Then my eyes dropped to the stroller.
Three children.
Triplets.
My heart skipped.
One little girl turned toward me.
She smiled.
Then our eyes met.
Gray.
The exact same shade of gray I’d stared at in my own reflection my entire life.
I couldn’t breathe.
Rachel’s eyes had always been warm brown.
Those weren’t hers.
They were mine.
Everything around me disappeared. The laughter, the conversations, even Noelle standing beside me faded into silence as one impossible thought crashed through my mind.
Could she be…?
Rachel looked up.
The instant she recognized me, every trace of color vanished from her face.
For one endless second, neither of us moved.
Then I saw something I never expected.
Fear.
Not anger.
Not resentment.
Fear.
She tightened her grip on the stroller and turned away as quickly as she could.
“”Rachel!”” I shouted, already moving toward her.
She didn’t stop.
Noelle grabbed my arm.
“”Evan… who is that?””
I barely heard her.
My eyes never left Rachel as she hurried across the park, pushing the stroller faster with every step. The children looked back curiously while people stepped aside to let her pass.
Questions flooded my mind faster than I could process them.
Why had she never told me?
Why did that little girl have my eyes?
Why was Rachel running from me?
I broke free from Noelle’s hand and started after her, my heart pounding harder with every stride. Four years ago, Rachel had disappeared from my life without an explanation, leaving behind only a letter that convinced me she’d chosen someone else and never wanted to see me again.
I had forced myself to believe it.
Now, for the first time, I wasn’t sure any of it had been true.
Just as I reached the edge of the path, something slipped from Rachel’s diaper bag onto the sidewalk.
An old envelope.
My name was written across the front in handwriting I knew by heart.
The story is too long to post in the caption, so just say you “”Yes””. The full story will be in the comments below.
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