Chapter 2

The next morning, I woke up to my phone ringing.

Ryan's name was on the screen.

I answered it, put it on speaker, and set it on the table.

He asked, "Renee, why did you leave the wedding group chat?"

Ryan's voice was rough from a hangover, and there was nothing in it but irritation and blame.

"Everybody in there is welcoming Chloe home, and you walk out. What is that? Who are you snubbing?"

I sat up and kept my voice level. "I'm not snubbing anyone. The chat was too loud."

Ryan made a sound and clearly didn't believe me.

"All right, drop the attitude." He was getting impatient. "Chloe's stomach is bad. She woke up saying it hurts.

"Didn't you buy a stack of that aged honey and put it in the storage cabinet at the apartment? Where is it? I've looked everywhere."

Everything in me went still.

That honey was the only thing my mother left me before she died. Three full boxes, and money couldn't replace them.

Ryan knew that.

When my mother was dying, she put my hand into his, and he promised her himself. "Don't worry, Mrs. Winters. I'll take care of Renee the way you did. I won't let anything hurt her."

I had kept that honey in its box and never once opened it.

"Ryan," I asked quietly, "do you know what that is?"

Ryan sounded impatient. "It's a few boxes of honey. Chloe isn't well. What's wrong with making her a cup?

"I'll buy you ten boxes later. Does that work? Why are you being this small about it? She's a guest."

I cut him off. "She's a guest. What am I?"

"You're the woman of that house." Ryan raised his voice. "You're marrying me in two days. Can't you be bigger than this?

"Chloe just got back and she has nobody here. She saved my life in college. What's wrong with looking after her for two days? You have to pick this fight now?"

"Bigger than this?" I laughed, and the tears came down without a sound. "Ryan, the wedding is the day after tomorrow. Our bed has sheets your ex slept on and pajamas she picked out.

"You want to hand my mother's last gift to her, and then you come asking me to be bigger?"

The line went quiet for a few seconds.

My laugh seemed to anger him, and his voice went cold. "Renee, stop looking for trouble. Chloe is staying for a few days. She isn't moving in.

"If you feel that wronged, I'll come get you right now and you can say it to her face."

"That isn't necessary." I took a breath and pushed everything back down. "I'm not coming back."

"What do you want?" Ryan ground it out. "The wedding is in two days. The invitations are out. Every relative and friend we have knows.

"You throw a fit now, and you want all of them laughing at me at the wedding?"

"No," I said. "You're reading too much into it."

I looked at the wedding countdown calendar we had picked out together, tore off the page marked with the wedding day, and crushed it in my hand.

I continued, "Nobody is going to laugh at you at the wedding."

Because there wasn't going to be a wedding.

I hung up before he could say anything else.

Then I called a cleaning service. "Hello. This is Renee Winters, the owner of unit 802 at Maple Grove Apartments.

"I need two cleaners this afternoon to pack every piece of my clothing and every personal item and deliver all of it to the address I'm sending you.

"Whatever is left in the rooms can go out with the trash."

After the call, I took off the gold bracelet I had worn for four years.

It was the first expensive thing Ryan ever gave me. He drove delivery for three months and lived on nothing to buy it for my twenty-second birthday.

He held me then and said, "Renee, when I have money, I'll buy you the biggest diamond in this city."

He had money now.

He bought Chloe the best perfume in the city and custom pajamas, and he handed her our apartment on top of it.

I set the bracelet in the most obvious spot on the table and zipped my suitcase.

Everything he and I had was finished there.