Page 45 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“I’m telling you the truth,” I interrupt before my mother can continue. “Or I’m trying to tell you the truth, but you’re not listening to me.”

My father doesn’t care. I hear that in the speed of his answer when he says, “The truth is, you got a girl pregnant, and now there’s a child involved. Everything else is you trying to dodge responsibility.”

I swallow hard enough that it hurts. “I am taking responsibility!” I exclaim. “I’m raising her after her mother decided she didn’t want to be one.”

My mother actually starts crying then, and the sound of it should hurt in the familiar way. Instead, it feels distant, almost secondary to the roaring in my ears.

Dad keeps going. “The child exists, that is the fact in front of us. And if the child exists, the proper thing to do is obvious.”

I know what he’s going to say before he says it.

“You marry her,” he says.

I laugh once, because the alternative is screaming. “What?”

“You made a child with that girl, whether you’re upset about the circumstances or not. You marry her. You give that child a proper family. You fix this before it gets uglier.”

For the first time since the call began, I feel something other than panic rise strong and certain in me. The thought of Mila anywhere near Celeste and her family, after everything, makes something savage in me bare its teeth.

“I am not marrying her,” I scoff. “She abandoned Mila and left her on my doorstep. Restraining order papers are being filed. There’s a legal record of the circumstances. Dad, I’m not marrying her.”

I switch the phone to the other hand and press the heel of my free palm against my forehead.

“A baby needs both parents, Eli,” my mother cuts in, weeping harder now.

“A baby needs safety,” I snap, and the sharpness in my voice surprises even me. “Mila needs to be safe.”

“What she needs,” my father says, every word thick with contempt now, “is not to be raised in a godless circus house full of strangers because her father is too proud to correct a mistake.”

The insult lands on the Sin Bin first, but I hear the real target underneath it. Me. My life. My choices. Everything I became away from home.

“This isn’t about pride,” I say. “I am not marrying a woman who left my daughter and may have raped me.”

“Eli, stop saying that,” my mother says, horrified.

“Why?” My voice breaks on the word. “Because it’s ugly? It happened to me, your only fucking son, and you want me to not say it?”

“You do not know that it happened,” my father says.

“I know I didn’t consent—!”

“You know no such thing. What you know is that a child has been born from your irresponsibility. What you know is that you have brought shame onto yourself and this family. What you know is that there is still one path to setting this right, and you are refusing it because you would rather hide behind absurd accusations than act like a man.”

Something in me gives way—this quiet internal crack, like a bone finally taking too much weight.

“Eli,” my mother says my name again, “If you marry her, people will understand. There can still be some kind of order.”

I stare through the windshield again, and see Julian turn toward the front windows. He can’t hear any of this, but something in me wants him there so badly that it aches.

“If you refuse, then you are making your choice,” my father continues when I don’t respond. “We will not support this arrangement. We will not support that child being raised out of wedlock in disgrace. You marry the mother by next month, or you are no son of mine. You will be disowned completely.”

I honestly think I misheard him; the words are too monstrous to fit cleanly into meaning. My mouth opens, and nothing comes out.

My mother doesn’t correct him. She doesn’t gasp or protest or say anything that would soften the edge of it. There’s just this horrible, loaded silence where I realize she agrees. Or if she doesn’t, she’s willing to let him say it for both of them.

“Are you being serious right now?” My voice is barely there.

“You heard me,” he says. “You will not drag this family through disgrace and expect our blessing while you play house with a bastard child and hide from your responsibilities.”