Chapter 2 — Keep the Ring

I typed one word.

Leaving.

Nathan's reply came almost immediately.

Are you safe where you are?

I looked toward the hallway. Preston was laughing with Sienna beside the front door.

Yes. I'll call when I'm somewhere else.

All right. I'm here.

I closed the conversation and opened my closet.

My suitcase was already half packed for Ireland. There were adapters in the side pocket, my mother's spare reading glasses wrapped in a scarf, and a folder containing the accessibility information Maeve had sent.

I added my work laptop, passport, and the envelope containing my birth certificate.

"There she is."

Sienna stood in the bedroom doorway holding a bakery box.

My engagement ring flashed on her hand.

"I brought lemon cake. Your favorite."

It had been my favorite in college. Since my mother's diagnosis, she'd developed a taste for it, and I usually bought it for her. Sienna hadn't asked what I liked in years.

"Put it in the kitchen," I said.

She leaned against the doorframe.

"You aren't upset about this, are you?"

She lifted her hand.

"Preston said you were fine with it."

"Then why are you asking?"

Her smile faltered.

"Because I care about you."

Preston appeared behind her. His eyes dropped to the suitcase.

"What are you doing?"

"Packing."

"Your flight isn't until Thursday."

"I'm leaving tonight."

Sienna stepped aside to let him enter. He picked up the document folder, saw my passport, and put it down harder than necessary.

"You haven't changed your flight, have you?"

"No."

"Audrey, don't make this difficult. We already have guests flying to Iceland."

"Then you'd better go meet them."

He stared at me.

I folded a sweater. It was gray, soft at the cuffs, and older than our engagement. I had worn it through the overnight deployment that earned my first promotion.

Preston took it out of my hands.

"Talk to me."

"I don't want to marry you. I'm ending this relationship."

The words sounded unfamiliar in the room where I'd spent so many evenings apologizing.

Sienna set the cake on the dresser.

"Over a ring? I'll take it off."

She began tugging at it, slowly enough for Preston to stop her.

He did.

"No. You didn't do anything wrong."

I reached around him for my sweater.

"There it is," I said.

"What?"

"You asked me to talk. She answered, and you decided."

His expression hardened.

"She's trying to help."

"I didn't ask her for help."

"Audrey, this is embarrassing."

For a second, I remembered Sienna at twenty, standing outside a campus office with me. A girl in our dorm had accused me of stealing cash. Sienna had told the dean she'd seen the girl spend it herself.

She hadn't liked me much then. She'd defended me anyway.

I looked at the woman in my doorway.

"Yes," I said. "It is."

Preston lowered his voice.

"Your mother has been talking about this wedding for months. What are you going to tell her?"

I stopped folding.

He saw it and stepped closer.

"She wants to see you settled. You know that. You really want to put her through this because you're mad at me?"

My mother had spent eighteen years working double shifts at a grocery store. Being settled, to her, meant having money for groceries after paying rent. It meant somebody calling when they were going to be late.

Preston had turned it into marrying him.

"I'll speak to my mother myself."

"Fine. Tell her whatever you want tonight. You'll feel differently tomorrow."

He set the sweater on the bed and smoothed it with his palm.

"We're thirty years old, Audrey. We can't keep doing dramatic breakups."

We had never broken up. I had threatened to leave twice, and each time he'd convinced me that ten years deserved another conversation.

Now he was treating those conversations as proof I couldn't leave.

"I'm taking my things," I said. "I'll arrange for the rest later."

Sienna touched his arm.

"We're going to miss the reservation. Maybe give her a little space."

He checked his watch.

His bachelor party was at a private lounge downtown. Sienna had organized it. When I'd asked why she was attending, he'd told me not to be provincial.

"Don't call my mother and make this bigger than it needs to be," he said.

"I won't call your mother."

Satisfied, he kissed the top of my head.

I stepped back before his mouth touched me.

He paused, then gave a short, irritated laugh.

"We'll talk tomorrow."

After they left, I removed my key from the ring and put it on the kitchen counter.

I photographed the room, the suitcase, the key. Then I sent him a message.

I am moving out. Our relationship and engagement are over. I will contact you about collecting the remainder of my belongings.

The message showed delivered.

I booked a room at a hotel near my office and carried my own suitcase downstairs.

Halfway there, Sienna sent a video.

It opened on Preston sitting in a booth, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His cousin Lucy was laughing behind the camera.

"Come on, Sienna. You wanted to win tonight."

Someone had challenged them to pass a cocktail garnish between their mouths. Sienna leaned over him with a cherry between her lips.

Preston put his hand around the back of her neck.

The cherry disappeared. Their mouths stayed together.

I turned the volume down before the driver could hear the shouting.

"That's who you should be marrying," one of his friends said. "At least she knows how to have fun."

Lucy leaned into the frame.

"They've always made more sense."

I had spent six hours helping Lucy move out of her boyfriend's apartment after she found him cheating. She'd cried into my shoulder and called me her sister.

"Seriously, Pres," the friend continued. "Ten years with a girl who still acts like dinner has to come out of her grocery budget. You sure?"

Preston took his drink from Sienna.

"Marriage is marriage," he said. "Doesn't matter who you do it with."

The clip ended.

The driver asked if I wanted him to pull closer to the hotel entrance.

"Yes, please."

I saved the video before Sienna could delete it. Then I made a second copy in my private account.

Her message arrived while I was checking in.

Oops. Wrong chat. You didn't watch that, did you?

I didn't answer.

Upstairs, I put my suitcase beside the bed and logged in to my work account.

The Dublin offer was still open. My manager had given me until Monday to decide before they approached another candidate.

I'd earned the position during fourteen months of difficult work. Preston had called it bad timing.

I clicked Accept.

Then I emailed my manager to confirm I could discuss the move first thing Monday and asked about the dependent-care resources mentioned in the relocation package.

My phone lit again.

Preston's reply to my breakup message contained four words.

Get some sleep, sweetheart.

I turned off notifications from him.

On the bedside table lay the folder with my mother's information. Her medications. Her appointments. The expenses Preston had insisted on taking over when I'd started working weekends to cover them.

I opened my bank account and a blank spreadsheet.

Leaving him was a decision.

Making sure he couldn't pull my mother back into his reach would take a plan.