“You lost a child!” The fierce voice of the man from my past shakes the silence.
“You said you lost a child!”
“I didn’t say that. You thought it up yourself,” I agree, feeling neither fear nor trembling toward him the way I used to.
“Was this child mine?” In a matter of seconds he is right there, forcing me to press my back to a cold wall.
“You have nothing to do with my son, Gradov,” I shake my head. “Better deal with your wife. And never show up in my life again.”
I made a mistake back then—in another moment of trusting this man. But he lied to me, and I answered in kind by hiding the son from him.
❃❃❃❃❃❃
In the distant past Matvey Gradov left me without any explanation, breaking my heart into tiny shards. And a few years later he returned to my life again, intending to do the same thing. Like a naive girl, I trusted him once again—but the second time he betrayed me, concealing the cruel truth. And I responded the same way—by hiding the son from him.
Backstory: “Your (not) beloved.”