Brian, who is my husband’s best friend, felt more like family to us. He was the one we trusted the most – someone we could always count on. That night, he came over for dinner, and since my husband wasn’t back yet and I needed to go to the store, I left my daughter with him. When I got back, everything had changed. Emily, my daughter, suddenly stopped talking.
Then, someone rang the doorbell, and Emily hurried to the door. She opened it, and there was Ryan, carrying two big boxes of pizza in one hand and a bag in the other.
Emily hugged his leg, waiting for him to give her a hug back. Ryan gave her the bag, saying, “Where’s my girl? This is for you, you’re going to love it.”
When she opened it, she found a stuffed toy inside. “Thanks, Uncle Bryan,” she said, giving him another hug.
“Oh, Ryan, what would we do without you?” I said, smiling and feeling thankful for having him in our lives.
Since my husband, Tom, still hadn’t come back from work, I asked Ryan to watch over Emily while I went to the store to get some juice.
“We’ll be fine,” he replied, and I couldn’t think of any reason to doubt him.
But when I got back, I noticed Bryan putting on his coat. “I need to go,” he said, “something came up. Tell Tom I’ll call him.”
This was a little odd, but I didn’t think too much about it.
It became clear that something was wrong while I was away when my daughter stopped talking. She wouldn’t answer my questions, didn’t ask anything, and just stood there quietly.
As the days turned into weeks, Emily still didn’t say anything. We took her to see a psychiatrist, but they couldn’t figure out why she was acting so strangely.
Just when she was about to go back to school, she finally talked to me. “Mom, are you going to leave me here forever?” she asked.
I was shocked by her question. “Of course not, sweetie, why would I ever do that?”
“Mom, Uncle Brian told me that my real parents left me, and now I’m scared that you and Dad will do the same thing.”
My heart sank. Emily was adopted, but we thought she was too young to understand that. Why would Brian say something like that?
It turned out my fears that he was the reason Emily stopped talking were true.
Since that night, he stopped contacting us, and we didn’t reach out to him either, and now I understood why.
I dropped Emily off at school and went to Tom’s office to tell him everything. He was really surprised. Brian was like a brother to him.
After some time, Brian texted me saying he wanted to talk. Even though Tom advised against it, I was eager to hear what he had to say.
We met at a cafe, and Brian looked nothing like the person I used to know. Something was definitely off.
“What’s going on, Brian?” I asked, my voice filled with anger.
It was at that moment that Brian shared with me that he found out he was adopted just a day before pizza night. He felt really upset and mad at his parents for hiding that from him for so long. Somehow, he thought he should tell Emily that she was adopted too. He figured that if she knew early on, it would save her from pain later.
“Brian, that wasn’t your secret to share. Tom and I had a plan. We were going to tell her when the time was right.”
Brian kept saying sorry, but I didn’t accept his apologies.
Fortunately, Emily managed to recover from the hurt. It took a while, but she eventually trusted me and Tom again.
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