The Empirical Law | ✓

20: The Other Secret

My heart twisted and I reached out again, stroking a soothing hand up and down his back like he had once done for me, the first time he had ever seen me cry. He had comforted me beyond measure and I was here to do the same. I had promised him.

"It's okay, sweetheart," I assured him. "Just let it out."

There was no reply as Bruce removed his hands from his face before covering his mouth with his hand. "I can't take it anymore," he confessed, his eyes trained ahead of him, not daring to glance at me.

"It's okay, Bruce," I said again. "I can't imagine what you're feeling. It must be hard losing someone you love. I can't imagine that. It's okay. It's absolutely okay."

He shook his head furiously, still refusing to look my way, his eyes fixed intently on the window above the kitchen sink. "I can't," he choked out, tension coiling in his shoulders. "I can't do this."

"Do what, Bruce? Mourn your mother's loss? I bet Ellie was a wonderful person in the short time you had gotten to know her and—"

"Oh God, shut up!" Bruce yelled and I jumped in surprise, springing back from him. "You're just making me feel worse."

"Oh," I muttered, my eyes prickling as my heart sunk. "I didn't realise that my comforting you was making you feel worse." The hurt in my voice couldn't be held back.

"No, no, no!" Bruce said desperately as he finally turned, grabbing my hands in his. "I didn't mean it like that. I just... I can't keep doing this."

"Doing what, Bruce?" I exasperated. I was beyond confused. Was this something about the grief he felt towards his biological's mother's passing or something else entirely?

He looked at me with confliction, many emotions whizzing past those brown eyes of his. "I—I lied, Madilyn."

Those words were all it took for confusion, anger and betrayal to rip through me as I drew back into my chair and stared at him unbelievingly. "What?" I sputtered.

He swivelled in his chair and he looked back to the window above the kitchen sink. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

I was still very much confused but the fact that he had lied to me was slowly settling in and my anger began to rise. "What are you talking about, Bruce?"

"Her name's not Ellie." A pregnant silence followed before he dropped the bomb. "Her name is Elisabeth. Elisabeth Hawse."

Time stood still as my heart rate slowed, my mind blanking as I merely stared at the man who sat before me. At the man who told me a devastating story about his mother. At the man who lied to me all this time.

"I don't understand," I breathed. "You told me that you met this woman, your biological mother, in October, was it?" He nodded. "And I mentioned my friend Elisabeth in December when I wanted to visit her. You said you couldn't come but you didn't want to come because she was there. Bruce... Why didn't you want to come that day? You looked nervous and partially scared when I told you that I was going to see Elisabeth for the first since we got together. You've been lying to me all this time." All my thoughts came spurting out of my mouth and I could make little sense of them. "Why?"

"Do you remember last weekend when I told you that I didn't know how to tell you about her without sounding like an arse?" Bruce asked, his eyes not once glancing my way.

"Yes, and I said there would be no reason for you to sound like an arse but I'm already retracting what I said that night," I replied sharply, curiosity still very much alive within my system.

He sighed but still refused to look at me. His eyes moved from the window over the kitchen sink to the plate of cold scrambled eggs in front of him but not to me. "When I met Elisabeth she was amazing. I asked for her life story and she promised to be honest with me about every detail. She said she only shared every detail with two people, her mother and her husband, but what use was depriving her son of the details?" He laughed but sounded scared. I could only see the side of his face but I was well aware of the tears building up in his eyes with how course and rough his voice grew, layered with emotions he didn't want to feel. "She told me everything about her life. How she fell into depression, how her husband died in a horrible car accident, how she survived and how her survival was what had taken a toll on her. She told me about you too."