The raw sting of Adrian’s whispered confession still burned: “I didn’t get an invite.” My heart actually ached. He’s 17, but still my baby. Danielle, my own sister, had begged him to design her wedding dress. “You’re amazing at this. Front-row seat, of course!” she’d cooed. Adrian, who’s been sewing since he was 12, had been beyond thrilled. He poured his soul into it. Months. Forty-plus sketches. Endless nitpicks from her, but he just worked harder, determined to make her dream come true. I paid for all the expensive fabric, watched him meticulously craft every seam. The dress was stunning. We were so proud. Then I called Danielle. “What about Adrian’s invite?”
“Oh right!” she’d chirped, too casually. “No kids.”
My blood ran cold. “No kids? Adrian made your dress! You promised him a front-row seat!”
Her voice hardened. “NO exceptions. It’s a formal affair.”
Formal affair? What about loyalty? What about family? Adrian was devastated. I found him in his room, silently folding the final pattern pieces. His shoulders shook. It felt like a physical blow to me.
I called Danielle back, my voice shaking with a rage I rarely let out. “You are NOT wearing that dress.”
A gasp. “WWHAT?! My wedding’s in FIVE days!” Her panic was real, but I didn’t care.
“Then wear something else. You used him. You tossed him aside like trash.”
She started yelling, screaming about how impossible I was, how I was trying to ruin her wedding. She threatened to just buy a dress off the rack. Like that would be the same. I let her vent, then cut her off. My voice was dangerously calm. “I’m serious, Danielle. Adrian designed your dream. If he’s not there, that dress stays in my house.”
She sobbed down the phone. “You can’t do this to me! Not now! Please.”
Please? After what you did to him?
“There is one condition,” I said, the words heavy on my tongue. “One way you can wear that dress, even if Adrian still refuses to come. You have to tell him the truth. Everything.”
Silence. A terrifying, absolute silence stretched between us.
Then, a choked whisper. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me,” I said, my heart hammering. This is it. It has to be.
More silence. Then, a shaky sigh. “Okay. Okay, I’ll tell him.”
I felt a sickening mix of relief and dread. How will he take it? How will I take it, after all these years?
Later that night, Adrian was sitting on his bed, sketching. He always sketches when he’s upset. I sat beside him, my voice barely a whisper. “Adrian, there’s something… something you need to know about Danielle. About me. About everything.”
His head snapped up, eyes wide and suddenly wary. He probably thought it was about my health, or finances, or something adult and mundane.
But it was so much bigger.
I took a deep breath. “Danielle… she’s not your aunt, honey. She’s… she’s your mother.”
His pencil clattered to the floor. The silence returned, more crushing than before. He stared at me, then his gaze slid to the empty space where his sketch of Danielle’s dress once was.
“And me?” he finally croaked, his voice cracking like a child’s. “Who are you then?”
Oh, Adrian. My heart. My beautiful, trusting boy.
“I’m your aunt,” I whispered, tears finally streaming down my face. “I just… I raised you. I promised her I would. I promised I’d keep her secret. She was only 16 when she had you.”
The look on his face. The sudden, gut-wrenching realization. The betrayal wasn’t just from Danielle’s invite. It was from me. From our whole life. He looked at me, his eyes filling with a pain so deep, so absolute, it felt like a knife twisting in my own chest. All these years. All these lies. He didn’t just feel rejected by his mother; he felt utterly deceived by the woman who he thought was his mother.
My perfect, talented boy, suddenly an orphan of the truth.
