Just like that, I know.
She lied to me. She told me she’d cheated—that she was pregnant by Brad.
But the child was never Brad’s.
It was always mine.
Fury rises through me. The thought of Mia pulling the same shit with me that she pulled with Brad is enough to make me lose my goddamn mind.
“You kept it from me.” I’ve never heard my own voice sound like this. Like it could kill with words alone. “You would have kept it from me forever.”
“Look,” she says, “I can explain?—”
“Damn right you’re going to explain,” I answer. “Because that’smy childin there, and you didn’t fucking tell me!”
Her lips quiver. I get ready for the slew of excuses she must have prepared, each one cheaper than the last.
But that’s not what comes out.
I watch it happen in slow motion. First, her mouth loses shape, trembling, failing. Her cheeks color with shame, brighter than I’ve ever seen them, pink like raw skin. Her eyes fill with tears. A single sob breaks out of her throat.
Then she throws herself into my arms.
For a second, I’m paralyzed. Is this a trick? Another manipulation? Does she think she’ll get out of this so easily?
But then Ifeelit. Her body shaking, her chest heaving. This is real. Her pain, her regret—it’s all real.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, words smothered into my shirt. Her nails are clawing at the fabric, holding on, like she’s terrified of what will happen if she doesn’t. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to—you weren’t there, and he had agun to his head,and I just couldn’t?—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask. “Who? What gun?”
“Brad,” she says with a sob. “He—he threatened Eli. With a gun. I didn’t have a choice, I?—”
A gun.
Clarity returns to me.
Then, close at its heels, shame.
Brad held a gun to Eli’s head. Is that what Mia’s been trying to tell me? Is that what I’ve been missing?
Isthatwhat was happening that night?
Suddenly, I’m back in that house. I’m standing in front of Mia, first begging, then furious. Buying every lie she’s feeding me.
And her eyes keep darting past me.
Was Brad there the whole time? Holding his own son at gunpoint, forcing Mia to come up with lies to save his life?
The shame multiplies. My self-righteousness melts away like cheap wax. All I can think about is that night, the way I left things.
The way I leftthem.
I should have stayed. I should have fucking stayed.
“I’m so sorry, Yulian,” she keeps sobbing, over and over again. Her body’s shaking, her lungs gasping for breath between one word and the next. She’s fucking drowning. “He told me you were working together— He, he said— I didn’t want to believe him, but you’d lied to me, and I couldn’t— I didn’t know who to trust?—”
Every incoherent word digs into my chest. Because she’s right, isn’t she? I’d lied to her. I’d put her in danger. Whatever lie that motherfucker told her, it must have sounded plausible. She couldn’t rule it out.
