I had no idea that meeting a single dad would teach me so much and hurt me so much. Ryan was a single dad with two cute little girls who had already won my heart. But things were very different with their mother, Laura. She was known for being showy and wanting attention, and I had already seen hints of this in her.
Things got worse when Laura decided out of the blue to get the girls a dog, three kittens, and a bunch of rats. I was shocked to learn that her lease didn’t allow pets. I didn’t understand why she would do something so careless. What happened next, though, shocked me.
Ryan tried to be the hero by offering to take all the animals in, even though he knew I was allergic. I was very angry because Laura’s actions made me feel misled and manipulated. But as I looked into it more, I found that Laura had lied when she said she was afraid of being kicked out because of the pets. She used what was going on to try to make things bad between Ryan and me, and it almost worked.
Ryan was shocked when he found out the truth. He realised that his ex had used him, and he was angry and sorry about it. He said, “We need to be stronger together.” I put my hand on his arm and reached out to him. We were not going to let Laura’s tricks break us up.
The events that followed were hard, but in the end, they made things clearer. Ryan and I talked about trust and how to talk to each other, and we both agreed to work together. The girls were mad at first, but they soon realised their mum had been lying. We had to learn a hard lesson, but it was one that would bring us closer together in the end.
