"What if he's the one who doesn't want to marry me?"
She went silent for a beat, then laid into me even harder.
"Then you obviously did something wrong! Swallow your pride, say something sweet, patch things up. Don't tell me you followed that man for all those years just to walk away with nothing!"
Eight years loving Harrison, and his refrain never changed: career first, family later.
But when success finally came, when he had the house and the car, it wasn't a home with me he wanted to build.
It wasn't that I hadn't tried. Trying just didn't matter.
For eight years, I'd been by his side through every struggle. The basement apartment. The instant noodles. I'd swallowed my pride and told him a thousand times that marrying him was all I'd ever dreamed of, rich or poor.
I'd even given up three pregnancies.
Because he said the timing wasn't right. He didn't want a child suffering alongside them.
I loved him, so whatever he said, no matter how much it hurt, I went along with it.
Just like tonight, when he told me he wanted to get legally married to his childhood sweetheart.
In that moment, even as my heart was being carved open, I felt something I hadn't expected.
Relief.