My heart started pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
“No…” I whispered. “That’s not possible…”
Celia looked at me, her eyes filled with something I had never seen before… not love, not fear… but guilt.
“Efrain… please sit down,” she said softly.
I couldn’t move.
“That mark…” I pointed with a shaking hand, “I’ve seen it before… my whole life.”
She closed her eyes, as if the truth itself was too heavy to carry.
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
Silence swallowed the room.
“I need you to listen to me until the end,” she continued. “And then… you can hate me if you want.”
My legs gave up, and I slowly sat on the edge of the bed.
“When I was younger,” she began, “I made a mistake… a terrible mistake. I fell in love with someone I wasn’t supposed to.”
I swallowed hard.
“We had a child,” she said.
My breath stopped.
“But I was young… scared… and my family…” her voice cracked, “they forced me to give him away.”
A cold wave ran through my body.
“No…” I whispered again.
“I tried to find him later,” she continued, tears rolling down her cheeks, “but it was too late. He was gone. No name. No trace.”
My hands were trembling uncontrollably now.
“Years passed,” she said, “and I never stopped looking. Never stopped hoping.”
She looked straight into my eyes.
“Until I met you.”
The room felt like it was spinning.
“I didn’t know at first,” she said quickly. “I swear to you, I didn’t know. I just… felt something. A connection I couldn’t explain.”
My voice came out broken:
“How… how did you find out?”
She took a deep breath.
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