“Don’t talk about yourself like you’re property.”
“Then stop making decisions like I am.”
He fell quiet.
Heather covered her face and turned away.
Seth tried again.
“Look, I panicked. Heather kept asking about the money. I knew we had the wedding coming up, and I didn’t want to start our marriage with that debt hanging over us.”
“So you decided I could work it off.”
He didn’t deny it.
“I thought once we were married, you’d understand.”
I looked toward the hallway where I’d overheard him earlier.
“No,” I said. “You thought once we were married, I’d feel obligated.”
He sounded exhausted.
“Can’t we just start over?”
“How?”
“We postpone everything. Take a few weeks. Then have a smaller ceremony.”
“And Heather’s children?”
“We help her until she gets something arranged.”
Again, he said we.
Even after our canceled wedding, he continued treating his promise as my responsibility.
