" Rich, what are you doing here?" I asked, my gaze going over toward Brant, finding him watching and feeling almost guilty. Which was ridiculous because I hadn't invited Rich.

"Didn't have much of a choice after you blocked my calls and texts, Mads," he said, shaking his head.

"Didn't you maybe consider that was because I didn't want to talk to you?" I asked, lifting my chin slightly.

"The only possible explanation for that," he said, his charming boyish smile in place, "is because you have somehow forgotten how awesome I am. You can give me five minutes, can't you?"

"Because five years wasn't enough of my time to waste?" I asked, not caring how snippy that came off.

"I know I hurt you," he said, looking apologetic.

"Let's not romanticize it," I cut him off. "You proposed to me and then dumped me because your parents were going to stop paying your bills."

His head jerked back, likely not having expected that. "I fucked up," he admitted, shrugging. "I made the wrong choice."

"Yes, you did," I agreed, having no plans on sparing his feelings. He hadn't spared mine.

"Maddy, come on," he said, shaking his head. "Give me a chance here."

"A chance to what? Somehow try to make me think that dumping me and telling me to get my things out before you came home from work was not possibly the worst possible thing you could have done after I gave you five years of my life?"

"I was..."

"Insensitive and cold-hearted and money-hungry and a complete and utter asshole," I filled in for him.

"Maddy, I didn't even think..."

"That sentence was complete right there," I cut him off. "You didn't even think. Period. You didn't think about how much it would hurt me that you valued your money more than the life we had built together. You didn't think of the fact that I had nowhere to go but back to live with my mother. You didn't think that loving me and me loving you would be enough. You didn't think. And now what? You've finally given it some thought."

"I talked to my..."

He talked to his parents.

Ugh.

I had thought maybe he had grown a set and told them to take their money and shove it. Not that it would change anything, but it would have restored my faith in him being the decent person I had always thought he was.

"And what, Rich? Tried to convince them that I was good enough for them? I don't need their approval. And I don't want to be with a man who values their approval of the person you've chosen to be with so much that it changes your feelings for them."

"It never changed my feelings about you," Rich said, voice sad. And I did believe him. He had loved me. There was no way he had been faking that.

Again, the bitter truth was- he never loved me enough.

Now that I knew that, there was no forgetting it. And the fact of the matter was, I deserved to be loved enough.

"I don't want to be a decision, Rich. I want to be someone you love and are with because you can't not love and and you can't not be with me. Who you love isn't something you can flip-flop on. And I am thankful I found this out before I married you. Before we started a family. Before it could have begun to mean more than it already did.''

"What? You moved on already?" he asked, tone heavy with skepticism.

"Yes."

And I had.

Not just to another man who had the potential to really mean something to me. But to a version of myself that I had forgotten existed. To live somewhere that everyone cared for me. To be near my mother who I missed dearly. To do a job because I loved it, not because I was looking for adulation.

He couldn't factor into any of that.

And it was right about then that the door to the bakery opened and out walked Brant, holding his jacket and moving to slip it over my shoulders. "Figured you were cold," he offered, but his eyes also said: and maybe needed an escape.

He was right on both. "

― Jessica Gadziala , Peace, Love, & Macarons