"You’re just the placeholder." The words echoed through the Kroger off State Route 158, right after she dropped my own platinum Amex into my faded Ohio State tote and smiled. But while she posed with my ring and my fiancé’s phone in her hand, I was already sliding the original NICU switch files into the mail.

Life settled into a steady, unglamorous rhythm. I paid my own insurance premiums on time. I called my foster mother every Sunday afternoon. I finally learned how to brew proper coffee beans. Sloane’s name quietly disappeared from the society columns and eventually showed up on a short-sale real estate listing in a different county. She tried to sell a few designer handbags. She moved to a different zip code. I don’t track her anymore. I track the seasonal sales at the grocery store. I track the bus routes. I track my own project deadlines. Sometimes I sit on the porch at dusk and watch the neighborhood kids ride their bicycles down the curb. The streetlights click on in a steady sequence. The evening air smells like cut grass and charcoal smoke from someone’s patio grill. I pull a worn paperback from my canvas tote. I turn the page. I don’t need to prove my name to anyone. The life I live now is the one I actually earned.

I finally closed the book and set it on the small wooden side table. The sun slipped below the tree line, painting the sky in quiet shades of orange and dusty purple. I stood up, brushed the sawdust off my jeans, and walked inside to lock the door.