PART 2 — THE TRUTH
Alejandro stared at Lucía as if the entire room had suddenly shifted beneath his feet.
“The man in the picture?” he repeated.
Lucía nodded weakly.
“Mommy keeps it beside her bed.”
His eyes moved toward me.
“What picture?”
I couldn’t answer.
Not yet.
Because I was terrified that the moment I told him the truth, everything I had spent five years protecting would collapse.
Alejandro pulled the chair closer to the bed.
“Lucía, sweetheart, what is your father’s name?”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Doctor,” I interrupted, “she’s sick. Maybe we should—”
“Mariana?”
The way he said my name made my blood run cold.
I hadn’t told him.
He stared at me.
“You’re Mariana.”
Five years disappeared in a single second.
The hospital room blurred through my tears.
“You remember me?”
He stood slowly.
“I don’t know how I didn’t recognize you.”
I looked away.
“You were supposed to be dead.”
His face went pale.
“What?”
“My mother-in-law told me you died.”
Alejandro stepped backward as though I’d struck him.
“My mother?”
I nodded.
“She told me there had been an accident. She said you were gone.”
His expression changed from confusion to horror.
“I was in an accident,” he whispered. “But I didn’t die.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“What happened?”
“I woke up in another hospital. I had a severe head injury. I couldn’t remember my name for weeks.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“My family told me I had no reason to contact you. They said you had taken the baby and disappeared.”
See more on the next page
