Chapter 3: Our Future Is Over

My phone buzzed again.

Another Instagram post from June.

In the photo, she was wearing my white bathrobe, holding a coffee mug, and sitting in the wicker chair on our master bedroom balcony.

The robe was a birthday gift from Luke last year.

The balcony was my sanctuary. I had chosen the wicker chair, the wool throw blanket, even the potted lemon tree that now brushed the railing.

June smiled languidly for the camera.

Her caption:

“A perfect morning in our nest.”

She was sleeping in my bed, wearing my clothes, and broadcasting to the world that it was her home.

I stared at the photo, my face a mask. I didn’t block her. I didn’t reply.

Instead, I went back to her post from the night before—the one captioned “Building our future”—and liked it.

Then I left a comment.

“Hope you and Luke have fun planning the wedding. If you need the credit limit increased, just let me know. 😉”

My comment was barely a minute old when my phone rang. Luke.

I answered.

He didn’t ask where I was.

He didn’t ask why I hadn’t come home.

“What the hell is that comment supposed to mean?” he snarled.

“June is hysterical! She’s already fragile, and you have to go and humiliate her in public? Why can’t you just be happy for us?”

I listened to him rage, then let out a short, sharp laugh.

“I’m supposed to be happy that she’s living in a house I put the down payment on, wearing my bathrobe, using my credit card, and stealing my wedding?”

“Don’t make it sound like that!” Luke shot back. “No one stole anything. You’re the one who’s always so controlling. Everything has to be your way, on your schedule. You suffocate people.”

He took a breath. “June’s different. She needs someone to take care of her. She just got divorced, she’s been through enough. Why do you have to be so cruel to her?”

My grip tightened on the phone.

“And your way of ‘taking care of her’ is to marry her?”

The line went quiet for a beat.

Then his voice rose, sharp with indignation. “You were the one who said we should treat her like family! You let her move in! Now that things aren’t going exactly your way, you’re lashing out? Don’t you see how pathetic that is?”

So, “family” was their permission slip for betrayal.

Me paying the down payment, managing the mortgage, and planning our wedding was “controlling.”

June climbing into my bed and deleting my name was just her “needing care.”

“Delete the comment right now,” Luke commanded. “Then you’re going to apologize to June. You’ve already ruined her morning. Stop making this a bigger deal than it is.”

He kept talking, telling me I was embarrassing everyone, that everything had been fine until I’d made it a problem.

And in that moment, I finally understood.

He hadn’t called to explain.

He certainly hadn’t called to win me back.

He’d called to order me to clean up their mess, to keep paying the bills, and to smile and bless their union.

I cut him off, my voice calm and even.

“Luke, our future is over.”

Then I hung up.