I was 19 when my mum said, 'You’re old enough now, but you can’t tell anyone this.' She told me my dad isn’t my biological father. Not dramatically. Not emotionally. She said it like she was finally ticking something off a list.

There had been another man.A brief relationship. A pregnancy she hadn’t planned. When she met my dad, she chose stability and never looked back.

'He knows', she said. 'And he stayed.'

That part broke me.

I went home and looked at my dad differently. At how he always fixed things without being asked. How he showed up early to my school events. How he never missed a birthday.

I wanted to ask him if it hurt. If he ever resented me. If love felt different when biology wasn’t involved.

But I didn’t. Years later, when I finally told him I knew, he laughed softly and said, 'I’ve always been your dad. Nothing changed.'

I cried harder than I expected.

I do not want to know my Father because I have a dad and he's the best dad in the world...family isn’t always about blood. Sometimes it’s about the people who stay when they don’t have to.