They Said I Was Adopted, but I Was Always the Real Daughter novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Late Registration

I went to the clinic on the day they let me out.

My counts had climbed, the fever was gone, and the nurse gave me a box of masks and a long, severe lecture.

I put on a mask in the van.

"You don't have to come in," I told Gael.

"I'm wearing a mask too," he said. "Look. We match."

"You look like a bank robber."

"A very polite one."

The Santa Lucía clinic was an old pink building on a quiet street, with a wrought-iron gate and a records office in the basement.

It smelled of floor polish and paper.

A woman sat behind a glass counter with reading glasses on a chain, and she looked up without much interest.

"I need a certified copy of my birth record," I said. "Inés Cárdenas. I was born here twenty-four years ago."

"Do you have identification?"

I slid my card under the glass.

She tapped at her keyboard, frowned at the screen, and went into a back room.

I stood at the counter and tried not to think of Paulina's voicemail.

Gael stood beside me and said nothing, which is his best quality.

The clerk came back with a thick green ledger and a form.

"Here you are," she said. "Delivered at ten past three in the morning. Mother, Graciela Cárdenas. Father, Humberto Cárdenas. Seven pounds even. There was a storm that night, I see. It's in the margin."

I laughed, and it sounded like a cough.

I put my hand flat on the counter.

"Could you read it again?" I said. "The mother's name."

"Graciela Cárdenas."

"And she was the one who gave birth to me. Here. In this clinic."

"It says so in the register, and in the nursing notes. See?" She turned the ledger around.

There it was in blue ink: my name, my birthday, and the weight, and my mother's name three times.

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend