Diane’s POV
"Diane," Joan began, moving to sit beside on the bed. "You need to rember what Dr. Chen told you. Stress isn’t good for you or the babies. Your blood pressure was already concerning at your first appointnt."
I let out a bitter laugh. "How am I supposed to stay calm when my entire life has been a lie? When everyone I’ve ever trusted has betrayed ?"
Joan took my hand, her touch gentle but firm. "I know. And I’m not saying what your parents did was right. But I am saying that your health—and the health of those babies—has to co first right now."
I knew she was right. Taking a deep breath, I nodded, trying to calm the storm of emotions raging inside .
"My phone," I said suddenly, rembering I’d turned it off last night. "Where is it?"
Joan hesitated, then reached for my purse on the nightstand. "Here. But maybe you should take a few minutes before—"
I was already reaching for it, powering it on. The screen lit up, and imdiately notifications began flooding in. Text ssages. Missed calls. Social dia alerts. All cascading onto my screen like a digital avalanche.
"What the hell?" I whispered, scrolling through the ssages with increasing alarm.
There were texts from my boss, from friends I hadn’t spoken to in months, from Andrew—my father—begging for forgiveness, promising to be better than he had been. And then, mixed among them, ssages from people I barely knew, offering sympathy, support, or in so cases, vicious criticism.
I froze, looking up at Joan with confusion. "The interview... it’s been published."
Joan frowned. "What interview?"
"With Jessica. The reporter." My mind raced back, trying to piece together fragnted mories through the haze of yesterday’s emotional turmoil. "I rember talking to her, telling her she could publish it."
I tossed the phone onto the bed, suddenly overwheld by the digital onslaught. Joan picked it up, scrolling through the ssages.
"So of these are supportive," she observed, her expression softening. "People are on your side, Diane. They’re calling you brave for speaking out."
"And the others?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
Joan’s jaw tightened. "Not worth repeating. Trolls saying you’re making it up for attention or money. Claiming you’re trying to extort Liam."
"Of course they are," I said bitterly. "Heaven forbid a woman tells the truth about a man trying to kill her and her unborn children."
Joan continued scrolling, occasionally mumbling responses to the particularly vicious comnts as if the senders could hear her. "Oh, shut up, Brad from nowhere. You wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped you in the face." Her protective indignation brought a weak smile to my lips—the first since yesterday’s revelation.
Suddenly, Joan froze, her eyes fixed on the screen.
"What is it?" I asked, the smile fading.
"It’s..." She hesitated, turning the phone away slightly. "It’s Sophie. She’s calling."
My heart lurched painfully in my chest. First my parents’ betrayal, and now my sister wanted to twist the knife deeper? The audacity was breathtaking.
"Ignore it," I said, my voice tight with anger.
Joan set the phone down, but it imdiately lit up again. Sophie’s na flashing on the screen like a warning beacon. Again and again, she called, her persistence only stoking my rage.
After the fourth call, I snatched the phone from the bed. "Give it to ."
"Diane," Joan cautioned, "you don’t have to talk to her right now."
"Pick it up," I insisted, thrusting the phone toward her. "Tell her to go to hell."
Joan reluctantly took the phone, answering with a clinical coldness I’d only heard her use in the courtroom. "Sophie, this is Joan. Diane is not in the right fra of mind to speak with you right now." She paused, listening. "Why don’t you call Liam instead? Isn’t that what you do best? Stealing your sister’s husband?"
I could hear Sophie’s muffled sobs through the speaker, each one stoking my anger rather than my sympathy. After everything she’d done, she had the audacity to cry?
"Please," Sophie’s voice ca through faintly. "I know I don’t deserve anything from her, but please put on speaker. I need to tell her sothing important."
Joan looked at questioningly. Against my better judgnt, I nodded once.
"Fine," Joan said, hitting the speaker button and holding the phone between us. "You’re on speaker. Make it quick."
"Diane," Sophie began, her voice thick with tears, "I know I’ve wronged you, and I know what I did was unforgivable. I was envious of you—I always have been. But please, I need you to forgive for everything I’ve done."
I remained silent, the rage building inside with each word she spoke.
"I never knew Liam wanted to run you over," she continued, her voice cracking. "To kill you. I couldn’t take that. I know you don’t believe , but I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you. Despite everything, you’re still my sister—"
The dam inside broke. "You stupid bitch!" I scread, snatching the phone from Joan’s hand. "You think you can call and blackmail emotionally? After everything you’ve done?"
My body shook with fury, the twins kicking violently in response to my heightened emotions. "You’ve got so nerve! You sleep with my husband, betray in the worst possible way, and now you want to pretend you care about ? I pray you die in hell, you backstabbing bitch!"
I ended the call with a vicious jab at the screen, then hurled the phone across the room. It hit the wall with a crack before falling to the carpet.
"Diane," Joan said, alard, rushing to my side. "Your blood pressure—"
"I don’t care!" I shouted, tears streaming down my face. "I don’t care about my blood pressure or what Dr. Chen said! My sister slept with my husband! My mother told my father was dead! And my father abandoned us and then lied about who he was! What am I supposed to do with all of this, Joan? Tell !"
The room spun around as I gasped for breath between sobs. Joan’s arms encircled , holding steady as I trembled with rage and grief.
"Breathe," she instructed firmly. "Deep breaths, Diane. In through your nose, out through your mouth. That’s it. Just breathe."
Gradually, my breathing slowed, though the anger still simred just beneath the surface. I leaned against Joan, suddenly exhausted by the emotional outburst.
"I can’t keep hiding in this room forever," I said quietly after several minutes had passed. "I need to face this head-on. Starting with my mother."
Joan looked uncertain. "Are you sure you’re ready for that?"
I nodded, wiping away the remnants of tears from my cheeks. "I’m never going to be ready. But I can’t move forward until I confront the past."
With Joan’s help, I stood up, one hand supporting my lower back, the other cradling my belly. "Will you stay with while I talk to her?"
"Of course," Joan promised, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. "I’m not going anywhere."
We made our way downstairs, my feet heavy with each step. The house was quiet, the aftermath of last night’s confrontation hanging in the air like a toxic cloud. My mother sat at the kitchen table, a untouched cup of coffee in front of her, looking every one of her years and then so. Her eyes were rimd with red, her normally neat appearance disheveled. She looked up as we entered, hope and fear battling in her expression.
"Diane," she whispered, half-rising from her chair.
"Sit down," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. I lowered myself into the chair across from her, Joan taking the seat beside . "I need answers. Real ones this ti."
My mother nodded, her hands trembling as she wrapped them around her coffee mug. "Anything. Ask anything."
"Why?" The single word contained all the hurt, all the betrayal of a lifeti of lies. "Why did you tell us he was dead?"
She took a shaky breath. "After Andrew left, you kept asking when Daddy was coming ho. Every night, you’d cry yourself to sleep. Sophie was too young to understand, but you—you rembered him. You missed him."
Her voice cracked as she continued, "I didn’t know what to tell you. How do you explain to a three-year-old that her father chose gambling over his family? That he abandoned us?"
"So you told he was dead instead?" I challenged, struggling to keep my voice level. "That was your solution?"
"It wasn’t planned," she admitted, tears welling in her eyes. "One day, you asked if Daddy was in heaven, and I... I said yes. The relief in your eyes, Diane. You stopped asking when he was coming ho. You started talking about him watching over you instead."
She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. "I told myself it was temporary. That I’d tell you the truth when you were older, when you could understand. But weeks turned into months, months into years, and the lie just... solidified. It beca our reality."
"You forged an obituary," I said accusingly. "You showed his grave—or so random grave you claid was his."
"Your uncle Michael’s grave," she confessed, sha evident in her voice. "My brother who died when you were a baby. You never knew him. The obituary... yes, I created that. When you were in middle school and needed it for a family history project."
I shook my head, disgusted. "Do you have any idea what that did to ?
"I thought I was protecting you," she whispered. "I thought knowing he was dead would hurt less than knowing he chose to leave."
"That wasn’t your choice to make!" I slamd my hand on the table, causing her to flinch. "You robbed of the truth! You robbed of the chance to decide for myself how to feel about him!"
Joan placed a gentle hand on my arm, a silent reminder to stay calm. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself.
"And what about Andrew?" I asked after a mont. "Did he really try to find us?"
My mother’s expression hardened slightly. "He claims he did. Maybe he did, I don’t know. But not until years had passed. Not until after I’d changed our nas and moved us across three states to start over."
"Why did you change our nas?"
"To escape the debt collectors," she admitted. "Andrew left us with nothing but his gambling debts. They harassed us constantly. I was afraid they’d take what little we had left."
I absorbed this new piece of information, trying to fit it into the shattered puzzle of my past. "So he did try to find us?"
"According to him," she said, her tone making it clear she had her doubts. "By the ti he claims he got himself together, you were in high school. Would that have been better, Diane? To have him show up after a decade of absence, disrupting the life we’d built?"
"That should have been my choice too," I insisted, though with less heat than before. "You made all these decisions for , Mom. You decided what I could handle, what I should know about my own life."
My mother reached across the table, hesitantly touching my hand. When I didn’t pull away, she gripped it tightly. "I made a terrible mistake. I know that now. I was young and scared and angry, and I made decisions I can’t take back. But please believe when I say I thought I was doing what was best for you and Sophie."
I looked into her eyes—the sa eyes I saw in the mirror every day—and saw nothing but sincerity and regret. The anger I’d been holding onto began to loosen its grip, not disappearing but shifting, making room for understanding.
"I don’t know if I can forgive you," I said honestly. "Not yet. Maybe not ever completely. But I do understand that you were trying to protect us in your own way."
Relief washed over her face. "That’s more than I deserve."
"What about Andrew?" I asked. "What happens now?"
She released my hand, leaning back in her chair. "That’s up to you, sweetheart. He’s your father, for better or worse. I can’t tell you what to do about him anymore."
The irony of her statent wasn’t lost on . After a lifeti of making decisions about my relationship with my father, she was finally leaving it in my hands.
"I’m not ready to see him," I decided. "Not yet. I need ti to process all of this. To figure out who I am outside of the lies I’ve been told."
"He’ll understand," my mother said, though uncertainty tinged her voice. "He wants to be part of your life, Diane. He wants to be there for you and the twins. But he knows he has to earn that right."
I nodded, placing both hands on my belly as one of the twins stretched, a limb protruding visibly through my maternity top. "These babies deserve better than what I got. They deserve the truth, always. No matter how painful."
"They’ll have it," Joan assured , squeezing my shoulder. "And they’ll have a mother who knows the value of honesty because she’s seen the damage lies can do."
I looked between Joan and my mother, feeling the weight of everything I’d learned in the past twenty-four hours. My world had been upended, my past rewritten. But as the twins moved beneath my hands—solid, real, undeniable—I realized that while I couldn’t change what had happened, I could choose what happened next.
"I think I need so tea," I said finally, the simple, ordinary statent feeling like a tentative step toward normalcy. "And then maybe we can talk about what to do about this interview that’s apparently gone viral."
My mother smiled cautiously, hope kindling in her eyes. "I’ll make you your herbal tea. Whatever you want."
As she busied herself at the stove, I leaned into Joan, drawing strength from her steady presence. "Thank you," I whispered. "For being here. For being the one person who hasn’t lied to ."
Joan wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling close. "Family isn’t always about blood, Diane. Sotis it’s about who stays when everyone else walks away."
I nodded against her shoulder, feeling sothing small but significant healing inside . The road ahead would be long and difficult. There were still conversations to be had, decisions to be made. But for the first ti since Liam’s betrayal—since my world had begun its slow-motion collapse—I felt a flicker of hope that I might erge from this stronger than before.
Not whole. Not yet. But nding, one fragile piece at a ti.
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