No, he didn’t leave my mom and me behind.

No, I didn’t know who he was at first.

I never even met him, until he looked for me.

That’s when my heart dropped.

It was 2013, after my birthday, I missed having my dad call.

The man who I knew to be my dad, Michael, used to call me. I was a real princess to him, and he adored me. Then he stopped calling. I never asked my mom what happened to him; I figured because my mom and I moved to Texas he thought we were too far.

My mom called me into her bedroom that morning and showed me a Facebook page; the screen had a picture of a man who looked semi-creepy.

“This is your dad,” she said.

I quickly scrolled my eyes to the name, and it said “Nesley.” I darted my eyes to my mother.

“My dad’s name is Micha-” – I was cut off.

“Your real father’s name is Nesley. Michael doesn’t know you’re not his daughter. Nesley has been looking for you.”

“All Nesley did was message me, looking for you. Michael and I were dating at the time and he assumed you were his baby and fell in love with you. And I didn’t tell you because Nesley went crazy, he hurt this woman from blacking out. And went to jail – I didn’t think he would be let out so early.”

This is when my heart stopped.

I needed answers.

Where were you when I was learning to walk?

Why didn’t you tell me who my real father was?

Where were you?

Why look for me after all these years?

This wasn’t even half of the questions I had for my mother, my dad and my biological dad.

Choked up on air, it felt like a lump swollen in my throat. I went outside and sobbed. It all felt so heavy. I asked if my father could come around; I always got an excuse as to why he couldn’t, and it was only because he didn’t want to.

My heart wouldn’t let me breathe.

That same summer, my mom sent me to Nesley’s house for a week. I stayed and found so many traits from him that I had.  We had nothing in common; we didn’t even look alike apart from our skin tone.

We bonded the first couple of days until it was time for me to leave; that’s when problems began. He became intensely distant, people all around were telling me he was bipolar; he even told me he was crazy and needed to go to an insane asylum.

The part that really bothered me about being there was I had an older brother, N’shawn, who lived down the street from Nesley and he didn’t mention him at all until I was 19 hours into my road trip back to Texas.

It hurt.

Back home, I called Nesley and asked for my older brother’s number. My brother didn’t believe he had a sister until I told him details about Nesley’s house.

He and I have the same father but not the same mom, however, we still ended up looking alike. My mom conceived me six months after his mom gave birth to my older brother.

It broke my brother’s heart when he found out that I was in Texas.

My heart beat once, but then I didn’t hear another sound.

N’shawn and I were video chatting and he kept looking upset. I asked him what was up, and he denied anything was wrong.

The moment I made it clear I wanted to know what was happening, he expressed Nesley was trying to contact him. But how come he wasn’t trying with me?

“He keeps calling and texting. If he really wanted to know who I was he would’ve called me before he knew you existed. He would’ve tried back then, now I’m feeling harassed.”

That broke me because he was making no effort to talk to me. His only daughter.

N’shawn knew it broke my heart to hear Nesley was trying to build a relationship with him and not with me.

My brother attempted to comfort me.

I gave my father a few weeks and didn’t receive a call, text or surprise plane ride to Texas to spend time with me. So, I reached out. When I called, my uncles and aunts all came at me about not reaching out to talk to grandma or grandpa; the blame was entirely on me.

I felt attacked.

I quickly said, “You don’t call me Dad, you reach out to N’shawn and he doesn’t even like you’’

He hung up on me. I was confused, I thought the line died.

Then my phone pinged with a text:

Don’t call me or text me anymore, I’m done with you. Have a nice life.

My heart dropped again but didn’t break. I started to breathe again.

At this point, I was hurt but didn’t regret anything that happened that summer. I was OK with the fact that my dad didn’t want to be there for me.

The only thing we have in common is that we can see the same clouds pass by in the day, and we can look at the same blueness of the sky.