My name is Lina, and at twenty years old, most people say I carry myself like someone far older. Maybe that’s because I grew up watching a single mother fight her way through life. My father d!ed when I was very young — or at least, that’s what I had always been told. My mother never remarried and never spoke much about her past. She simply worked, sacrificed, and poured every ounce of her strength into raising me.
During a volunteer program in Guadalajara, everything changed.
That’s where I met Santiago, the logistics coordinator — quiet, patient, and over twenty years older than me. He wasn’t like the boys my age. He listened. He spoke with intention. He carried sadness in his eyes but warmth in his voice.
At first, he was just a mentor I admired.
But admiration turned into a flutter in my chest, and that flutter slowly grew into something deeper, gentler, and terrifyingly real.
Santiago had lived through his own hardships.
A broken marriage.
A career spent rebuilding his life.
A loss he never explained — only saying:
“I lost something precious once. Now I try to live with honesty.”
Our love didn’t explode into existence; it unfolded carefully, like pages turning in an old book. People whispered because of our age difference — twenty and forty-something — but I didn’t care. With him, I felt cherished in a way I had never experienced.
One evening, Santiago took my hands and said:
“I want to meet your mother. I don’t want us to hide.”
My heart pounded.
My mother was strict, protective, and suspicious of older men. Still, I believed love deserved honesty. So I agreed.
The Day Everything Unraveled
He arrived wearing a crisp white shirt and holding a bouquet of marigolds — the flowers I once mentioned were my mother’s favorite. His hands trembled slightly as we approached my childhood home in Tlaquepaque.
My mother was outside, watering her plants.
When she turned and saw him, she froze — as if the world stopped spinning.
Then, without a word, she ran toward him.
But instead of anger… she hugged him.
She clung to him.
And she began to cry.
“Oh my God… it’s you!” she sobbed.
“Santiago!”
My breath caught.
The air felt too heavy to inhale.
Santiago staggered backward slightly, staring at her with eyes full of disbelief.
“Are you… Thalía?” he whispered.
My mother nodded through tears, her voice breaking.
“Yes… yes, it’s me. After all these years… after everything… it’s really you!”
I felt like I was watching a scene that did not belong to me.
“Mom… how do you know him?” I finally managed to ask.
They both turned toward me — two ghosts reunited, carrying a history I had never been told.
The Secret They Never Meant for Me to Discover
We sat down, and my mother took a long, shaking breath.
“Lina… there’s something I’ve kept from you your whole life. When I was young, I loved a man deeply. His name was Santiago… and that man is standing right here.”
Santiago’s face had drained of color.
My hands felt numb.
My mother continued, voice trembling:
“My grandparents never approved. They said he wasn’t stable, that he had no future. Then he had a terrible acc!dent and disappeared from my life. I was told he had d!ed. I found out later I was pregnant… with you.”
Santiago lowered his head into his hands.
“I never forgot you, Thalía,” he said, voice cracking.
“When I woke up in the hospital, I was hundreds of miles away. By the time I returned, someone told me you already had a child. I thought… I thought you moved on.”
My chest tightened.
My world began spinning.
“So… what are you saying?” I whispered.
My mother’s eyes met mine — soft, full of regret.
“Lina… Santiago is your father.”
The Love I Gained and Lost in One Breath
I felt the floor tilt beneath me.
The man I had fallen in love with — the man whose hands had held mine, whose smile made me feel safe — was my father. My blood.
Santiago staggered backward, horrified.
“No… Lina… my daughter… I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know…”
I couldn’t speak.
My throat burned with a thousand unsaid words.
My tears came all at once — hot, heavy, and unstoppable.
My mother wrapped her arms around me, crying with me.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“I never imagined this could happen…”
But what words could possibly fix any of it?
We stayed like that for hours — three lives bound by love, fate, and a tragedy none of us could have foreseen.
That day, I did not introduce my boyfriend to my mother.
That day, my mother reunited with the love she lost.
That day, I found my father.
And that day…
I lost my first love.
All in the same moment.