Her encouraging gaze made me change my statement.

"There's only one thing I really want..." I crossed my fingers like a child, hoping against hope.

She smiled," Anything which we can afford."

"I want to go meet them," I finally said, fidgeting with my fingers.

"Them?" my mother raised an eyebrow.

"The ones who live at Brand Street," I said meekly, looking down at my hands.

An uncomfortable silence fell across the room.

"No," came the crisp reply.

"But I'm eighteen now," I retorted, finally looking her in the eyes. "I have every right to go and meet them."

"I don't know their exact address and you aren't going knocking on doors in this cold weather," She moved to the window, her back toward me.

"That won't be difficult to find," I said, as stubborn as ever. "I'll just go to the hospital where I was born. They'll have to give me the address and Nurse Ava would definitely help me."

My mother turned and strode toward me. Her eyes were burning, but I wasn't sure if it was with anger or what?

"If you have ever loved me, you would never ask for that," her teeth were clenched, I could sense her trembling.

"That's blackmail! Why can't I go and meet them? They're my parents after all..." All my anger and frustration poured out.

Immediately I started to cough.

"Why are you putting yourself through this, thinking about those who never cared about you...? They may be your birth parents, but you tell me one quality they have, which give them the right to have someone like you in their lives? Who leaves a three-day-old newborn in the intensive care; gives her up for adoption, just because she's special? They lost every right to you the day they walked away!" Her voice broke.

Tears rolling down her cheeks, she slumped into a chair.

"I will never forget the day I found you in the NICU. You were covered in blisters and yet you slept like a queen. So small, so fragile...They showed me other babies but I couldn't get you out of my head. From the first moment I saw you laying there, with your skin as fragile as a butterfly's wing I knew, Phoebe. Yes, I knew it was going to be a hard, long journey but that didn't stop me loving you. Those people who left you behind - they don't deserve you and they will cause you nothing but pain."

It was hard hearing the truth but I knew my mother was honest.

The others might be my birth parents but they were never going to accept me. Whatever fantasies I'd had in my head for the last ten years, the truth was my real family were right here; mom, dad... I would never leave them for anything.

"Well, maybe you should never have told me," I grumbled. "I would've been happier, not knowing."

"How would you have felt if I hadn't told you? You would be eighteen and suddenly you would realise that you're adopted. Wouldn't it be all the more life-shattering? Wouldn't you have felt that your whole life is a lie?" she pointed out.

I was defeated by her reasoning.

"It's just that I wanted to know who they are, find out if I've got any brothers or sisters. You never know, they might even like me... Maybe they'd like to know I'm still alive. After all, they thought I'd be dead by now... That's not so wrong is it?" I couldn't look at her. Instead, I kept my gaze on the window and the dark moonless sky.

The stars were arranged in beautiful shapes and the most distinct constellation was Orion, with three stars for its belt.

Orion was a warrior; the farthest thing from me.

We just sat for a long moment. The deathly silence seemed to be choking me.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"Okay," I said. "I won't look for them," but I had to fight back the tears as I left the room.

A/N Well is Phoebe right to not go and search? Should she go against her mother's wishes?

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