My father recoils as though Willow physically smacked him across the face.
“You know that isn’t what this is,” he rasps, his voice gravelly. “You know damn good and well that I’m not abandoning you.”
“Isn’t it? Aren’t you?”
Willow’s voice drops into a quiet, eerie register, completely devoid of the sweet, breathless innocence she usually projects. That sudden, cold flatline is infinitely worse than if she’d started screaming at him.
She wipes a stray tear from her pale cheek with the heel of her hand, her movements stiff and mechanical. “You didn’t know I existed for thirty-four years. Fine. I made peace with that decades ago because it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t search for someone you didn’t know was out there.”
“Willow, please –” Dad begins.
“But you know now,” she cuts in, he
