They Blocked Me. I Stopped Talking.

I’d been addicted to talking to people since the day I was born.

Other babies could only cry. I could babble-sing to the woman in the next hospital bed for half the night.

When I was five, I got lost.

The police found me in the middle of a public square, hosting a matchmaking session for more than twenty elderly men and women.

At thirteen, my eleventh foster family sent me back to the children’s home.

On the way, I kept the driver talking for three solid hours and made him take seven wrong turns.

Finally, he stopped outside the home and pleaded with me, his eyes red.

“Sweetheart, it’s not that I don’t like you.”

“I just can’t get a word in.”

Then, when I was seventeen, my mother married into the Shen family and finally remembered she had a daughter.

The Shens arranged a special dinner to welcome me that evening.

Before anyone had started eating, my stepsister, Shen Yan, began to choke up.

“She said she’s the only daughter in this family now. She told me to get out.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t stay for dinner. I don’t want to upset her by being here.”

My stepbrother, Shen Chuan, scowled.

“Her first day here and she’s already ordering Yanyan around? Who does she think she is?”

The whole family came storming after me. They eventually found me in the security booth.

I was cracking sunflower seeds and helping the security guard win back his online girlfriend.

Shen Yan’s sobs caught in her throat.

Shen Chuan glowered at me. “So you want this whole family to yourself?”

I waved both hands.

“It’s so boring in there. There’s no one to talk to.”

“Now, the security booth? Eight camera feeds, six walkie-talkies, residents calling to complain in the middle of the night. This place is hopping.”