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My mother refused to look at me for the first six years of my life because I had my father's eyes—the same father who abandoned her when she was eight months pregnant. I grew up thinking I was invisible until my grandmother finally told me the truth on my seventh birthday.

I was born in a small town where everyone knew everyone's business. My father, David, was the golden boy—star quarterback, straight-A student, son of the town's most respected doctor. My mother was the quiet bookish girl who somehow caught his attention during senior year. When she got pregnant, he promised they'd get married after graduation.

Two weeks before I was born, he disappeared. Left a note saying he "wasn't ready for this life" and drove off to college across the country. His parents paid child support but made it clear they wanted nothing to do with the girl who had "trapped" their son.

My earliest memories are of my mother turning away whenever I tried to make eye contact. She'd feed me, clothe me, make sure I was clean and healthy, but she never looked at my face. Never hugged me. Never said "I love you." I thought this was normal until I started kindergarten and saw how other mothers acted with their children.

At home, I'd stand in front of the mirror for hours, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Why couldn't my mother look at me? Was I ugly? Was I broken somehow? I started covering my face with my hands whenever she was around, thinking it might make her more comfortable.

My grandmother lived with us and she was the one who raised me, really. She'd read me stories, help with homework, bandage scraped knees. But even she never explained why my mother was the way she was. I learned to exist in the periphery of my mother's vision—always just out of direct sight.

On my seventh birthday, I overheard my mother and grandmother fighting in the kitchen.

"It's been seven years, Diana," my grandmother said, her voice sharp with anger. "The boy thinks there's something wrong with him. He covers his face around you!"

"I'm trying," my mother replied, her voice breaking. "But those eyes... they're exactly like his. It's like David is staring at me, reminding me every single day that I wasn't enough."

That night, my grandmother came to my room and sat on my bed. "Your mother loves you," she said quietly. "But when she looks at your eyes, she sees the man who broke her heart. It's not your fault. It's not even really her fault. Sometimes pain gets tangled up in love."

The next morning, I cut out a picture of eyes from a magazine and made a paper mask. I walked into the kitchen wearing it and said, "Now you don't have to see his eyes anymore."

My mother dropped the plate she was holding. For the first time in my life, she knelt down and looked directly at me. Then she started crying—deep, body-shaking sobs that scared me. She pulled me against her chest in an awkward hug, the first one I could remember.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered into my hair. "I'm so, so sorry. I was just 17 at that time."

Things didn't change overnight. My mother started therapy the following week. She'd practice looking at me for longer periods each day, like someone building up a tolerance. She'd focus on my forehead at first, then gradually meet my eyes for a few seconds before looking away.

By the time I was twelve, she could hold my gaze long enough to have a conversation. By twelve, she could look at school photos. On my thirteenth birthday, she gave me a letter apologizing for the years she'd lost, explaining that she had never blamed me—she had been trapped in her own trauma, unable to separate the eyes she feared from the son she loved.

When I was sixteen, my father reached out through social media. He'd gotten married, had two more kids, built a successful life. He wanted to reconnect, to explain himself. My mother left the decision entirely up to me.

"I'm sorry," he said, after an uncomfortable lunch of small talk and long silences. "I was young and scared."

"My mother was young and scared too," I replied. "But she stayed."

I didn't see him again after that.