Diane’s POV
I stord up the stairs, each step fueled by the fire raging in my chest. The twins kicked violently inside , reacting to the chaos tearing through my heart. I didn’t care. I slamd my bedroom door so hard the entire house seed to shudder. Then I leaned against it, sliding down with my hand supporting my big, round belly until I hit the floor, breath ragged and shallow.
The tears ca in violent waves now, deep, guttural sobs that felt ripped from sowhere primal inside . I wrapped my arms around my belly, trying to shield my unborn children from the shattered pieces of my past.
"I’m sorry," I whispered to them. "I’m so, so sorry you have to be part of this ss."
mories crashed over like a flood as I replayed fragnts of my childhood...school events with an empty seat beside my mom, father-daughter dances I pretended not to care about, stories I told my classmates about my brave father who died saving others.
All lies.
I crawled slowly to the bedside table and yanked open the drawer and brought out my wallet, pulling out an old, creased photograph. It was the only one I had of my "father"—actually my uncle, I now realized—my mother had given years ago. I’d slept with it under my pillow for years as a child, whispering goodnight to the stranger who’d supposedly loved .
"You never existed," I hissed at the photo, tearing it into tiny pieces that fluttered to the carpet like confetti from so grotesque celebration of deception.
A knock ca at the door. Soft. Hesitant.
"Go away!" I scread, my voice already raw from crying.
"Diane, please." Joan. "Let in. You shouldn’t be alone right now."
I wanted to scream again. To shut her out with everyone else. But I couldn’t. I needed soone real.
After a long pause, I pulled myself to my feet and opened the door. Joan slipped in without a word, closed it behind her, and wrapped her arms around .
"I don’t understand," I sobbed into her shoulder. "Why would they do this? Why lie to my whole life?"
Joan guided to the edge of the bed, sitting beside . "People do awful things when they’re hurting. Your mom probably thought she was protecting you, in her own ssed-up way."
"And him?" I spat. "What’s his excuse? He left. Walked away and never looked back or even looked for us. Not until now, when it’s convenient."
Joan shifted closer. "Maybe he did. Maybe he was just too ashad."
"That’s not good enough!" I snapped. "Sha doesn’t erase pain. It doesn’t undo the years I cried into a pillow, wishing for a dad who was never coming."
Tears stread down my face again, hot and angry. "I was a little girl. I deserved to be soone’s first choice. Not a regret."
Joan’s eyes brimd with her own tears. "You still deserve that. You always will."
I looked at her, shaking. "Why didn’t she tell ? Why did she let build this fairytale in my head—only to shatter it now when I’m already drowning?"
"Because she’s broken too," Joan whispered. "And broken people do desperate things to survive."
"I don’t want survival," I said hoarsely. "I want the truth. I want peace. I want... to stop hurting."
Joan pulled close again, holding through the storm I could no longer contain.
When she finally pulled away, she looked at with sad eyes, gently cupping my face in her palm and guiding to et her gaze.
"Addiction makes people do unforgivable things," she said softly.
"Unforgivable," I repeated, letting the word sink into my soul. "Yes. That’s exactly what this is."
I stood up and walked to the window, staring out at the night sky. The stars blinked down at like they knew things I didn’t...unwavering, unchanging, steady. Nothing in my life had ever been that reliable.
"You know what hurts the most?" I whispered. "All those years I spent grieving soone who wasn’t even dead. Imagining what he’d be like, how proud he’d be of , how much he would’ve loved if he could have."
My voice cracked, my throat tight. "I created this perfect version of him....a perfect father in my head—a hero. Soone who would’ve moved mountains to be with . And the whole ti... he was alive. Just out there. Choosing every single day not to be my father."
Joan remained silent, understanding that I needed to speak my pain into existence. To let it all out.
"And now he wants to be in my life?" I turned, eyes burning. "To et my children? After missing everything? Every milestone? Every heartbreak? Every mont that mattered?"
I laughed bitterly, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. "He wasn’t there when I graduated. When I got married. When I found out my husband was cheating. When I decided to leave him. And now he wants to show up and play daddy?"
I turned around again, eting Joan’s eyes. "He doesn’t get that right. You don’t get to abandon your child for decades and waltz back in expecting a clean slate."
Voices drifted from downstairs...my mother’s, and Andrew’s. The man who had claid to be a helper, a friend... and turned out to be the ghost I had mourned all my life.
"What am I supposed to do now?" I whispered, voice small like the child I had once been. "How do I move forward knowing everything I believed about myself, my family, was built on lies?"
Joan took my hand in hers. "One day at a ti. One truth at a ti. You rebuild your story now, Diane. On your terms...not theirs."
I looked down at her hand in mine, then at the roundness of my belly as one of the twins kicked sharply again.
"I will never lie to you," I promised them, quietly but fiercely. "No matter how painful the truth is. You deserve better than what I got."
I inhaled deeply. My decision solidified.
"Please tell him to leave now," I said firmly. "I don’t want him here, and as for my mom, she should stay out of my sight. I don’t want to see her. Not tonight."
"Are you sure?" Joan asked gently.
I nodded. "Absolutely. I need space to figure out who I am. Who I want to be. Because everything I thought I knew was a lie."
I walked over to my dresser and caught a glimpse of my reflection. Tear-stained face. Puffy eyes. My mother’s features... and his, too. The resemblance I had never noticed before stared back at like a cruel joke.
"Tell him..." I paused, then straightened my shoulders. "Tell him I’ll reach out when I’m ready. If I’m ever ready. But tonight, I need him gone."
Joan gave a small nod and headed for the door.
"Joan?" I called after her. She turned back.
"Thank you. For being the one honest person in my life right now."
She smiled sadly, then left.
After Joan left, I sank onto the bed, exhaustion washing over . The revelation had drained completely, leaving a hollow space where certainty used to be. But in that emptiness, there was also a strange kind of freedom—the freedom to define myself outside of the lies that had shaped .
Tomorrow I would begin the work of rebuilding my identity, of deciding which pieces of my broken past to keep and which to discard.
But tonight, I would allow myself to grieve—not for the father I thought had died, but for the childhood I’d never had, and for the little girl who deserved so much better than she got.
And for the mother I was becoming—who would never let her children inherit the pain she carried alone.
I stood again, pacing in the room as my heart shattered into pieces.
How could this be happening to ? One betrayal after another. My husband cheated on —with my own sister. And even after I caught her... she kept seeing him. Like I didn’t matter at all.
Then my mother—my own mother—lied to my entire life. Told my father was dead. And now... the man who claid to be helping is that "dead" father.
What did I do to deserve this?
Why is my life a twisted ss of pain and lies?
Why can’t I just have a mont of happiness without betrayal lurking in the shadows?
Am I not good enough? Not kind enough? Not loyal enough?
I didn’t notice the tears falling again until I heard the faint sound of footsteps fading down the stairs. The quiet murmur of voices... then the front door closing.
He was gone.
And for the first ti in my life, I was truly...utterly...alone.
I reached for my phone, turned it off. I didn’t want any calls. Not even texts from Andrew. I just wanted silence. Peace. Even if it was wrapped in pain.
I didn’t even know when I drifted off, only felt a warm blanket being draped over as I slept.
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