Hearing his father's answer, Seamus could only laugh. In the end, Andrew still chose to keep everything buried instead of being honest.
"Why would I stay with someone who keeps secrets from me?" Seamus asked, his voice sharp and shaking.
"What if one day you decide being a father is too much and throw me away again?"
His teeth clenched, the sound cutting through the silence.
He took a step closer, voice rising with each word. "After all, isn't it safer with the Velstrath than with you?"
In his whole life, his father had never truly looked at him. Maybe Andrew was afraid of what he would see: a reminder of his failures, or perhaps the ghost of Alice.
They shared the same face, the same eyes that Andrew could not bear to see.
He had thrown away everything connected to her—letters, photographs, every trace of her existence—maybe to protect his broken heart.
But Seamus was something he could not throw away, so he abandoned him instead.
