Unspoken Truths

• chapter 5 •

Karen sat at the kitchen table, staring at her cold tea, feeling the weight of Drew's betrayal in every breath. The house was quiet—too quiet. Zara was upstairs, probably sulking or trying to make sense of her place in this fractured family, while Drew paced somewhere in the house, the tension between them growing thicker by the day.

She couldn't take it anymore. The silence between her and Drew had become unbearable. Every word they exchanged felt like a landmine, and she couldn't continue living like this—walking on eggshells, pretending like everything was normal when nothing was.

Karen's thoughts were interrupted by Drew's heavy footsteps descending the stairs. She didn't look up as he entered the kitchen, but she could feel him lingering in the doorway, his presence as tense as hers.

"Karen," Drew said softly, his voice strained, "we need to talk."

She clenched her jaw, refusing to meet his gaze. "Talk? About what, Drew? About how you've managed to shatter everything I believed in? About how you kept a whole part of your life hidden from me?"

Drew took a seat at the table, his hands clasped in front of him. "I know I messed up. I know I hurt you, but we can't keep going like this. We have to figure out how to move forward."

Karen let out a bitter laugh, finally looking up at him. "Move forward? How do you expect me to do that? You've lied to me for sixteen years, Drew. Sixteen years! You let me think we had this perfect life, this perfect marriage, while you were hiding a child from me!"

His face crumpled with guilt, but she wasn't finished. The flood of anger she had been holding back all week surged to the surface, and she couldn't stop it.

"You don't get to decide when we move forward," she continued, her voice rising. "You don't get to sit there and act like we can just talk it out and everything will be fine. This isn't something we can fix with a few conversations. This is years of lies, Drew. Years of deception. And now you've brought Zara into this mess, and I'm the one stuck picking up the pieces."

"I never meant for it to be like this," Drew said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I thought... I thought I could handle it. I didn't want to hurt you."

"You didn't want to hurt me?" Karen scoffed, her voice sharp. "Well, congratulations, because you've done more than hurt me. You've destroyed everything I thought I knew about our marriage."

She stood up abruptly, her hands trembling as she gripped the back of the chair. "I need to get out of here."

"Karen, please," Drew pleaded, standing as well. "Don't go. We can talk about this. We can figure it out."

"Figure it out?" she repeated, her voice dripping with disbelief. "There's nothing to figure out, Drew. I can't be here right now. I can't look at you without seeing the lies. I need space."

Drew's eyes widened in panic. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know," she snapped, grabbing her purse and jacket from the counter. "Anywhere but here."

Drew reached out, his hand brushing her arm, but she pulled away, the touch too much for her frayed nerves. "Karen, please don't leave like this. We can't fix anything if you just walk out."

She paused for a moment, her chest heaving as she tried to rein in the storm of emotions raging inside her. "I need time, Drew. I can't do this right now. I'm not ready to have these conversations, and I'm definitely not ready to play happy family for Zara's sake."

With that, she turned and walked out the door, not looking back. The cool night air hit her like a slap, but she welcomed it. Anything was better than the suffocating tension inside the house.

As she drove away, the weight of her decision pressed down on her, but she knew she had made the right choice. She needed space—time to think, time to feel, and time to figure out if she could ever forgive Drew for the years of lies that had torn their life apart.

But right now, she wasn't ready to face any of that. Right now, all she could do was run.