I’d Been Ashamed of the Birthmark on My Forehead Since Childhood – 25 Years Later, It Changed My Life

She smiled tightly and said, “Kids can be mean. Try not to let it bother you.”

How exactly was I supposed to not let it bother me when it followed me everywhere?

But I didn’t ask her that.

I just nodded and left.

At home, my adoptive mom tucked my hair behind my ear, her fingers gentle and warm, and said, “It makes you unique.”

My dad nodded. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Not one thing.”

I believed them.

I just also believed the kids.

That’s the thing nobody tells you about loving parents.

Love doesn’t stop the whispers in hallways, the looks that lingered a second too long, or the feeling that you’re being catalogued, filed away under “different” in everyone’s mental database.

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