This series will feature fictional stories of 300 words or less.

Here’s the second one: The Not-So White Lie

My mom told me not to open the hallway door before she left for work, but the shiny green lock is tempting me.

“It’s nothing, Sara. I’ll tell you when you’re older,” she said last night.

But I saw a single tear fall from her left eye that she quickly wiped away when she locked the door this morning.

And why would she lock the door if it wasn’t anything?

I reach over top of the door, but there’s no key there.

“Uh!” I groan as I look around the house in distress.

“Ah!” I nearly fall from my tiptoes as I grab a shiny silver key from the top of my mom’s closet.

I fervently run downstairs and open the lock. I can feel my heartbeat thump out of my chest. I grab the lock and open the door to find a single suitcase on the ground labeled property of Stuart Lee. Photos of my mom with a man fill the suitcase.

And then, I nearly drop all of the photos when I see a photo of my mom with a pregnant belly and the same man next to her. I put everything back and pace around my room until I hear my mom come through the door hours later.

I run downstairs and hold up the same photo in her face as tears fall down my cheeks.

“Who is this?” I ask, hoping that my mom hasn’t been lying to me all these years that she doesn’t know who my father is.

“Sara, just calm down,” she says as she reaches out her hands to wipe away my tears.

I pull back.

“No!” I exclaim.

“Who is this?!” I point to the man in the photo.

She breathes a deep breath.

“Honey, that’s your father.”

-Jas