“You watched her struggle to raise Jake.”
“I know.”
“And all this time, you kept building your career.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I thought I could make it right eventually.”
I felt tears gathering, but I refused to let them fall.
“You don’t get to decide that hiding something makes it disappear.”
He looked at me.
“Sarah, I know I made a terrible mistake.”
“It’s not just the money, Tom. It’s the years of silence. It’s the fact that I never knew this part of you existed.”
He took a step toward me.
“Please. I can explain everything.”
I stepped back.
“Not tonight.”
He stopped.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he asked the question I had been dreading.
“Is there something else?”
My heart began pounding.
I could have lied.
I could have let his secret become the only secret in the room.
But I had spent too much of my life avoiding difficult truths.
