Excited.
Confused.
Like someone who had just discovered something that completely changed the way she saw the world.
She hurried toward the front door.
I opened it.
“Mom!”
“What happened?”
She stepped inside.
“Something happened tonight and I—”
She stopped.
Her eyes moved toward Ryan.
He was still standing beside the car.
Then she looked back at me.
“Actually, let me get Ryan some water.”
I frowned.
“At midnight?”
“Mom, please.”
She hurried into the kitchen.
I watched her disappear.
Then I looked at Ryan.
His expression had changed.
Completely.
The charming smile he’d worn earlier was gone.
He looked older now.
More serious.
Almost exhausted.
“Ryan?”
He stepped inside and quietly closed the door.
I felt my stomach tighten.
“Is Iris okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did something happen at prom?”
“Yes.”
“Did someone hurt her?”
“No.”
“Then what is going on?”
Ryan looked at me.
For a few seconds, he said nothing.
Then he glanced toward the kitchen.
When he spoke, his voice was calm.
Too calm.
“You have five minutes.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Five minutes to tell her the truth.”
My heart stopped.
“What truth?”
He didn’t blink.
“The truth about her father.”
Everything inside me went cold.
For seventeen years, I had worked desperately to keep one particular secret buried.
I had told myself I was protecting Iris.
I had convinced myself that some truths were too painful for a child to carry.
And now, standing in my living room after my daughter’s prom, was a seventeen-year-old boy telling me I had five minutes to destroy the lie I’d spent years building.
I whispered his name.
“Ryan…”
He stepped closer.
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know enough.”
My mouth went dry.
“How?”
His eyes hardened.
“Because tonight, Iris found out.”
I felt as though the floor had disappeared beneath me.
“What did she find out?”
Ryan stared at me.
“She found out that her father isn’t dead.”
I couldn’t breathe.
The words I’d spent years avoiding had finally been spoken aloud.
Her father wasn’t dead.
He was alive.
Somewhere.
And Iris had just learned it.
I sank into the nearest chair.
Ryan remained standing.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Then how—”
“Iris found something.”
My hands started shaking.
“What?”
“A photograph.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
It had always been the photograph.
The one thing I had forgotten to destroy.
The one thing I had hidden inside a box in the attic, believing Iris would never look there.
Ryan continued.
“She was looking through some old things because she wanted baby pictures for a project. She found a photograph of you and a man.”
I swallowed.
“And she recognized him.”
“She recognized him from somewhere.”
My heart pounded.
“Where?”
Ryan hesitated.
“Her father’s name.”
I looked at him.
“She saw it online.”
I said nothing.
“She asked me about it because she thought I knew something.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
I looked up sharply.
“You had no right.”
“Maybe I didn’t.”
His voice remained steady.
“But she deserved to know.”
I stood.
“She’s my daughter.”
“And she deserves the truth about her own life.”
