The first time I laid eyes on Sophie, the world seemed to shift on its axis. She was a tiny whirlwind of wide brown eyes and wild, chestnut curls, smelling faintly of baby shampoo and the sweet scent of sun-warmed grass. When she ran toward me in the sterile visitor’s room of the agency, she didn’t hesitate. She threw her small arms around my neck and clung to me with a desperate, instinctive kind of recognition, as if she had spent her four short years simply waiting for me to find her. In that moment, I wasn’t just Simon, a...
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