Trust(ed).

Hi dad. It's me. The little girl you never wanted. The little girl you blamed mom for using to "ruin your life". It's me. That same little girl who would've actually believed your lies just fifteen years ago.

Yeah, I know. You're probably pretty surprised to be receiving this considering you haven't seen me since I was three. Hell. You haven't even tried to contact me, or even see how I was doing after all. All I was worth to you was another check in the mail. I'm eighteen now. If you care. Old enough to go out on my own, no matter how unready I am. I guess I don't really have a choice, do I dad? Eventually we all just have to suck it up and become adults. Well... you wouldn't have any idea about that, would you? Mom always used to tell me how irresponsible you were, even at your best. Hell, dad. Forget becoming an adult. You couldn't even handle fatherhood correctly. The second things became complicated, you bolted.

Lots of changed since you left, dad. You probably wouldn't care, but mom never officially got over you. I mean, yes. She had boyfriends. Long-term. Short-term. Boyfriends. Men she used to try and act as if she was over you, but I can still hear the cries that would come from her bedroom every time she thought everyone else was asleep. You really did have such a hold on her, dad. Hard to believe that someone like you could have such a hold on someone like her. The last memories I can even remember of you two were the constant fighting you two would have over God knows what. I used to think she hated you. Anytime I'd question her about you, she'd only mention the disturbing parts to your demeaner. Apparently, dad, you wouldn't care less about how we were doing. You never gave a shit when you were here, so obviously I wouldn't mean shit to you now.

My favorite was how often she would remind me about how you would much rather be banging from truck stop whore than hang out with your own family, or even your own daughter. I've always had that stick way back in my mind... hoping to maybe one day find out how true that very statement was. As a kid, I never truly understood it. As I grew older and began processing more and more the final memories I had of you, I began to understand. My dad was quite the man-whore. I guess I should be proud of that. It's not often that a girl can say that her father slept around on her mother. Especially when it came to her own friends. Damn, dad. You were the best at picking off mom's friends, one by one. She must've really loved that. Boyfriend of the year, you are.

You know, that's probably got to be one of your most heartbreaking traits. The way you so openly hurt mom, even when the two of you seemed to be at your very best. Mom loved you, and you didn't give a shit. Mom would carry the whole world on her shoulders for you, and you never even appreciated her for what she's accomplished. You were her entire world, dad. You were her entire world, and you never cared. That's what I hate about you. The way you betrayed her. The way you broke her. Yet, you left her... with the one thing that resembled you the most. Growing up, kind strangers would compliment me on how gorgeous my bright green eyes were, or how dazzling my smile was, or even how my curls bounced off my shoulders in an ever-so-perfect way. Kind strangers would say the nicest things about the very things that resembled an asshole. Those bright green eyes everyone loved so damn much? Mom couldn't even handle looking at them for the first year since you left. She brought me a collection of sunglasses, getting mad whenever I would take them off... even for a second. That dazzling smile everyone seem to be so obsessed over? Begging for me to smile more often, not realizing how much I hated being reminded of you every time I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. For a while after you left, mom would burn any photo of me that somewhat resembled a photo of you. Those big, bouncing curls everyone would swoon over? I chomped them off by the time I turned thirteen as an attempt to get rid of anything that could remind me of you.

Oh, you should've seen the smile that flashed across moms face when I did that dad. Almost as if she was so proud that I would ever dare to cut off those curls. "Your father would be so pissed if he knew what you just did," she had to have said about fifty times that day. Apparently, my curly head was your favorite thing about me when I was a baby. If I had known that little factoid, dad, I might have chopped it all off sooner.

Mom really was a great woman, dad. You truly did miss out on the best. She passed when I was sixteen. Cancer. Pretty unexpected, but she did try to fight. She was so determined to fight, dad. If there was anything you could still remember about mom, it had to be her determination. She was the type of woman where, if you gave her a mission to complete, she did everything she possibly could to complete it. She went through hell and back, that woman. I still remember her laying on her deathbed, holding onto my hand, telling me about all the things she regretted in life.

You were one of those regrets, dad.

You were her biggest regrets, actually.

She hated how negative she was towards you. She hated how she never told me the good parts about you when I was growing up. She hated how she just expected for me to hate you, just as she hated you. She even hated how much she hated you.

She spent her final moments on her deathbed telling me about how the two of you met. Telling me about the first time you two met, the first date you ever had; hell, she even told me about your first kiss. She never fully got over you, dad. You were hers. Forever. No matter what happened between you in the past, you were her soulmate. She always believed that. Before she passed, she did give me your address. Or at least the address all those child support checks were coming from. She told me to get ahold of you. She wanted me to develop a relationship with you; no matter how long it's been.

That was two years ago, dad. As you can see, I hesitated. A lot. I had to do quite a bit of thinking... and rethinking. The decision to reach out to you was definitely not an easy one to make. For the longest time, you were the enemy. You were the one who caused the most pain. I barely knew you, but somehow... I still knew you.

I eventually made the decision to not reach out. Not as a betrayal to my mother, but out of fear to how you'd react. I haven't even seen you since I was three. I was three years old when you decided to walk out. I was only three years old when I was given the choice to be fatherless; given the choice, although I wasn't allowed to choose it. I couldn't just reach out to you, after all these years, and pretend like the past never happened. For a while, I was upset at mom. Upset at how she boosted you on her deathbed. Upset at how, after all those things she said about you, she worshipped you at her very end. Eventually, I couldn't stay mad at her. She was just doing what she thought was best. She still loved you. She still adored you. She just wanted to leave this world knowing that her child would know the good things about the man who gave her life.

For two years, all the anger I've unknowingly held in towards you came out. For two years, I couldn't stand the idea of getting to know you. I couldn't handle the idea of pushing back the old, in fear that you'd repeat it. I couldn't handle the thought of you repeating your past actions, dad. I was afraid. Afraid of you. Afraid of how you'd react. Afraid of reliving the memories of the past; except now I'd be old enough to remember the details vividly.

I was so afraid of getting to know you, dad, yet here I am. Two weeks from my nineteenth birthday, and I pulled out the tiny slip of paper with your address on it. The slip was a torn a bit and crumbled up, but the writing was still pretty legible. I did so well, dad. Staying away. I was doing so well. But that was before I heard about the news. Before I got to see her tiny image flash onto the sonogram.

Her name is Christina, dad. I'll be able to hold her in my arms in about seven months, and I want you to meet her. I want you to be the father to her that I never had.

Please, dad. She deserves to know her grandfather.

Your daughter,

Janice.