Hi.

My name is Rylee, (yes, I’m a girl) and this is the story about my two dads.
Yep, that’s not a mistake. My parents are both guys and in a relationship. 

Strange?

Well… I guess I should start at the beginning.

I lived in a normal, fairly large house with my older brother, Aidan, and two older sisters, Alyson and Aria, but they aren’t really important. (Ok, ok I guess they’re SORTA important, but …  whatever.) You’re probably wondering why everyone has an “A” name and I’m an “R” girl. Well, I am a bit different…   ok a LOT different, but that’s ok.  I grew up the only brunette in a perfect blonde barbie household. There’s a reason for that.

My brother and sisters were born via surrogacy through some company. Father (he HATES to be called that, but it’s better than NotDad which is what i wanted to call him) is their bio-dad. They’re all tall, gorgeous, model thin and obnoxious. Don’t get me wrong, they’re ok sometimes, but technically, even though they’re my siblings, I’m not related to them. At all.

Me and Daddy were always the oddballs. The two of us always stuck together. While Father mostly tried to forget I exist, Daddy always made up for it with lots of extra attention. I guess it makes sense because I’ve always been 100% Daddy’s little girl.

See, Daddy and Father used to fight a lot and there was a time where they almost got divorced, but Father thought maybe having another baby would help fix that. He thought maybe Daddy felt left out because A³ all came from him, so he thought maybe having Daddy father a child would help… the only problem was that paying surrogates was a lot of money and Aidan and the twins did not come cheap.  

Enter my Uncle Mitchie.  He’s Daddy’s best friend and has been since they were like 10 or something. He knew Daddy was sad and wanted to help make it better.  He talked to his sister and after a lot of discussions, arguments (Father wasn’t exactly a fan of the chosen surrogate, but it was that or lose Daddy) and a promise that she would be able to be in my life, Daddy and Aunt Jess had me. To thank him Daddy let Uncle Mitch give me my name, Rylee Aphex Hoying. (Uncle Mitch was a little strange, but that’s ok. I like my name, but good luck finding that on a keychain) 

I guess having a new baby helped for awhile, with the fighting that is, but then as I got older I actually made it worse just by existing.  

I heard them fighting one night and I heard Father say he couldn’t look at me because I looked like Uncle Mitch, that I wasn’t his daughter. Well, it’s not like he was lying, but to a 3 year old it was devastating. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Daddy so angry. I learned a LOT of swear words that night.   

I remember looking at myself in the mirror and wishing I had blonde hair like Daddy and everyone else.  I didn’t want to be different.  I got in a LOT of trouble though because I found some scissors and cut off most of my long, dark brown hair. It was a mess.

When they asked me why I just said it was because Father said I was ugly. I just wanted to be pretty like Aly and Ari.

Daddy cried so hard and hugged me so tight.  Father tried to tell me I was beautiful just the way I was… but even at 3 I knew he didn’t mean it.  He couldn’t even look at me as he said he was sorry and then left to take the A-team to school. 

Me and Daddy went to Uncle Mitchie’s and the three of us went to get me an actual haircut to fix the hack job I’d done. I still have a picture from that day and if I had looked like Uncle Mitch before well I was definitely a mini Mitch with my new boy-cut, dimples out on display. Uncle Mitch was my favorite person on the planet, I didn’t mind looking like him and when he called us twins I completely forgot about being upset for at least a little while.

They spoiled me so much that day but when they thought I was asleep in the car I could hear them talking.

.....

“He acts like she’s invisible. She tries so hard to make him…..  to make him love her.” He practically choked on the words and I knew he was crying.

“I know you say you stay with him for the kids, but don’t you think that’s making it worse? Look at what it’s doing to Rylee.”

“I don’t know if separating the kids is going to help anything.”

“You want to separate them?”

“No, but Alex would fight for them … except Rylee.”

“That statement should tell you everything you need to know about your husband.”

“Mitchie…  do you think… we could ever-”

“No. Don’t you dare. Until you leave him I can’t even think about that.”

“Mitch, you know I want to. You know I want-”

“No. You can’t keep giving me hope for something I’ll never have. I’ve spent years waiting and hoping. Every day I spend with you and Rylee is like having everything I’ve ever wanted and then you leave again and I’m left with nothing all over again. You can’t -”

“I’m trying.”

“You’re never going to leave him, because you’re afraid. But you can’t make that perfect little girl suffer because he’s a heartless bastard.”

“I-”

Daddy heard me sniffle and stopped talking when he realized i was crying in the backseat. He pushed his own issues aside to worry about comforting me.

~~

That was one of many days that we escaped with Uncle Mitch.

Things remained segregated at my house. Father tried to be better, but all he was doing was trying to hide the fact that he hated me. I represented the man that Daddy wanted, the man Father had always feared.   I may have been young and desperate for his approval, but I could tell any affection he sent my way wasn’t genuine.

My siblings weren’t much better. I overheard Aria talking with some kids while we were watching Aidan play baseball.  They asked if she had any brothers or sisters.  She said she had one brother… and a twin sister.  That was it.

That was the moment I realized that it was always going to be that way.  Me and them… never us.  I was never going to be a part of their family, regardless of what I did.  Father hated me because I wasn’t his. Aidan, Alyson and Aria hated me because I took most of Daddy’s attention away from them.   

Everyone was unhappy and it was all my fault.

That night I packed a few things in my Toy Story suitcase Daddy gave me and I walked in the dark down to Uncle Mitch’s house. We’d walked it so many times that I knew the 20 minute trek by heart, even in the middle of the night. I’ll never forget his face when he finally opened the door after I rang the doorbell about 10 times (yay for tippytoes :) ).

He yelled for a bit, which just made me cry, but he was just freaked out that I’d gone out by myself alone at night.  He was such a softie and picked me up in his arms the moment my lip began to tremble. He let me hang on to him while we both tried to calm ourselves down. He asked me why I came and I told him everything … from Father hating me to Daddy crying when he thought no one could hear him.  Then I said the words that I had wanted to say for a long time. 

“Can I live with you, Dad?! I promise I’ll be good.”   

He couldn’t say anything… just burst into tears and held me close. He carried me upstairs and got me settled in his bed before he went to call Daddy.

Everyone always cried around me,  I was used to it, and when Daddy showed up he cried for the longest time, but I liked when he held me close like that. He was still crying when I fell asleep hugging Uncle Mitch’s cuddly old cat while they talked. 

The next day Daddy sat me down on Uncle Mitch’s couch and kneeled down to my level in front of me.  He told me that he and Father were going to be living apart from now on, but the choice was mine who I wanted to stay with.  He’d given Triple A the same choice and they chose to stay with Father, unsurprisingly. I think it hurt him when I said I wanted to stay with Uncle Mitch, that I wanted him to be my new dad, but I quickly amended and let him know that I wanted us to live with Uncle Mitch.

He started to tell me that he wished we could, but Uncle Mitch interrupted and told him that we were staying with him…  he wouldn’t take no for an answer..

And we did.

My life changed then. I went from constant tears to constant laughter and happiness. For the first time in my life I felt truly wanted and loved. I felt like I belonged. I finally had a family, not just half of one.

Uncle Mitch tried to discourage it at first, when I would call him Dad, but eventually he just let it go and the title of Uncle fell away forever.  I went from one dad to two. It was pretty amazing being able to  find myself after that.  I didn’t worry about trying to fit in or be what someone else wanted me to be.  I was able to discover the real me, and the real me isn’t so bad after all. 

Now when I look in the mirror I’m not ashamed of my brown hair, or my dimples or my complexion. I’m proud to have my Daddy’s blue eyes, my Dad’s flawless lashes and brows, my Daddy’s weird nose and my Dad’s petite frame. I really got the best of both worlds.

I’m turning 16 soon, and I still call them Dad and Daddy. Dad still lets me get away with pretty much anything, Daddy still stares at Dad when he thinks he’s not looking.

They’re married now, and still so super weird, but I like it that way. 

Father tried to come back once, tried to make amends, but by then I was 12 and I barely even remembered him and what I did remember was all bad. He’d never been a parent to me, not really. It was ok though, because after that I went to Dad and I asked him if he would ever adopt me.

He cried and hugged me, told me I was the most important thing in his life and even though he didn’t really need a piece of paper to tell him that I was his daughter, that he would absolutely adopt me.

And he did.

I love my Dad and one day when I find someone I want them to be like him, kind and smart and loving, but also as funny and creative as my Daddy.

I want someone to look at me the way Daddy always looks at Dad…  someone to fuss over me and plan little surprises for me like Dad does for Daddy. 

I want to have kids one day and I want to be as important to them as my dads  are to me.

So yes, my name is Rylee and I have 2 dads. It’s weird, but not really. They love me and they love each other. 

They’re my family.

So no, not so strange after all.