“Forgive me… I’ve been looking for you all these years.”
My stomach lurched. Not with emotion, but with rage. An old rage, but still raw. Forgiveness? Now? After shattering my life when I needed support the most. After convincing her son—my boyfriend at the time—that I was just “a mistake” and that fatherhood would ruin his future. Her, the woman who had treated me like a threat, like an intruder. The same one who pressured him until he abandoned me without looking back, leaving me pregnant, scared, and alone at nineteen.
“Looking for me? Why?” I asked in a whisper, trying to control the trembling that coursed through my body.
Her tears fell uncontrollably. “You don’t know what I did… you don’t know what happened afterward. I thought I could fix something, even just a little…”
People were starting to stare at us. I wanted to scream. I wanted to demand answers. I wanted to tell her I didn’t need anything from her, that I had raised a wonderful son without her money or her name, that I had survived loneliness, temporary jobs, exhaustion, and fear. But the words caught in my throat.
She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself for a confession that weighed too heavily.
“I had to tell him something… something terrible. I forced him to leave you. And then…” She broke off, unable to continue.
“Then what?” I insisted, feeling my heart pounding.
Her eyes, swollen from crying, searched for me desperately.Continue reading…
