no one explained this process to me yet. “It’s an open adoption, but this will be the last form of contact we have with each other,” Cammy says through a subtle whisper.
    “Thank you for allowing us to be here,” the woman says.
    “Please take good care of her…please,” Cammy replies through her hardly recognizable voice. All I hear is the same anguish I’m feeling inside, and it’s becoming clearer by the moment that this isn’t what Cammy wants.
    “I'm not ready,” I argue.
    “Please,” Cammy says to the nurse. “I can’t take this anymore. Will you have him leave?”
    What? Me? No!
    “That’s my daughter,” I shout. “No one asked me if I wanted this…them!” I point to the couple. “I don’t want this. I didn't agree to this!”
    “Security,” the nurse says, calmly, into a corded phone.
    “I thought you didn’t know who the father was?” the adopting woman asks. “That’s how everything was stated in the paperwork. There were no DNA tests or consent forms. Is this the father?”
    “Yes! This isn’t fair. This isn’t right! She’s mine. She belongs to me. She’s everything to me. I’ll take care of her myself if I have to. I don’t want to give her up. I don’t. She’s my everything, Cammy…” My voice trails off into moans, a type of guttural sound that has never come from my throat before. “Please don’t take away my daughter,” I beg. “That’s my baby. She’s part of me. You can’t take away a part of a person like that. You can’t.” I sound insane. I sound wild and crazy, and Cammy is hysterical, watching me.
    “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s too late,” the adopting woman says. “You would have needed to sign papers disagreeing with the adoption, but we were told the father was unknown.”
    I look at Cammy, unable to understand how she could go through with something like this and not tell me. “Cammy, tell them I’m the father. I didn’t sign papers because I didn’t know we were giving her up for adoption until four hours ago,” I shout.
    “He’s the father,” she cries through a whisper just quietly enough that I can hear, but we both know it doesn’t matter now. The woman said the paperwork was done. Cammy doesn’t respond. She just weeps. Her eyes are swollen and her cheeks are red, covered with big, thick tears. The couple—they’re holding my daughter tightly in a protective stance as if I were going to attack my own child. They’re protecting her from me. “AJ, you have to know that she’s my everything too, but—”
    “They’re taking our daughter, Cammy! It can’t be this way!” I hardly have a chance to finish my sentence when hands wrap around my arms from behind, and I’m pulled out of the room, backwards nonetheless—just another form of punishment to give me one last look at this scene that will forever be burned into my mind.
    While my world moves in slow motion around me, I keep my gaze set on our daughter, as a tiny pink hat is fitted snugly over her dark hair, and then I see her eyes—they’re large and looking everywhere, wondering what is happening in her world that was just created less than ten minutes ago.
    The very last thing I hear before I’m out of the corridor is her cry—the sweetest noise