Move-In Day, Dad Made My Roommate's Bed, Denied Me, and I Claimed I Was an Orphan
READING AGE 4+
My father carried my roommate's boxes, made her bed, and told her he had never seen me before. I stood six feet away with my own mattress still rolled in plastic and listened while he introduced himself as the man who was going to marry her mother. Willa had no idea that the stranger fussing over her sheets was also the father who had missed my birthdays, ignored my calls, and insisted our past was none of her business. So when she asked who he was, I said my father was dead and I was an orphan. It should have been a harmless lie between two girls sharing a dorm room. Then my father asked me to keep it that way. How long could I protect the person who'd become my friend without letting him erase me all over again?
Unfold
I didn't hear from my father again until spring.
He sent a text asking if I wanted to meet for coffee. He didn't add a promise about money or a request to keep anything private. I said yes, then spent the next day thinking about changing my mind.
Willa knew I was meeting him. She didn't ask me not to go, and she didn't tell me wha……
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