“I told Ahreum I will come.” she defended herself

“You didn't tell when!”

“I know… I know. But I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, you succeeded.”

After a few minutes of her nagging about everything she found in our room including food and my underwear, she finally sat down.

“We should go shopping tomorrow.” she said “How can one adult woman have no solid underwear? You have no idea how important those are.”

“Mom, please stop.”

“No, imagine you would show it in front of a boy. He would laugh at you and leave.”

“I like it.”

“I wore courageous in the middle school.”

“You are not a good example.” she sighted and stayed silent.

“So, did you look at those photos?” she asked after a while.

“What photos?” I asked surprised, but kinda happy that she stopped talking about my .

“I left Ahreum a link. Didn't you look it up?”

“No… I think she mentioned it, but I forgot about it. What is there?”

“You should see it for yourself.” I took my laptop from the bed and put it on table. Mom wrote something in the browser. Then she turned it to me. It was a blog with a lot of family photos. Only after a while did I realize, that I actually know one of those people. It's my father. I remember that face. Even though I haven't seen him for… 9 years already. There he was, with a smile on his face with a young woman who looked European and two kids. One was too small for me to say the gender and the other was a girl. Not older than 4.

“Did he send it to you?”

“Indirectly, yes.” she said.

“He looks happy for a man who left his woman and a child and didn't see them for 9 years.” Maybe I didn't sound angry, but I was.

“Yerim, that's one of the reasons I am here. Except the fact I have to buy you underwear.” she laughed but I couldn't. “I thought about it a lot and I can't leave it just like that. I lied to you too many times.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When your father wanted to divorce, I was so angry. I can't put it in words. I just thought it was dream and that it wasn't real. I didn't think about the reasons why would he wanted to do that. I didn't consider my job that bad.” Without realizing it, I started crying. “So when you stayed in my care and he left, I started to change him in my head into something he wasn't. And when you asked questions, I put that image into your head too.”

“I don't understand.”

“He never hit me, he never did anything that would hurt me. He was a wonderful man. I just couldn't leave my job because of him. And because of you too. So he did what he had to.”

“You are lying, right?”

“We were actually suing for more than one year. He said, he couldn't leave his daughter in care of someone like me.”

“You are telling me, that you threw away our family, because you wanted to keep working as a actress?!”

“I am so sorry. You could leave with him. Or the least I could do for you was to tell you the truth about him. But I made a bully out of him and you believed it.”

“Please, go home, mom!”

“I am sorry.”

“Go home, now!” I screamed from my lungs. “I don't want to see you!” She took her things, maybe, like she was expecting it a little bit. Then she left.

I started hyperventilating. How? How is this possible? How could she do it?

So I built my whole life on a lie. A stupid lie from my mother. Believing my father was a and bully, I hated every part of him. I feel like I should reevaluate all decisions I've ever made and then hide in a