Amelia Linton stormed out of the living room in anger, leaving only Fabian Holmes and Theodore Holmes, a father and son, sitting in silence.
The atmosphere in the living room, although no longer as tense as before, had turned somewhat awkward.
"Dad! Now that mom’s gone, can you just be honest with me?" After a brief silence, Theodore was the first to speak, and his words made Fabian’s tense nerves even tighter.
From the very beginning, Fabian intended to keep Theodore’s true origins a secret, and even now, faced with such a situation, he had no plans to reveal the truth.
Once the truth of that year came out, it wouldn’t just affect the two of them; it would impact their entire family of four, and could even involve his father-in-law.
Fabian took a deep breath to ease his tense nerves, then turned to look at Theodore beside him, "Son! Haven’t we treated you well all these years? You’re hurting us by pressuring us like this."
They had gone to great lengths to keep the secret of that year, but in the end, their own son was forcing them to find his biological parents, dragging the innocent older son into it as well.
"I’m not pressuring you and mom, but I’m desperate to know back then... how my biological parents abandoned me?" Theodore paused when he spoke of that year; it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to say it, but rather he replaced the words about to come out of his mouth with something else.
Fabian’s brow furrowed slightly, but immediately returned to normal, "Your parents didn’t abandon you; they had an accident and couldn’t continue to be with you."
He was doing everything he could to conceal the truth of that year.
"They had an accident?! What kind of accident?" Surprise and disbelief were all that showed on Theodore’s sunlit face at first, but were soon replaced by confusion and puzzlement. "Didn’t you just say you weren’t familiar with them? Then how do you know they had an accident? Unless I’m mistaken, you also said they died of natural causes earlier."
He promptly noticed and pointed out the inconsistency in his father’s explanation of the same event.
Hearing this, Fabian cried out inwardly, realizing he had been careless, giving inconsistent statements, and inadvertently digging a pit for himself.
This kid had truly grown up and become meticulous.
It looked like he needed to change the way he interacted with him, no longer treating him like a child, nor regarding him as one.
"I only heard it from others; as for what truly happened, I’m not really clear," Fabian paused before continuing, "Earlier, being pressured like that, I didn’t know how to explain it to you."
It wasn’t because of being pressured, but rather not knowing how to reveal the truth from back then. The crucial point was that he couldn’t reveal it.
Theodore blurted out, "Just tell the truth."
He looked at his father sitting next to him, and by then, the surprise and disbelief on his face had vanished, leaving no trace of confusion or doubt.
Telling the truth—there was nothing wrong with that statement.
But could Fabian afford to be honest? Clearly, he couldn’t, because he couldn’t gamble on what telling the truth would lead to.