Hi guys. I’m Aubrey. I’m 16 years old. I want to tell you about something
that happened when I was 14. It was a really difficult situation. I had information that would change
the life of the person I loved the most. I couldn’t decide whether to share
that information or not. It was one of the hardest times in my life. Wondering what I’m talking about
and what I ended up doing? Let me start at the beginning. Four years ago, my mom, my dad
and I had a happy life. I loved them both. But I was more attached to my mom. To me, she was the best mom in the world. She was a very loving mom. I never wanted to be apart from her. I could never wait to get home from school. As soon as I got home, I’d tell her
all about my day at school. She’d listen to me patiently, try to understand me, give me advice, and plant kisses on my cheek. One day, I was called out of class. My dad was at school. He looked really sad. I asked him what happened. He said that mom had a car accident. When we got to the hospital,
I learned the sad truth. She had passed away. I cried so much. “Why did this happen to me? I had so little time with her”
I thought, breaking down. I had lost her when I was only 12. I had to live my life without her
from that moment on. A year had passed after my mom’s death. My dad and I were doing okay. One day he said that
he was going to get married. “No way,” I said. I cried. I objected. I tried convincing him not to do it. He said that he made this decision
because I needed a mom. “I had a mom and she died,” I said. But he didn’t listen to me. Now I had a stepmom. And it was a really annoying situation. I started living with a total stranger. Honestly, she wasn’t treating me badly. I was the one being mean. I’d get annoyed with her even if she was
asking what I wanted to eat. I acted like a real brat. I just wanted her out of the house. Because I didn’t want anyone
to replace my mom. So I kept on picking fights with her. My dad was obviously aware of this. One day he said, “Whatever you do,
things won’t change. She’s a part of our family now. You need to accept it,
and learn to live with her”. It looked like I had no choice. She wasn’t going to leave. After that, I stopped being so mean to her. But I didn’t try to be friendly either. One day, we were on a school trip. We were visiting museums in the city. We got off the bus in front of a museum. I was surprised to see my stepmother’s car
parked in front of the next building. What could she be doing
in this part of town? She worked all the way
on the other side of town, and that’s where she should be rightnow I got curious. I left the group and walked towards the car. There was a coffee machine on the backseat. That was odd. We had a coffee machine at home. Why did she get a new one? The other bag was filled with cosmetics. In another bag, I saw a bunch of clothes. I became suspicious. I made up an excuse and called her. I asked her random questions,
trying to figure out where she was. “I’m at work” she said. She was blatantly lying to me. That night, she came home empty-handed. She hadn’t brought anything
that was in the backseat. Did she leave them in her car? I made something up and went outside. I checked the car. The backseat was empty. I was shocked. She had lied about being at work, and she hadn’t brought
all that stuff home. Why was she in that
random neighborhood? Did she leave the bags somewhere? Did she have another house there? Was she there with someone else? My mind was full of questions. Was my stepmom cheating on my dad? I couldn’t sleep that night. I was so angry. If that was the case,
my dad would be so upset. And she was acting like a mom
on top of all that! I had to tell my dad. He had to know the truth. But what if I couldn’t prove it? He already knew that I wasn’t
a huge fan of my stepmom. He could easily think
that I was making it up. I had to prove that she was
actually cheating on him. I had to get proof before I told him. So I started keeping an eye on her. She never came home late. She didn’t really leave
home apart from work hours. Was she just being careful? I managed to figure out
her phone’s passcode so that I could check
her social media accounts. I secretly checked her messages
the first chance I got. It didn’t look like she was cheating. There were no suspicious calls either. Maybe she deleted those? All my research turned up nothing. I was really angry. One day, I overheard a conversation my dad
and stepmom were having. My dad wanted to go on a family picnic
on the weekend. My stepmom said she and her girlfriends
had made plans to go for breakfast. I heard the name of the restaurant. “I’m going to expose her now!” I said to myself. The weekend arrived. I left the house telling my dad
that I was going to study with a friend. Was my stepmom really
having breakfast with her girlfriends? Or was she lying again? I caught a cab to the restaurant
she’d mentioned. I looked inside, trying not to be seen. My stepmom was really there. She was with her girlfriends
just like she said. She hadn’t lied. Despite my suspicions, I couldn’t prove
she was cheating on my dad. A few days later, the truth came out
when a written notice was delivered. It was a traffic ticket
for my stepmom’s car. She had driven through a red light. She looked at the notice,
trying to remember the incident. She was sure she hadn’t been
in the neighborhood it mentioned. Suddenly she remembered. My dad had her car that day. His car was being serviced,
so he took hers. I looked at the ticket. I was so shocked. It was the day that we were
on the museum trip. I immediately looked at my Instagram
photos to double-check the date. It matched up. My dad had been in that neighborhood,
not my stepmom. He was the one who had done
the shopping and didn’t bring them home. Makeup products, coffee machine, a dress… I was going to lose my mind. Was it my dad who had been
cheating all this time? I went to my room to calm down. No way. My dad wouldn’t do such a thing. Maybe all that stuff on the backseat
were presents for someone. I don’t know, maybe the coffee machine
was for work. I tried to come up with reasons why
my dad wouldn’t do this, but I was still suspicious. I had to learn the truth. I secretly got into my dad’s
social media accounts. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was. My dad had been seeing
another woman for months! I couldn’t stop crying
as I read their messages. They were meeting up in her apartment. I had lost my trust for my dad. What’s worse is that I found myself in a dilemma. I was really angry when I thought it was
my stepmom who was cheating, right? I was going to tell my dad once
I gathered some evidence. What was I going to do now? It was my dad who was cheating. It was my dad who was the bad guy,
not my stepmom. He may have married her against my will, but he still made
a promise to her to be loyal. He was pretending to love her
while having an affair with someone else. I didn’t know what to do. I was really confused. I thought for days. What was the right thing to do? If I hid the truth, what kind of a life
would I have from now on? I had a photo of my mom in my hand, and I cried, thoughts
running through my mind. I suddenly remembered something
that my mom had told me. “People might be hurt
when they hear the truth, but it’s still their right to know the truth”
she had said. I wasn’t going to hold it in any longer. I decided to talk to my stepmom. I told her everything, starting from the moment I became suspicious of her. She was really sad when she heard
that my dad was cheating on her. She cried and yelled for hours. Finally, she left the house saying
she couldn’t trust my dad anymore. It was a horrible night. I had destroyed my dad’s marriage. I felt guilty even though I believed
I had done the right thing. That night, my dad blamed me
for betraying him. He stopped speaking to me. We became like strangers living
in the same house. Without my stepmom, the house felt
totally empty. When she was here, I just wanted to her
to go, but now I wanted her here. I was also really sad
that she had left like that. I know that my dad was trying really hard
to make things up with her. But she said that nothing would be
the same again and didn’t come back home. A while later, they got divorced. For ages, my dad kept blaming me
every chance he got. “You’re the reason my marriage ended”
he’d say. One day, he unexpectedly said
he wanted to talk to me. He was talking to me
in a very calm and low voice. He said it was his fault, not mine that
his marriage had ended. I was shocked. It was the first time I saw him cry
since my mom’s funeral. “I made a mistake. I wasn’t honest with my wife,
and I paid the price for it. But none of that is your fault. We both know that. You did the right thing. You just told the truth. I’m proud to have a daughter like you.” he said and hugged me. We talked and cried for a while,
letting everything out. Now we have a much better relationship. We talk about almost everything. I feel happy again after a very long time. You know the weirdest thing? I started seeing my stepmom. It’s like my real mom and my dad broke up,
and I ended up living with my dad. She and I talk a lot. I feel really close to her and tell her
everything that’s going on in my life. I can tell this makes my dad happy. She can never replace my real mom, but I’m happy to have a really good friend. Thank you so much for listening to me. I don’t know if you think
I did the right thing. Please share your thoughts
in the comments. If you want to write up your experience, you can send it over to the email address
in the description box. Bye.
