First message
She had known this moment was coming.
For fifteen years, she had been the one who knew every little thing about their daughter—the foods she hated, the nightmares she still occasionally had, the way she got quiet when something was bothering her even when she insisted she was fine.
And now she was standing in his house.
Her daughter.
The same girl she had held as a newborn, now fifteen years old and being forced to build a relationship with a man who had missed her entire childhood.
She stood just outside the room, arms folded tightly across her chest as she listened to him speak. Part of her wanted to interrupt. To remind him that wanting to be a father now didn’t erase fifteen years of absence.
But another part of her could hear the sincerity in his voice.
That was the worst part.
Because she could see the hurt in their daughter, but she could also see the hurt in him.
Her gaze finally settled on him, exhaustion written across her face.
“You don’t get to decide that fifteen years of her life can be made up for just because you finally know she exists.”