He pushed his chair back hard enough that it scraped the floor. “You know what this tells me?” he snapped. “That you don’t actually want to marry me. You want a premarital agreement, advisers, separate accounts. That’s not a marriage. That’s a business arrangement where you keep all the power.”
He grabbed his keys off the counter. “I’m going to stay at Marcus’s for a few days. Maybe you’ll figure out what you actually want.”
The door shut behind him with a finality that made the condo feel suddenly enormous.
My phone buzzed immediately with texts that pressed on guilt and doubt like bruises.
I turned it off.
I sat in my living room, in the soft quiet of a space I had built for myself, and let myself feel what I had been avoiding.
This was not right.
Two nights passed.
Then Wednesday evening, I came home from a brutal lease negotiation. Twelve straight hours of arguing over liability clauses with people who treated every inch of compromise like surrender. My head throbbed. My eyes felt gritty. I wanted wine and silence.
I unlocked my door and walked into noise.
Sports blared from my television at a volume that made my headache spike. Samuel sprawled on my couch like he owned it, a beer in hand. Marcus sat beside him, feet up on my coffee table.
Samuel didn’t look up. “We’re planning bachelor party details,” he said, casual, like I was the one interrupting. “Marcus found a place in Vegas.”
I stood there for a beat, my hand still on the doorknob. Something in me went still, like a switch flipping.
I forced my voice into neutrality. “Okay.”
I moved toward the kitchen, too tired for confrontation. The open floor plan I had loved suddenly felt like a mistake, because there was no way to escape the conversation. Sound carried easily, bouncing off clean walls and polished surfaces.
I poured myself a glass of wine and tried to let the sound wash past me.
Then Marcus’s voice cut through the noise with casual clarity.
“Have you told her about the Vegas budget yet? That’s going to be expensive.”
I froze, wine glass in my hand.
Samuel laughed, not the light laugh he used with me, but something darker. Sharper. “Not yet. She’ll cover it. She always does.”
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