Sunday morning brought messages from people I hadn't expected to hear from. Kinsley's aunt wanted to know whether she should cancel her hotel reservation, a college friend asked if I was okay, and the bakery wanted confirmation that we no longer needed the cake tasting appointment. Each message required me to say the same fact aloud in a slightly different way. "The wedding is canceled" began to sound like a sentence from a stranger's life that I had been assigned to repeat.
By Sunday afternoon, Kinsley had told several friends that I had thrown her out for helping a victim of a break-in. Her version contained enough truth to be persuasive if nobody asked what happened after the supposed emergency had been handled. I knew how terrible the black bags would look, and I had given her a powerful image she could use without needing to invent much else. That was a difficult consequence of my own impulsive decision, and I couldn't simply dismiss it because her behavior had hurt me first.
Wyatt suggested I write down the timeline while it was fresh. We sat at his dining table with my phone and the messages from that Friday, reconstructing when Vance first called, when Kinsley arrived at his apartment, and when she told me she was staying the night. I saved screenshots, not to embarrass her or publish them, but because memories become arguments frighteningly quickly when people have reasons to remember things differently. I could already see the story changing each time it passed through another person's phone.
I also saved my own messages, including the one about the porch bags. If I expected the truth to matter, I couldn't hide the parts that made me look impulsive or unkind. Wyatt nodded when he saw what I was doing and told me that owning a mistake was different from accepting blame for somebody else's choice. I wrote that distinction on a scrap of paper and kept it in my wallet for weeks.
On Monday, I went to work. My supervisor, a woman named Ellen who could spot a distracted dispatcher from across an entire warehouse, asked why I looked as if I'd spent the weekend driving through a storm. I told her my engagement had ended and I might need a day off to handle housing and financial arrangements. She looked at me with surprise, then told me to take the time I needed and not to worry about whether the team could cover a few shifts. It was a simple kindness that nearly undid me.
At lunch, I sat in my truck and finally allowed myself to remember the proposal without immediately replacing it with an image of Kinsley at Vance's apartment. I remembered the leaves at the overlook, her hands shaking as she held the ring, and how carefully she had listened when I explained where the diamond came from. The memory hadn't become worthless because the relationship had ended. It remained a real moment in a real life, and that made losing it harder rather than easier.