Epilogue: The Story We Were Stolen From

For eighteen years, I thought I was the girl Andrew ran from.

I wasn’t.

I was the girl he loved.

The girl he wrote to.

The girl he tried to come back to until the world, and his mother, kept him away.

And Leo was not the child he abandoned.

He was the son Andrew never stopped trying to reach.

That night, after everyone went home and the cake sat untouched on the counter, Leo and I opened one more letter together.

Andrew had written it before Leo was born.

He didn’t know our son’s name yet.

He didn’t know whether he would ever hold him.

But every line carried the same ache.

Come back to me.

Believe me.

Don’t let them turn love into silence.

I held my son’s hand and cried for the life we had been stolen from.

Then I cried for the truth we finally had.