"You made your choice last night, and I've made mine. The wedding is canceled, and I've contacted the vendors. My ring is on the kitchen counter. Your belongings are bagged beneath the covered porch, and we need to arrange the rest of the move and the lease lawfully. Please contact me by email about those practical matters. I'm not willing to discuss continuing the relationship."
It wasn't the exact angry message I had imagined while standing in our bedroom, but it said what needed to be said. I sent it, then blocked her number for the rest of the day after telling her where to reach me about shared obligations. I needed space from calls and accusations, not a way of avoiding the responsibilities we still had. Even in that moment, there were limits I couldn't cross without becoming somebody I would dislike when the anger wore off.
Within minutes, Wyatt's phone began ringing. He glanced at the screen, let out a breath, and held it where I could see. Kinsley. He answered on speaker only after asking whether I was comfortable hearing the conversation, and I nodded because I wanted to know how she would describe what happened when speaking to someone else.
She was crying hard enough that her words came in fragments. She said she'd gone to help Vance after somebody broke into his apartment, had stayed because he was in distress, and had come home to find her entire life sitting in black bags. She said I had never told her I would end the engagement over one night and that I'd locked her out without a discussion. Some of what she said about the bags was fair, but the way she described the night at Vance's left out the one detail that had mattered most to me: the promise we had made to each other.
Wyatt told her he understood why she was upset about how her belongings had been handled and that they could arrange for her to collect anything still inside the house. Then he asked a simple question. "Kinsley, did you really think staying overnight at your ex's place was something Nolan would be okay with?" The line went quiet, and when she answered, she said she'd had to make an emergency decision and hadn't wanted to wake me.
"He was awake when I texted," Wyatt pointed out gently. "And you knew what the boundary was." Kinsley said she wasn't going to be interrogated by Nolan's friends, accused him of taking my side without understanding the situation, and ended the call. Wyatt put the phone down and looked at me with a complicated expression. He wasn't pleased, and he wasn't entertained; he looked sad because he'd known us both for years and had expected to stand beside me at our wedding.