The Defender (Gods of the Game, #2)

by Ana Huang

I didn’t know why she gave me up, but it was the uncertainty that killed me—the possibility that, from the moment I was born, someone had already judged me “not good enough.”

As an adopted kid myself, Vincent hit me so hard in all my feelings.

People liked the shiny, bubbly version of me, but if they saw what a mess I was on the inside, they’d leave. It was easier to keep them at arm’s length and to push them away first than to suffer the devastation of them abandoning me.

“Mostly I want to know why she gave me up. I was a baby. What did I do so wrong that she wanted me out of her life forever?”