Hanna tried to speak, but my father interrupted her.
Chad shoved my father and said in a raised, furious voice,"You or anyone else is not going to keep me away from her. If I have to, we'll run away!"
"Boy, if you take my daughter, I will destroy you," my father replied firmly.
Chad then shouted,"I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU!"
Chad stepped closer to my father and shoved him again, trying to attack him. My father grabbed him, which surprised me he would normally hit someone for much less.
Chad seemed possessed. He locked his arm around my father's neck. Chad was tall but thin; my father was stronger. Chad began to choke him. My father didn't react. His face was turning red. I started screaming,"Chad, please stop!"
Hanna began to cry. Then she screamed desperately,"Stop, Chad! He's your uncle!"
A heavy silence fell over the room. Chad released my father. My father spoke, barely able to breathe,"Hanna… why did you say that?"
"This was going too far, Luck," she replied.
Chad and I stood frozen.
Crying, Chad shouted,"This is a lie!"
"It isn't," my father answered.
My father's breathing was labored. After catching his breath, he said,"Let's go inside."
Chad and I obeyed and followed him into the office. Chad was crying, glaring at his mother with pure hatred. I couldn't react at all not even cry.
"Go on. Tell me," Chad demanded harshly as soon as my father closed the office door.
"Chad, your father is Alex. When he died, I was two months pregnant," Hanna said.
I looked at my father and asked,"Dad, why did you hide this all these years? You acted like you weren't even close."
"Daughter, it was for your own good. Your grandparents would have destroyed Chad's life, just like they destroyed Alex's. If they had known, they would've separated him from Hanna."
Chad stared at his mother with contempt.
"My grandparents died two years ago. Why didn't you tell the truth then?" I asked.
"There's Michelle," Hanna replied softly.
Chad questioned her,"My father's wife? What about her?"
"Yes. She was in love with Alex, and she hates me. If she knew you were the result of our love, she'd be capable of…" She stopped herself.
"But weren't you separated when he died?" I asked.
"Yes. For a year. But we met, we spent one night together, and then I became pregnant with you, Chad."
"When I met your father," Hanna continued, "the man who raised you offered to register you as his son. He couldn't have children. Later, with treatment, we had Will and Amber."
Chad screamed through his tears,"You lied to me my whole life!"
She tried to get closer, but he pushed her away."Get away from me!"
"It was to protect you," my father said.
Chad looked at Hanna."It wasn't my grandparents who helped us all this time, was it?"
She slowly shook her head.
"They help sometimes, but Luck is the one who"
"Oh my God. That day at the police station, you pretended you didn't know each other. And here at home… you even put on a show," I said.
My father spoke then,"Daughter, it was necessary. Michelle can't find out. No one can, at least for now."
"She's capable of " Hanna began.
"Mom, you let Will and Amber get close to her. That's why you never doubted what we said about her."
"Son, there's nothing I can do. She married your father. I have no proof."
"Now you understand why you can't date," my father said.
I remained silent.
Chad shouted, his voice torn by rage and pain,"I don't care if we're cousins! We didn't choose this! You did your lies! If we had known from the beginning, we would never have fallen in love!"
He was desperate. His eyes were red, his body tense, like someone about to collapse. Chad approached me slowly, as if afraid I might pull away. With trembling fingers, he brushed my tear-streaked face and whispered,"Mia, tell me you won't care about this madness. Let's leave. Just the two of us. I love you so much."
My heart ached physically. I moved his hand away from my face and, before saying anything, wrapped my arms tightly around him. Chad broke down in my arms. He cried uncontrollably, like someone who had already lost everything.
As I held him, my mind became a battlefield. My father's words echoed relentlessly.
And maybe he was right. Everything about this was wrong. Forbidden. Almost sickening to think about. I should have felt disgust. I should have walked away.
But I don't know if I could.
Even knowing the truth, even understanding the weight of that revelation, I felt no disgust toward Chad. Only pain. Confusion. And love. A love that didn't fade with the truth only grew more painful.
And the hardest part was admitting that Chad was right too. We weren't guilty. We didn't know. We were dragged into a mistake we never created.
Sometimes life forces us to carry truths we never chose. Dirty secrets. Carefully hidden lies. Feelings that are born without asking permission. I knew my father was right. Everything was wrong, confusing, almost unbearable to accept. There was something forbidden about it… something that should have caused revulsion.
Yet when I looked at Chad in my arms broken, vulnerable, human the revulsion never came. There was no distancing. Only love. Painful. Intense. Impossible to deny.
We had no choice. We weren't the ones who lied. We weren't the ones who created this cruel truth. Love was never a crime until the world decided to point its finger.
The truth hurts. It tears you apart, destroys certainties, changes everything. But it also reveals who we are when everything collapses. And in that moment, with Chad crying in my arms, I realized that loving him didn't make us wrong.
Just human.Too human to ignore what we felt.Strong enough to face the paineven without knowing if there would ever be a happy ending.