"There's something I need to tell you," I said, and my voice felt like it was being dragged out of my throat with a rusted hook.
She didn't answer. Didn't even blink. But something in her jaw shifted—tightened—like she was bracing herself for the blow.
"I kept something from you," I admitted. "Something big."
June stood there, waiting—stoic and silent, the way someone waits for a storm they already know is coming.
"I was drowning," I said, my voice cracking under the weight of it. "In debt. In fear. In shame. It wasn't just money—it was everything. The numbers stopped making sense. The business was bleeding and I didn't know how to stop it. I was making up answers, lying to the bank, lying to myself—lying toyou. Every single day."
I took a breath, but it felt like inhaling glass.
"I couldn't sleep. I couldn'tbreathe. I'd lie awake next to you every night, staring at the ceiling, watching the woman I loved sleep peacefully beside me—and all I could think about was howI was going to destroy your life. That I was going to be the reason you lost everything. The studio. The wedding. The future we planned. I'd look at you and feel like a fraud wearing a ring he hadn't earned."
I tried to laugh, but it came out choked. "Do you even know how humiliating that is? I'm an accountant, June.An accountant.Numbers were supposed to be the one thing I could control. The one thing I wasgoodat. And I still failed."
I rubbed my face, ashamed to look at her. "I was supposed to be the safe one. The steady one. And I was coming apart at the seams..."
She swallowed hard, but again said nothing.
"And then Selene showed up," I continued. "At that exact moment. Just... there. Offering something easy. No history. No weight. Nodisappointment.I didn't run to her because I loved her, June. I ran to her because she reminded me of who I used to be. Young. Invincible. Not a man failing the woman he loves."
I looked up, praying for something in her eyes. But what I saw there wasn't hope. It was heartbreak.
"So Selene knows?" she asked, her voice small, fragile—but sharp enough to bleed.
"Yes," I said. "I told her everything."
Her eyes widened—not with shock, but with a deeper kind of devastation. The kind you don't scream about. The kind that settles behind your ribs and slowly poisons everything soft in you.
She turned away for a second. Just a second. Like she couldn't bear to look at me.
And I should've stopped there. God, Ishould've. But the guilt had cracked me open too far to stop the bleeding.
"I also..." I swallowed. "I lived with her. For a month. After you left."
Her voice trembled, but it cut straight through me like a blade.
"I suspected it," she said slowly, like the words were burning her mouth. "But to hear it confirmed... you actually moved in with her." Her eyes searched mine, begging for some explanation that wouldn't break her—but I had none. "You shared a home with her.Ourhome was still full of boxes and dreams and pictures of us and—you justleftand started a new life like I meant nothing."
She shook her head, laughter catching on a sob. "God. You didn't even wait. You didn't grieve us. You didn't try to fight for me. You moved on like I was just a phase you outgrew. Like our six years were a detour before you got back to the person you really wanted to be."
Her voice cracked on the next words, full of raw betrayal.
"And now you're standing here—here—talking to me aboutour future?"
She was crying now, silent and furious and heartbroken all at once. Her hands trembled, but she didn't wipe away the tears.
"Do you know how cruel that is?" she whispered. "To come back after all that and ask me to pretend like it didn't happen? Like you didn't build something new with someone else while I was still trying to breathe through the wreckage you left me in?"
"It wasn't—God, June, it wasn't what it sounds like. I was broken. I had nowhere to go—"
"YOU HADEVERYWHERETO GO," she snapped, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "You had friends. Family. A million other options. You didn't go to her because you had nowhere else—you went to her because that's who youchose."
She shook her head. Stepped back like my presence physically hurt.
"And now you want to stand here in my house and beg for forgiveness like I'm supposed to be proud you didn't sleep with her? You want a gold star because you only gave her your secrets and your nights and your broken pieces? you want a reward because youonlylived with for a month?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat had closed around the shame and there was nothing left but the sound of her breathing—shattered and shallow.
