“Lucas,” I say, finally looking at him, “do you love her?”
He shakes his head quickly.
“Not the way you’re thinking,” he says. “I cared about her. I was drawn to her, but I could never understand why it felt so intense and so… wrong at the same time. I thought it was just guilt or confusion. Then I saw those test results. I saw the dates. And I realized that the pull I felt wasn’t what I thought it was. It was family. It was something I never had words for.”
He looks at Claire.
“I should have talked to you in private,” he says to her. “I tried. I called. I sent messages. I asked if we could meet. I didn’t want to ruin the wedding. I just wanted you to know the truth, because you deserved that much.”
Claire presses her lips together.
“I saw your messages,” she admits. “I thought you were trying to tell me you had feelings for me. I didn’t know what to do with that. So I avoided you. I told myself it would go away.”
Lucas closes his eyes for a moment.
“The wedding,” he says, “was the only moment I knew everyone would be in the same room and no one could run. I thought if I made it public, the truth would finally come out, and you would get answers. I told myself it was the only way.”
He looks at me, and his voice breaks.
“I was thinking about you, too,” he says. “I didn’t want to start our life together with a lie hiding between our families. I thought if we dragged it into the light, we could somehow grow past it. I told myself you would eventually understand. I see now how unfair that was. I made a decision that wasn’t only mine to make.”
For a long time, no one speaks.
