Moments before I was supposed to walk down the aisle, my fiancé’s 13-year-old son pulled me aside and warned me not to marry his dad. He then handed me something that shattered everything I thought I knew about the man I loved. The first time I saw Jason at that little coffee shop in Oakville, I swear my heart did this ridiculous flutter thing.
He was fumbling with his wallet, trying to pay for his order while balancing a phone call about some work emergency.
When he dropped his credit cards all over the floor, I helped him pick them up. “Thank you,” he said, and his smile was so genuine it made my chest warm.
“I’m usually not this much of a disaster!”
“We all have our moments,” I laughed, handing him the last card. That’s how it started.
Jason was everything I thought I needed.
He was steady, reliable, and the kind of man who remembered I liked extra foam in my cappuccino and always texted to make sure I got home safe. After years of dating guys who treated relationships like a hobby they’d eventually outgrow, Jason felt like coming home. “I have a son,” he told me on our third date, his voice careful and hurt.
“Liam.
He’s 13. His mom…
she left when he was eight. It’s been just us for a while.”
“I’d love to meet him,” I said, meaning it.
Jason’s face lit up.
“Really? You’re not running for the hills?”
“Not unless you want me to!”
Meeting Liam was like trying to befriend a very polite statue. He sat at the dinner table, answered questions with “yes ma’am” and “no ma’am,” and looked at me like I was some kind of fascinating but ultimately unwelcome science experiment.
“So, Liam, your dad tells me you’re into astronomy,” I tried to initiate a conversation, cutting into my pasta.
“Sometimes.”
“That’s so cool. I used to love stargazing when I was your age.
Maybe we could—”
“No. I usually do that alone.”
Jason shot him a look.
“Liam, be nice.”
“I am being nice, Dad.”
And he was nice, technically.
Liam was never rude or outright disrespectful. He was just absent… like he’d erected this invisible wall between us that I couldn’t find a way around.
“You’re not my mom,” he said one evening when I asked if he needed help with his homework.
The words weren’t cruel, just matter-of-fact, like he was stating the weather. “I know that,” I replied softly.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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