We developed a routine around the games. We met for burgers, walked through the Arena District under bright signs, and discussed hockey with the exaggerated seriousness of people who knew the players would never hear their opinions. Sometimes we stayed afterward to talk about work, family, or the absurd things Baxter had destroyed that week. I hadn't realized how much of my social life had been organized around being part of a couple until I started doing things simply because I wanted to do them.
Delaney remained a friend, though not in the complicated way people sometimes imagine when an engagement ends. She occasionally joined Wyatt and me for coffee, and she introduced me to a few friends who knew our history only in the broadest terms. We were careful not to make Kinsley the subject of every conversation, partly out of respect and partly because neither of us wanted a friendship built entirely around someone else's mistake. Delaney had her own life, her own career, and more interesting things to discuss than a canceled wedding.
One afternoon she told me Kinsley had rented a small studio on the less expensive side of town. She had taken additional weekend shifts at a dental clinic to cover rent and continue making payments toward our settlement. I asked only whether she was safe, and Delaney said she was, though unhappy and still trying to make sense of how much had changed. I told Delaney I didn't need further updates unless something affected our agreement, and she respected that request.
The information stayed with me anyway. I could picture Kinsley coming home from a long day at work to a studio apartment without the big kitchen she'd wanted, eating dinner alone, and wondering how the life we'd planned had slipped away. The thought didn't make me glad. I knew what lonely evenings felt like, and although I wasn't willing to resume our relationship, I didn't wish for her to remain unhappy forever.
That was one of the hardest things to explain when friends asked whether I regretted canceling the wedding. I didn't regret refusing to marry someone after a deliberate betrayal of trust. I did regret that the relationship had reached that point, and I regretted the ugly image of her belongings on the porch, which wasn't the way I would have chosen to handle a separation in a clearer state of mind. Those regrets belonged to different decisions, and I learned not to mix them simply because they appeared in the same story.
Some nights I thought about Vance. I wondered whether he understood how much damage his invitation and false emergency had caused, or whether the entire event had faded into a self-serving anecdote he told himself about somebody who was still willing to answer when he called. I never contacted him, and I never sought a confrontation. He wasn't the person I'd planned to marry, and whatever satisfaction I might have gained from hearing him explain himself would not restore the trust Kinsley had broken.