Love couldn't be held onto by force. But the money? That I would fight for.
We'd built that business from nothing. I wasn't walking away empty-handed.
I could fall apart later—when no one was watching.
Ray said nothing.
My mother-in-law cut in. "Let's not talk about assets. After all, our son built that company himself."
Something short-circuited in my brain.
"Excuse me?" My voice climbed before I could rein it in.
What a joke. Since when had Ray built anything on his own?
I pulled out my phone and scrolled back five years.
"Five years ago, when we started the company—the first investment came from me. Fifty thousand dollars. I borrowed it."
"I personally borrowed five hundred thousand dollars. I endured over a thousand days and nights of grinding, and we finally made it last year."
"After all that suffering together, how dare you claim you built this alone?"
The evidence was overwhelming.
I had the loan documents from when I'd borrowed the money.
I had photos of us celebrating birthdays in that cramped, run-down room during the early days.
Every trace of our struggle to build this business from nothing—how could any of it be erased?