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He glares at me, and then suddenly he looks resolute. “Tell her, Delilah, or I will.”

“If you tell Maddie, I’ll tell….”

My voice trails off, but I’m sure he hears my unfinished sentence. A sentence that I don’t dare speak out loud because it’s vile and malicious, manipulative and untrue, but if it means protecting Maddie from finding out the truth before she’s old enough to comprehend everything, I’ll say it. I’ll speak the words I wouldn’t ever be able to take back.

“If you tell Maddie, I’ll tell the world you slept with a student, got her pregnant, and left her behind.”

He pales. It’s like I’ve literally watched the life drain out of him. He doesn’t say a word, just storms out of the living room and disappears into the bedroom. I stand, motionless, near the front door, listening to the sounds of him banging around in the bedroom. I wait until his footsteps return to the living room. He pauses by the front door for a moment, his bag in his hands.

I can’t look at him. I feel like those first weeks, all those years ago, when I could never bring myself to meet his gaze. There’s a voice in my head, screaming at me to apologise. To tell him I would never really say that lie. To beg him to understand that I just want to protect Maddie, let her grow up and experience her teenage years in a way I never could. To understand that I chose to give her a better life than I had, and a better life than I could ever give her myself. I want to apologise for everything. For not finding him after he first left me. For taking away his chance of being a father. For not telling him the second he walked into the shop that he has a daughter.

Instead, I say nothing. For the second time, Joseph Wakefield walks out of my life, except this time I’m there to watch him leave, and I don’t do a damn thing to stop him.

The door slams behind him. It echoes off the walls, sounding like a death knell to everything.

It takes me a couple of minutes to come back to the present, to think about what I need to do. Logical things. Deal with the cooking he was doing—the smell of the food is suddenly nauseating. Tidy up. Remove all existence that he was ever here. Scrub away the evidence so I can block it from my mind, pretend like it never existed. Text Felix and tell him he was right about everything.

I go through all the steps robotically. I throw away the dinner he’s made, turn off the oven, and clean up the kitchen. Then I walk through to the bedroom. The only thing that even gives a hint at his stay here is a scribbled note on my bedside table.

Fuck you. But if my daughter ever needs me, you have my number.

There’s an email address jotted at the bottom.

I sink to my bed. I let the tears roll freely, and I allow myself to wallow in the pain he’s made me feel over the years. The absence. The ghosting. The fear I felt when I realised I was pregnant.

The hopelessness I felt knowing that, yet again, I wasn’t good enough for somebody to stay and love me, and the acknowledgement that I wanted more than that for my child.

More than I ever had. More than I could ever give her myself.

I don’t know how long I’m on the bed before I hear the approaching footsteps. There’s a fleeting second where I hope it’s Joseph, but then I realise it’s Felix. He kicks off his shoes and shrugs out of his jacket before getting onto the bed on the opposite side to where I’m sitting. He pulls me down to lie on the bed with him, and he wraps his arms around me. His arms feel like a fortress of protection, steady and unwavering.

That’s when I allow the tears to spill properly. They run freely down my face, my body shaking with the strength of my sobs.

“You were right,” I cry.

“Doesn’t mean I wanted to be,” he murmurs. He kisses the top of my head.

“He looked so broken, and so angry. He threatened to tell her the truth.”

“He won’t,” he promises. “He’s angry and needs time to process. He’ll either come back to talk, or he’ll disappear into the ether again, like he was never here. But he won’t tell Maddie.”

He sounds so sure that Joseph won’t ruin Maddie’s life by trying to track her down and tell her that he’s her father. He’s less sure about what else will happen, and I can’t decide what I want anyway. Would I want Joseph to come back, to talk and for us to plan a way forwards? Do I want him to disappear, taunting me via magazine interviews about his wonderful life as I think about how everything unfolded between us, exploded not once, but twice?

I don’t know what I want. But I fear, no matter what I eventually settle upon, it won’t make a difference. I’m sure he’s gone. He’s walked out again, unable to forgive my deception, and he won’t be back.

“I’m such an idiot.” I weep and sniffle in Felix’s arms. He shifts his position a little so he can look at me properly.

“Yeah, you’re an idiot, but I’m the only one who is allowed to point out your flaws because I say it with love.”

I cry a little harder, grateful that Felix never judges me too harshly. He always supported my decision about giving Maddie away, though more than once, he offered to be her stand-in father and help raise her with me. I knew it would be too much for both of us, and that at some point, he could resent his decision. Instead, we’ve both loved Maddie from the roles we’ve been allocated—reckless older half-sister, surrogate cool honorary uncle.

Once, when I’d had too many espresso martinis and he’d had far too many White Russians, I asked him whether I was diabolical to keep Maddie’s existence a secret from Joseph. I asked him how he would feel if he had ever had sex with a woman and found out she’d kept a pregnancy a secret.

“I support a woman’s right to choose,” he’d slurred through the alcohol. Then he’d smiled and told me he was my ride-or-die, and nothing—no action or decision I made—could ever change that.

The only time Felix has ever given me a strong opinion was at brunch the day he saw Joseph again, when he begged me not to see him because it opened the risk about Maddie. “End things before this blows up in your face. You don’t need him. A relationship with him is not worth risking Maddie’s peace.”

I feel so stupid because I’ve protected Maddie’s peace, but it’s cost me my own. I played with fire and got burnt by the matches I lit.