“Because I had zero interest in her,” he said. “None. I thought that was obvious.”
“It wasn’t enough for it to be obvious to you, Irvin.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stood there with a towel around his neck, looking at the floor.
Two days later, the bride emailed me. She had heard there was “some kind of trouble” with my bakery and couldn’t take the risk with her wedding. She asked for her deposit back.
I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the message until the words blurred.
Vanessa wasn’t just embarrassing me anymore. She was costing me money. She was taking apart the one thing I’d built entirely with my own two hands.
Part Seven: Cropped
That night, I set my phone face-up on the kitchen table between us.
“We post everything,” I said. “Every single conversation. Full screenshots. Dates. Times. All of it.”
