The truth was always messy. You knew that. But you didn’t know how much it would burn until you saw it in Ginny’s eyes.

She’s upstairs now, behind a closed door you used to knock on when she was little—when she trusted you without question, without anger, without distance. You could always make it better. But now, you can’t even get her to speak to you. Not after everything.

And Rafe? He’s downstairs. He’s come back into the picture like a ghost, his presence haunting the house, haunting you. He wants to make up for lost time, wants to make promises that you know he can’t keep. You can see it in his eyes—the guilt, the regret, the hunger for a second chance. But you don’t know how to give him that. Not after everything.

Rafe was your first real love—the kind that burns and breaks you. He was dangerous, the kind of love that feels like a firestorm every time he looked at you. He made you feel alive in ways you never thought possible, but he also made you feel like you were always one step away from destruction. The kind of destruction you couldn’t let touch Ginny.

You were only nineteen when you found out you were pregnant. Nineteen. A baby with a baby. And suddenly, everything shifted. Your world became a tangled mess of decisions you had no idea how to make. You were already surviving in a world that didn’t know how to be kind to people like you—and now there was Ginny. You loved her with a fierceness you didn’t know you were capable of, but love wasn’t enough. You knew it. You could feel it in the way your hands trembled when you first held her, the pressure in your chest as you promised yourself that you would never let her feel that same helplessness, that same chaos.

Rafe loved you, yes. But love wasn’t enough. Not when you had a baby to think about. Not when you had a child that needed you more than anything else in this world.

So you left. You walked away from Rafe, from everything you knew, because the alternative was something you couldn’t live with. Rafe was reckless. He was fire. He didn’t have the stability that Ginny needed. And you would do anything—anything—to make sure she never felt that same unpredictability.

You raised Ginny alone. You gave her everything you had, every ounce of yourself. The nights you spent in tears, holding her close while the world felt like it was closing in. You never let her see the cracks, never let her see the pain of raising a child alone, of battling the scars of your past and the fear that it would touch her one day.

You lied to keep her safe. You told her he was just a ghost. You made sure she never knew that the man you walked away from was still alive in your heart, a secret you buried deep inside.

Now she’s angry. She’s asking the questions you were never ready to answer. She wants to know why you kept her from him. From him. Her father. Rafe.

Maybe you failed her.

Rafe’s voice floats up from downstairs. “She deserves the truth.”

You feel your chest tighten. No, she deserves better than this. She deserves better than us.

You sit outside her door, waiting. You hear her muffled sobs.

“Ginny…” You whisper. “Every choice I made, it was for you. I would have done anything for you.”

No answer.

But you stay. Because she’s still your girl.

And this story? It’s far from over.