Andie snorted and quickly covered her mouth after I gave her a withering stare. ‘Sorry Liz. But it’s hilarious that you both have those damned eyebrows. We’ve always wondered where you got those. Mystery solved,’ Andie said, twirling her fork around a few inches from my face. I swatted at it as she dramatically darted it toward her plate to spear another bite of food.

In the following moment of silence as everyone chewed their food, my heartrate accelerated as I reflected on what Andie just said. My hand grew sweaty where it gripped my fork. I set it down, taking off my sweater as heat flushed to my cheeks. The rush of emotion came on fast and unexpected, like I’d been burying it deep, disguising it as excitement to search for my biological family. But now it was exploding to the surface.

‘Is everything okay, Lizzie?’ Andie asked, putting down her own fork and looking at me with concern. Travis stopped chewing.

‘It’s just …’ I trailed off, trying to hold back the tears threatening to burst from my burning eyes. ‘My whole life, everyone made comments that I looked like my mom and dad, that I looked like you,’ I pointed at Andie, tears now escaping. ‘It’s all been just one big lie. They knew I wasn’t related, that I had these features that no one else had,’ I said with an emphatic gesture to my eyebrows. ‘Yet, they piled on lie after lie to cover it up. How can I trust anything that was ever said to me?’ I put my head down in my hands, the tears coming fast.

‘Oh, Lizzie,’ Andie said, moving closer and pulling me into a hug. ‘Don’t think of it like that. Your family loves you, they just wanted you to feel like you belonged.’

‘How can you lie constantly to someone you love? How can you smile and say, “Yep she’s got my eyes” when you know for a fact that isn’t true? I just don’t get it.’

‘I guess they were trying to protect you? I know it was wrong, but it wasn’t coming from a bad place. And hey, you do kind of look like me a little, you know. And your mom. Maybe it’s like one of those things where if you spend so much time with someone you start to take on their appearance? Like how dogs sometimes look like their owners?’