The Unspoken Truth

The room felt cramped. Every syllable that left Maxwell's mouth tightened the hold he had on me, so the walls appeared to close in with every passing instant. Breathing was impossible. Not from the air but from the truth's weight. The truth I had been avoiding for three years.

Maxwell's gaze pierced me; his jaw was tight with anger. "You've kept this from me for three years," he cried, his voice barely controlled and his words cutting like a knife. Sophia, I merit the truth.

My voice was parched, my hands shaking as I attempted to find the words to clarify something I was not prepared to discuss. Something that would alter all. "I... I didn't know how to tell you," I mumbled, the words coming out fractured. "I assumed you wouldn't be interested to know. That it would... destroy everything.

Maxwell's look became steely, his face changing from bewilderment to rage. You believe I wouldn't like to know? Though his voice was quiet, the rage in it was clear. "You believe I wouldn't have wanted to be there for him?"

The shame eating at me made me shake my head. The last three years flew by in front of me, filled with late-night infant cries, great Maxwell's universe consuming us entire dread. I had believed I was safeguarding Marcus. I believed I was rescuing him from an uncontrollable circumstance. But now, looking at Maxwell, I see how incorrect I had been.

I said softly, hardly audible, "You don't get it." It wasn't supposed to be like way for his life or mine. I didn't want him to grow up in a society where he would constantly be second. Where your family and all you created would always come before him.

Maxwell came closer; his presence was overpowering, yet I couldn't get away. "You believed keeping him from me was preferable?" Fists at his sides, he spat. Sophia, you made that choice for me.

The burden of his remarks sinking in made my heart pound in my chest. Though I had chosen to save him, I had taken away his father and family. I had been self-centered.

I... I cannot say. My voice broke as tears began to well up in the back of my eyes. "I cannot."

Maxwell's expression grew more serious as his annoyance mounted by the second without a response. In three quick strides, he traversed the room to close the gap between us. His eyes fixed on me and I could see the unfiltered rage, the hurt of treachery I had never wished to cause.

"You believe I wouldn't have been present?" His words sliced through the stillness that had settled between us, his voice cracking like a whip. You believe I would have left my son?

I could not respond to him. Every word he spoke felt like a gut punch and I had no defense. The reality was intolerable. But how could I have articulated the dread that had pushed me to choose that path? How could I have said to him that his world, the one he had created, was precisely what I had to protect our son from?

Why not let me know? Maxwell insisted, moving even closer. "Why didn't you let me be there for him?"

His face was a maelstrom, a flurry of feelings I couldn't even start to read. There was pain, rage, and something more profound that caused my heart to ache. I wanted to tell him all, to finally come clean and reveal the weight I had carried for so long. But I was unable to. Not at this time.

Maxwell, I couldn't. My words came out choked, and I shook my head. You don't get it. I believed I was acting correctly. I hoped it would save him.

"Save him?" Maxwell's tone was one of skepticism. Sofia, you didn't save him. You excluded me. You excluded us.

The term made me wince. We. There was no longer any "us." Not after all we had been through. But when I looked at him, really looked at him, I understood I had never stopped loving him even when I believed he had caused us loss.

I said softly, my voice cracking, "I didn't know how to let you in."

Maxwell's words lingered in the air, a crushing burden I could not shake. I shut my eyes and found myself back in that hospital room. Pregnant, alone, and terrified.

The evening I discovered. The night my universe collapsed.

Maxwell, I said under my breath as the memory unfolded like a cruel joke, "I can't bring him into your world. I believed I was rescuing him.

I recalled sitting in the clean white room, hands shaking as I examined the test. The astonishment, the skepticism. Then came the great dread of what this pregnancy might signify. What it would imply for me, for Maxwell, for the future I had once envisioned. Sitting there with my heart full of doubt, one thing was obvious: I couldn't let our kid grow up in the shadow of his world. A world of expectations, danger, and power I could not tolerate for him.

Maxwell's family was a natural force. His mother, frigid and calculated, would not let our son or me go undetected. Deep down, I understood that being with Maxwell meant I would never really be able to leave that environment. It would devour us, devour me.

So I decided. The only choice I believed I could take.

I sprinted.

Walking out of that hospital still stung in memory. Maxwell's expression as I left his life forever. I believed it to be for the best. I believed I was acting correctly.

But now, facing him, I was unsure any more. The anxiety that had before motivated me to defend Marcus seemed insignificant next to the love I now witnessed in Maxwell's eyes.

I believed I was saving him, Maxwell, " I said again, almost inaudibly. I was just trying to save him.

But as the words left my lips, I understood I had destroyed us all in my effort to save him.

Our stillness was suffocating. Once a comfort, Maxwell's presence now seemed like a silent charge. As he processed all I had just disclosed, I could feel the muscles in his jaw tightening. His lips thinned to a line, and for a brief time, I believed he might turn and leave. Still, he did not. He stood there, directly in front of me, as though waiting for anything more.

Sophia, you ought to have informed me. His voice was tight; the pain beneath it was clear. I would have been there... for you... for him.

My throat was parched as I fought to remain calm. I didn't want to witness the pain in his gaze. I didn't want to deal with the repercussions of what I had withheld from him. But I had no choice. We both accomplished it.

"I didn't want to bother you," I said quietly, my hands shaking in my lap. Maxwell, your world is risky. It's a world I couldn't allow Marcus to share.

Maxwell moved closer, his gaze tightening as though to grasp the riddle that was me. “So, instead of telling me, you ran? You believed you could manage all by yourself? Now his voice was calmer, gentler but tinged with skepticism. I was never in your strategy, right?

I could not look at him. My hands were trembling and I couldn't articulate the terror that had engulfed me, how the idea of exposing Marcus to his family's empire, one constructed on manipulation and control, had gnawed at me from the inside out.

"I didn't want to see you caught between your son and your family," I admitted, my voice cracking. I believed I was safeguarding him. I believed I was safeguarding us.

Maxwell's expression lightened, but his eye melancholy remained. Sophie, you were never alone in this. Once full of rage, his voice now reflected regret. But now we are both suffering.

Eyes shut, I felt tears about to fall. This was it, the time all had come crashing down. He was aware. There was now no turning back.

I could not see him. The words suffocated us both, hanging thick in the air. Looking down, I tried to control my feelings from overflowing. Maxwell was correct. He was never alone in this, but I had made him believe he was. When all he wanted was to be there for me, there for us, I had driven him away.

The distance between us seemed endless; the quiet went on till it turned into a palpable presence pushing me down. Every pulse was a reminder of how much time I had squandered, so I could hear my own heartbeat. Of how much we had both lost out on.

My speech was raspy, so I eventually confessed, "I don't know what to say." Maxwell, I never meant to harm you. Every action I took was motivated by my belief that it was the only means of safeguarding him.

Maxwell was silent. His body tight, he simply stood there observing me. His gaze was on me, like though a thousand questions were simmering under the surface. About everything, I had kept him in the dark for so long. Now, all of it was becoming visible.

My voice soft, I added, "I never wanted to be a part of your world." "But you, you made it difficult for me to forget that you are a part of mine.

Maxwell's eyes stayed on me as he gently exhaled. I never wanted to be involved in the world you dreaded. I only wanted to be with you. His voice broke and I finally saw the guy behind the CEO, the guy behind the barriers he had erected.

You still have a decision, he gently stated. But I won't stop supporting him, Sophia. He is my son.

His words drowned everything else like a wave. Those six words sent everything crashing down: the struggle, the barriers, the distance we had maintained apart. I had no idea what to say back. I wanted to tell him everything, but the dread still held me. The dread of what that reality would cost us both.

But I could no longer reject it.

He was correct.

Though the quiet between us was intolerable, I knew deep inside that Maxwell was not going anywhere. And I wasn't either.