“Are we okay?”
She turned her head toward me. Even in the dark, I could feel the weight of her stare.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been… different.” I sighed. “Distant.
You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”
She was quiet for too long.
Then, finally, she reached for my hand. “I love you,” she said softly. But it felt… empty.
Days passed, and the feeling didn’t go away.
She got irritated easily. When I asked if she wanted to grab dinner, she said she wasn’t hungry.
When I made a joke, she barely reacted. One night, she came home late.
She looked exhausted.
“Tough day?” I asked. She rubbed her face. “Yeah.”
I waited for her to say more.
She didn’t.
Something was wrong, and I was going to find out what. That night, I wasn’t looking for anything.
I was just on my laptop, checking something quickly before heading to bed. Jill had used it earlier, but that wasn’t unusual.
I clicked on my browser history out of habit.
That’s when I saw the questions, search after search. “How to tell someone I have a child who I hid for years?”
“How to say it without losing them?”
My stomach twisted. I read the words over and over, my mind struggling to catch up.
A child?
A lie? I felt a chill crawl up my spine.
Jill didn’t have a child. We’d been together for seven years.
She would have told me.
Right? My pulse pounded in my ears. I scrolled further.
There were more searches.
Some were variations of the same question. Some were even worse.
“Will he hate me if he finds out?”
“Can a relationship survive a huge lie?”
My hands started shaking. I sat back in my chair, trying to breathe.
My chest felt tight, like the air had been sucked from the room.
I wanted to believe it was a mistake. Maybe she was looking this up for a friend. Maybe it wasn’t what it seemed.
But deep down, I knew it was real, and it was about me.
I should’ve waited. I should’ve taken time to think, to process.
But I couldn’t. I needed answers.
Now.
Jill was in the bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the bed, scrolling through her phone. The glow from the screen reflected in her eyes, making her look almost peaceful. She didn’t notice me at first.
When she finally looked up, she gave me a soft smile.
Forced. “You okay?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like my ribs would crack.
Jill frowned and set her phone aside.
“Babe?”
I sat down on the edge of the bed, my hands clenched into fists. My stomach was in knots, my mind racing. I had thought about waiting—about giving myself time to process before confronting her—but I couldn’t.
Not with something like this.
I took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. My throat still felt tight, like I was being strangled from the inside.
“I saw your search history.”
Jill’s face went pale. She didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. I swallowed hard. “Tell me the truth.” My voice was quieter than I expected.
“What child?
What lie?”
Her lips parted like she wanted to speak, but no words came out. I waited.
The tension in the room grew heavier with every second that passed. Then, suddenly, Jill dropped her head into her hands.
Her shoulders started shaking.
A choked sob escaped her. “Jill,” I whispered. “Please.”
She wiped at her face, her breathing ragged.
When she finally looked at me, her eyes were red and glassy.
“I’ve wanted to tell you for so long,” she whispered. “But I was scared.”
My whole body felt stiff, like I was frozen in place.
“Tell me now.”
Jill squeezed her hands together, her fingers trembling. Her chest rose and fell unevenly.
She wasn’t just upset—she was terrified.
She took a deep, shaky breath and let the words fall from her lips. “I have a child.” The world seemed to stop. I stared at her, my brain refusing to process what I had just heard.
“You… what?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“I had her when I was fourteen.”
I couldn’t speak. Jill sniffled, rubbing her hands over her face.
“My parents… they raised her as their own.” Her breath hitched. “They told everyone she was their daughter.
Even she doesn’t know the truth.”
The room tilted.
I felt like I was sinking into the mattress, unable to move, unable to think. I forced my mouth to work. “So… your little sister…”
Jill nodded, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
“She’s not my sister,” she said.
“She’s my daughter.”
The air left my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.
Everything I knew—everything I believed about Jill, about our life together—shifted beneath me. Jill’s sister.
The girl I had spent holidays with.
The one I had joked around with. The one I had watched grow up over the years. She wasn’t her sister.
She was her child.
I felt dizzy. My hands were clammy, my chest tight.
“You’ve lied to me…” My voice cracked. “For seven years?”
Jill let out a shaky breath.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.” She sniffled.
“At first, I thought it didn’t matter. We were young. It wasn’t something I wanted to bring up.
But then… time passed.
And the longer I waited, the harder it got.”
I clenched my jaw. “You should have told me.”
“I know.” She looked down at her lap, ashamed.
“I thought… maybe I’d never have to.”
I let out a hollow laugh. It wasn’t funny, but I didn’t know what else to do.
“And what?
Just keep pretending she’s your sister forever?”
She wiped at her face, her hands shaking. “I don’t know. I was scared.”
I ran a hand through my hair, my mind spinning.
“Did your parents force you to lie?” My voice was rough, uneven.
Jill exhaled shakily. “Not force.
But they made it clear it was the best thing for everyone. They thought it would ruin my life if people knew the truth.
So they… took over.
And I let them.”
I stared at her, my emotions warring inside me. “I wanted to tell you,” she whispered. “So many times.
But every time I tried, I just—” She shook her head.
“I was terrified you’d leave.”
I let out a slow breath. “You should have trusted me.”
Tears streamed down her face.
“I know.”
I wanted to be angry, but mostly, I just felt… lost. Jill sniffled.
“Please.
Say something.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what to say.”
She reached for my hand, gripping it tightly. “I love you.
That hasn’t changed.”
I looked at Jill—broken, vulnerable, terrified.
But she was still my Jill. The woman I loved.
The woman I still wanted forever with. So I reached into my pocket, pulled out the ring, and whispered, “Marry me.”
Through her tears, she gasped.
“Yes!”
Source: amomama
