Inside the house stood a girl. No — *a teenager*. Same hazel eyes. Same dimples.
She looked just like me at sixteen.
I stumbled back. “Who is she?”
Mom sighed, eyes glistening. “Her name is Lily. She’s… she’s your sister.”
My world tilted. “Sister? But how?”
“She’s yours,” Mom whispered. “You got pregnant at 17. You were scared. You begged me to fix it. So I did. I raised her. You asked me to keep it secret — and when you left, I honored that.”
Memories flooded back — of hospital rooms, hushed voices, buried pain I had locked away. I thought I had moved on. But my mother carried the truth for both of us.
Lily looked at me with curious eyes. “Are you my sister?”
I nodded through tears. “Something like that.”
**Lesson:**
Truth buried for protection still finds its way to the surface. And sometimes, the family we think abandoned us was just holding our hardest secret.
