Just sitting across from me at the kitchen table, hands flat on the wood like he needed to feel something solid to stay upright.
“I won’t justify it,” he said.
That was new.
“I won’t blame grief. Or pride. Or Sophia. I made choices. And those choices broke us.”
I didn’t answer right away. I studied his face—the lines that hadn’t been there before, the exhaustion that no amount of sleep ever erased. This wasn’t the man who betrayed me.
This was the man after betrayal finally stopped lying to himself.
“I don’t need you to punish yourself,” I said quietly. “I need you to tell me the truth without trying to control how I react.”
He swallowed. Hard.
“I was afraid,” he said. “Not of you. Of what I became after we lost the baby. I didn’t recognize myself. And instead of letting you see th
