Episode 1161: If I Could Tell The Truth

She fanned at her sweaty underarms then put on the only blazer she owned. It was dove gray and looked like something a proper businesswoman would wear. Her mom had surprised her with it for a take your daughter to work thing earlier in the year.

She’d done days like that at both her dad and her mom’s offices ever since she was little. They liked to show her off to the people they worked with and that always felt good to Hope, too. It wasn’t just about that though, it had also been their way to instill in her that these were things she was capable of, building an impressive career like they did, being a boss.

So if she thought about it that way, she could spin it in her head that technically this was the person they’d raised her to be. Someone who took charge of her own destiny. An entrepreneur in the making. She frowned at the girl in the mirror though because that wasn’t the whole story here. True, her parents might be proud of her for her initiative, for how this whole thing appeared on the surface. But underneath it there was this giant truth she withheld from them, an entire relationship she knew nothing about.

A second father. That was a big. A huge lie between her and her parents, and she was only digging in deeper with this today. Hence the sweating.

“Hope, honey,” her mom called out. “Your dad and I both have meetings in a little while so maybe if you could get started with whatever this presentation is?”

“Okay. I’ll be in the living room in like two minutes.” Hope took a breath, sifting through her poster boards one last time to be sure they were in order. Another breath. She shouldn’t feel this way just at the prospect of talking with her parents. Then again, she wasn’t just talking with them, she was laying out this whole argument to get permission for a part-time job during the school year when really she was angling to spend time with her other father, something her dad wouldn’t like, something he’d feel hurt by, so was lying worse than that?

Episode 1162: These Are The Days