"You're lying," I spat, the words jagged and sharp like broken glass. I wanted them to draw blood, to pierce through whatever armor of justification he'd built around himself over the years. I wanted him to feel even a fraction of the raw, skinless agony I'd lived with for two and a half decades.
"It's too clean, Charles. It's too perfect. The tragic hero who leaves his pregnant lover to save her? That's a movie plot. That's a story you tell yourself at night so you can sleep in this... this museum of a house while I was counting pennies for milk!"
My voice cracked on the last word, betraying the tears I refused to let fall. The tremor in my hands betrayed me too, and I clenched them into fists to hide the shaking.
