“My Ex Wants To Get Coffee And Catch Up. You’re Not Invited,” She Informed Me. “Understood,” I Said. Got The Ring Deposit Back While She Was Gone. When She Came Home, Was Packed. “How Was Coffee?” “Good. Why Are You—” “We’re Done.”

Part 2

Olivia stared at me like I had started speaking another language.

“What do you mean, we’re done?”

“I mean the engagement is over.”

“Because I had coffee?”

“Because you told me my discomfort did not matter, excluded me on purpose, then called it trust.”

She dropped her purse on the bed.

“You are insane.”

“No.”

“You’re ending our engagement over a latte.”

“I’m ending it over a pattern.”

That word made her face close.

Dylan had always been a pattern. The first time he messaged late at night, Olivia said he was lonely. The second time, she said they had history. The third time, she said blocking him would be immature. By the tenth time, I was apparently the problem for counting.

“I didn’t cheat,” she snapped.

“I did not say you did.”

“Then why are you acting like this?”

“Because respect should arrive before proof of cheating.”

She laughed in disbelief.

“That doesn’t even mean anything.”

“It means I do not have to wait until you betray me physically before I respond to emotional disrespect.”

She looked toward the closet. Half my side was empty.

“You planned this.”

“No. I decided this.”

“When?”

“When you said I wasn’t invited.”

Her anger wavered.

“I was trying to avoid awkwardness.”

“For whom?”

She did not answer.

I carried the first duffel to the door. She followed.

“Where are you going?”

“My brother’s.”

“So you’re just abandoning me?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Same thing.”

“It isn’t.”

She stood between me and the door, suddenly crying.

“Dylan means nothing.”

“Then why did he get more consideration than I did?”

She wiped her face.

“Because you make everything heavy.”

That sentence was not as flashy as the coffee line, but it was worse. Heavy meant accountability. Heavy meant consequences. Heavy meant I asked her to treat our engagement as something with walls.

I moved around her.

She grabbed my arm. Not hard. Just desperate.

“Please. We can talk.”

“We did. You called me insecure.”