"Do you realize," she said, her voice trembling, barely containing the quake beneath her skin, "that while you were in her bed—sharingher bed—confiding in her, playing house like it was some fucking fairytale..."
Her eyes finally met mine, and God, theyburned.
"I was having panic attacks? trying to remember how to breathe. I was at my mother's grave, sobbing into dirt, asking her what I did wrong. What I did to make you stop loving me."
I flinched. Every word hit like a blade.
Chapter Sixteen: Confrontation (2)
"How could you?" she whispered, and it cracked something deep. "How do you just—stop loving someone and move on like that?"
"I didn't stop!" I insisted.
"YES, YOU DID!" she screamed, the dam finally, violently, breaking. "You don't postpone a wedding if you love someone! You don't whisper your pain to someone else. You don't tuck yourself into her bed while the woman who gave you her whole damn heart is wondering why she suddenly doesn't feel good enough!"
Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't wipe them away. She let them fall like fire.
"You confide in the person you love," she choked out. "You fight. You try. You sit down and tell the truth, even when it's ugly. But you didn't do that, Aaron. You walked away. You left for someone else because I was nothing to you."
"You mean everything," I said, voice strangled, tears burning down my own cheeks. "I swear to God, June, I've learned my lesson. I'll never do it again. I'll never betray you again. I'm ready to fix this. Please. Anything you want—just say it."
She cut me off with a voice that could cut diamonds.
"What was the plan, Aaron? Hm? If I'd agreed to the break you so casually hinted at—what then? Would you have dated her while I sat at home waiting for you to figure out if I was still good enough?"
"I... I don't know," I confessed, ashamed, shaking. "I just knew I couldn't lose you, but she... she kept showing up in my head and—"
"YOU WERE BETRAYING ME!" she screamed.
"I know!" I sobbed. "I know. It was a mistake. A coward's mistake. I panicked. I lost myself. But think about it, please—have I ever betrayed you before this? Haven't I spent years showing you how much I love you? "
She nodded. But it wasn't agreement—it was grief.
"yeah, and yet it was not enough apparently." She took a shaky breath and added, "You didn't just break my heart, Aaron. You humiliated me. You made me look like a fool. Like I didn't even know the man I was about to marry.And while you were off losing yourself, I was the one who had to explain to my friends why the wedding was postponed. I was the one canceling cake tastings and sending emails to vendors and telling people who asked that we were 'taking a break'—like we were some teenage summer fling and not two people who were supposed to be building a life together."
Her eyes blazed.
"And you made financial decisions behind my back like I wasn't your partner. Like I was just... what? Some placeholder while you played house with her? You bought stocks, took loans, moved money, adjusted our budget like I wasn't even part of your life—butthenyou shared those details withher? You could open up to your ex-girlfriend, but not your fiancée?"
She laughed bitterly. It was sharp and cold.
"Do you know what that felt like? To be left out of a life I was supposed to be building with you? To realize you trusted someone else with parts of you that were supposed to be mine?"
She shook her head, as if she couldn't believe it herself, her voice breaking open wider with every word.
"We were planning a wedding, Aaron. I was looking at dresses. I was thinking about what kind of flowers we'd have, what song I'd walk down the aisle to. I was picturing our house, our family—our future. And while I was dreaming of forever..."
Her eyes pierced mine, and I knew I'd never forget the look on her face for as long as I lived.
"You were already halfway out the door."
Her breath hitched, "You now want me to believe you won't leave again?" she choked. "You want me to believe that now—now, after you shattered everything—you're suddenly here to stay? But you didn't leave when we were breaking. You left when we were whole. So tell me this..."
Her voice lowered into something sharp and trembling.
"If you walked away when I thought we were atour best... what the hell makes you think you'd stay when we're atour worst?"
I stood frozen, unable to speak. Her words sliced through me, each one cruel only because they were true. She wiped at her face but it did nothing—tears still streamed freely.
