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That’s the reason I spent a whole year trying to find myself and came up with nothing.

I didn’t want to find myself. I didn’t want to dig up a truth I couldn’t bury back inside me if it wasn’t what they wanted to see.

Those hints of who I am and what I want didn’t get snatched away from me. I pushed them away. I shut my eyes and blocked my ears. I ran and ran and ran.

The answers I’ve been looking for haven’t been hiding from me. They’ve been fighting to catch up.

“I wanted a daughter.”

My dad’s voice in my ear makes me jump. For a moment, I forgot I was on a call.

“I would have been happy with whoever you were, but I always wanted a daughter.”

I’ve never heard him sound like this before, gruff and tender all at once, like he’s trying not to choke up. A lump swells in my throat as I listen to him.

“When you were born, it was the best day of my life. You were everything I wanted and more. I knew you were special even when you were a little baby. You could not be stopped. You were just like your mother in that way.”

His voice cracks, and I almost choke on a sob.

I’ve never heard him talk about me this way.

“I wasn’t a match for her, Andrea. I wasn’t enough. I held her back. That’s why it never worked between us.”

“She thought you were enough,” I whisper. “She just needed you to believe it.”

He’s quiet for so long I start to worry I went too far, but then he sighs.

“I don’t know if it would have worked out like that, Andrea, but I do know I should have tried harder to be enough for you.”

I pull the phone away from my ear to stare at it for a moment before I speak.

“Huh? Dad, I’ve been trying to be enough for you, and it’s like no matter what I do, you’re just…there, all silent and distant. You’re not like that with Sandy’s kids. You—”

“I’m not their father.”

The rest of my sentence peters out.

“I love those boys,” he says after a moment, “but they have a dad, and that’s why…that’s why I never worried with them the way I have with you. I never wanted us to be distant, Andrea, but I also never wanted to say the wrong thing. I never wanted to make a mistake. I never wanted to let you down like…like I did with…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t have to.

My entire world is already flipping on its head.

I keep staring out the window, but my eyes aren’t focused on the deck anymore. I can’t tell if I want to laugh or cry or scream. I can’t tell if I wish I could hug him or if I want to swear at him and push him away.

All those silent, awkward moments. All those times I’d try and get nothing in return.

He let the fear of not showing up perfectly keep him from showing up for me at all.

“Andrea, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“I have to go.”

My hands are shaking, and my feet are jittering against the floor. I need to move. I need work all this frantic energy out of my system so I can figure out what the hell any of this even means.

“Andrea…”

His voice breaks again. I screw my face up as I press the phone tighter against my ear.