I take a deep breath to gather my strength. My palms are sweating, my heart hammering, but I hold his gaze. I've run for too long—now I can't back down.
"I want you to have the same share in raising our child as I do." The words leave me trembling, but at the same time… relieved.
Petr's eyes widen, locking onto my belly. For a second, the silence in the room is deafening. Then his lips part, and in a low voice that sends a shiver through me, he says only:
"So… it's our child."
His gaze doesn't lift. He stares at the curve of my stomach as though he's seeing proof of a prayer he never thought would be answered. For a heartbeat, I think he might laugh, or collapse, or rage. But instead, Petr does the last thing I expect.
He moves. Slowly, almost cautiously, he comes around the desk. And before I can step back, before I can remind myself of the hurt, his arms are around me. Strong, unshakable, desperate.
I stiffen, caught between fury and longing. But the sound that escapes him—a quiet, broken exhale against my shoulder—cracks something inside me.
At first I freeze, my hands pressed awkwardly against his chest, my mind screaming at me to resist. To remember every sleepless night, every unanswered question, every wound I carried alone. But then… I feel it.
The way his body trembles. The way he clings to me like a drowning man clutching his last chance to breathe. And suddenly, I can't hold back anymore. My arms wrap around him with a force I didn't know I still had in me.
Tears blur my vision, hot and endless, but for the first time in months they don't fall from loneliness or anger—they fall from release. From the terrifying truth that, despite everything, I still love him.
"I'm sorry," he whispers into my hair, and the words shatter me.
"I know," I breathe, my voice cracking as I press myself closer, burying my face against him.
For the first time, I let go of the fight. I let myself imagine us—not broken, not torn apart by doubt, but together. Raising our child. Facing the future.
And in that fragile, stolen moment, I believe it's possible.