It isn’t that you lacked the opportunity to confess.

You bet your whole life that I was too stupid to find out, and that even if I did, I was too weak and too dependent to pack a bag and leave — that your mother would gaslight me into staying for the sake of the family.

You lost the bet.” His shoulders caved in as it landed.

Before he stood to go, he looked at me with a last flicker of desperate hope.

“If you hadn’t figured out how to put all that on the screen last night… if you’d just confronted me quietly in the kitchen… would you have given me a chance to fix it?” I didn’t need to think.

“No.” “Why?” “Because the screen wasn’t what made me leave you,” I said.