She was standing there, holding papers, her face red with anger. He was sitting across from her, pale, shaken.
“How could you do this to her?” she shouted.
He didn’t answer.
“Mom?” I said.
She turned toward me, and for a split second, I saw something soft in her expression. Then it disappeared.
“You need to sit down,” she said. “You need to know the truth.”
He looked at me, eyes full of panic.
“Please,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
My hands were shaking as I took the papers.
Emails. Messages. A report.
Dates.
Details.
A different address.
A name I didn’t recognize.
Jenna.
I flipped through it, trying to understand.
Messages between them.
From the night of the accident.
“I’ll leave soon,” he had written.
“Drive safe,” she replied. “Love you.”
My stomach dropped.
“He wasn’t driving to his grandparents,” my mother said quietly. “He was leaving another woman’s house.”
I looked at him.
“Tell me she’s lying.”
He didn’t.
He just cried.
“I was young,” he said. “I made a mistake. It didn’t mean anything.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“So that night… you were coming from her.”
He nodded.
“And the story you told me?”
“I panicked,” he said. “I knew if you knew the truth, you might leave. And I couldn’t lose you.”
I stared at him.
“So you lied.”
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