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“For my sake!” she cried, clutching her hands into fists. “For my sake! Do you claim the fault lies with me? You are the one that claims you will not marry due to some deep-rooted promise to yourself! You think nothing of me by perpetuating this fantasy of yours. You claim to love me, but in truth, you are simply afraid!”
“I am not the one that is afraid,” he argued. “Rather, you should be. You should be afraid of me and the husband I would be. In my blood, courses the rage and anger of the man that raised me, a man that would beat his innocent wife and young child. I will not marry because I will never subject a woman I loved to that life. I will not perpetuate the lineage of a man who did not deserve to live.”
Lydia felt her rage dissipating, replaced with a horror at his words. Taken aback, she asked, “What on earth are you talking about?”
He took a deep sigh, turning away from her as he ran his hands through his hair. “Exactly what I said. I made that promise to myself, knowing that I am my father’s son. I feel anger and rage, and I fear, with one too many drinks, with a broken heart, or destitution, I could be driven to violence as my father had been. I will never, ever, allow myself to raise a hand to a woman that I claimed to love. The only way that I could ever protect her would be for her to never exist at all.”
“This is madness,” Lydia breathed. “That is not how this works at all.”
“You do not know me that well.”
“Everyone gets angry sometimes,” she argued, reaching to touch his arm. “Michael, everyone has feelings. Not every man acts violently. I see kindness in you, goodness in your heart. There is no way that you would be that man.”
“Then it is all the better for me to leave you with that impression of me.”
