Page 188 of Sexting the Pakhan

I laugh once, short and sharp. “I left? That’s your version?”

“You were pregnant.”

“You sent me away.”

His jaw tightens. “Because I thought it was over.”

“It wasn’t your decision to make.”

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.”

There it is again. That honesty that should help and doesn’t.

I step toward him before I can stop myself. “You don’t get to stand here and act wounded that I didn’t hand you the truth after you threw me out like a loose end.”

His voice stays low. “I threw you out to keep you alive.”

“You don’t get points for intent.”

“I might if it worked.”

The cruelty of that makes me stare.

Then I say, quieter and more dangerous, “Do not ever say that to me.”

He hears it. Good.

In the kitchen, Mila calls, “Mama, Nadia is hiding the good spoons!”

I close my eyes for one second and answer, “No one is hiding spoons.”

Nadia calls back, “I’m organizing them.”

I turn back to Ruslan. “This is what I mean. This is my life. I can’t do this with you in the same voice I use for them.”

He looks past me, toward the kitchen, then back at me. “You should have told me.”

I let out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “When? Tell me when. After you told me to leave? After I took the test alone? After I saw two heartbeats and realized my entire life had just split in half? Which moment sounds best to you?”

His face changes at that.

I keep going because I can’t stop now. “You don’t know anything about what came after. You don’t know how sick I was. You don’t know how terrified I was. You don’t know how many lies I had to tell just to make it through the first year. I was trying to keep them safe, and I didn’t trust you to be the sort of man who makes safety simpler.”

His eyes stay on mine. “Was I wrong?”

The question catches me off guard.

I look at his leg. The bandage. The limp. The men in masks. The apartment I can’t go back to.

“No,” I say.

The truth of it hurts both of us.

Mila appears at the kitchen doorway with a cereal box in her hands. “Are you fighting?”

We both look at her. Children always know.

“No,” I say too quickly.