Page 17 of June

"How could you?"

she whispered, and it cracked something deep.

"How do you just—stop loving someone and move on like that?"

"I didn't stop!"

I insisted.

"YES, YOU DID!"

she screamed, the dam finally, violently, breaking.

"You don't postpone a wedding if you love someone! You don't whisper your pain to someone else. You don't tuck yourself into her bed while the woman who gave you her whole damn heart is wondering why she suddenly doesn't feel good enough!"

Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't wipe them away. She let them fall like fire.

"You confide in the person you love,"

she choked out.

"You fight. You try. You sit down and tell the truth, even when it's ugly. But you didn't do that, Aaron. You walked away. You left for someone else because I was nothing to you."

"You mean everything,"

I said, voice strangled, tears burning down my own cheeks.

"I swear to God, June, I've learned my lesson. I'll never do it again. I'll never betray you again. I'm ready to fix this. Please. Anything you want—just say it."

She cut me off with a voice that could cut diamonds.

"What was the plan, Aaron? Hm? If I'd agreed to the break you so casually hinted at—what then? Would you have dated her while I sat at home waiting for you to figure out if I was still good enough?"

"I... I don't know,"

I confessed, ashamed, shaking.

"I just knew I couldn't lose you, but she... she kept showing up in my head and—"

"YOU WERE BETRAYING ME!"

she screamed.

"I know!"

I sobbed.

"I know. It was a mistake. A coward's mistake. I panicked. I lost myself. But think about it, please—have I ever betrayed you before this? Haven't I spent years showing you how much I love you? "

She nodded. But it wasn't agreement—it was grief.

"yeah, and yet it was not enough apparently."

She took a shaky breath and added.

"You didn't just break my heart, Aaron. You humiliated me. You made me look like a fool. Like I didn't even know the man I was about to marry. And while you were off losing yourself, I was the one who had to explain to my friends why the wedding was postponed. I was the one canceling cake tastings and sending emails to vendors and telling people who asked that we were 'taking a break'—like we were some teenage summer fling and not two people who were supposed to be building a life together."

Her eyes blazed.

"And you made financial decisions behind my back like I wasn't your partner. Like I was just... what? Some placeholder while you played house with her? You bought stocks, took loans, moved money, adjusted our budget like I wasn't even part of your life—but then you shared those details with her? You could open up to your ex-girlfriend, but not your fiancée?"

She laughed bitterly. It was sharp and cold.

"Do you know what that felt like? To be left out of a life I was supposed to be building with you? To realize you trusted someone else with parts of you that were supposed to be mine?"

She shook her head, as if she couldn't believe it herself, her voice breaking open wider with every word.

"We were planning a wedding, Aaron. I was looking at dresses. I was thinking about what kind of flowers we'd have, what song I'd walk down the aisle to. I was picturing our house, our family—our future. And while I was dreaming of forever..."

Her eyes pierced mine, and I knew I'd never forget the look on her face for as long as I lived.

"You were already halfway out the door."

Her breath hitched.

"You now want me to believe you won't leave again?"

she choked.

"You want me to believe that now—now, after you shattered everything—you're suddenly here to stay? But you didn't leave when we were breaking. You left when we were whole. So tell me this..."

Her voice lowered into something sharp and trembling.

"If you walked away when I thought we were at our best... what the hell makes you think you'd stay when we're at our worst?"

I stood frozen, unable to speak. Her words sliced through me, each one cruel only because they were true. She wiped at her face but it did nothing—tears still streamed freely.

"Do you really think I could ever trust you again?"

she asked, the words brittle and bleeding.

"What happens the next time I need too much? What if I get sick, or scared, or sad in a way you can't fix? What if life throws something awful at us? Will you go running again? Will you stop loving me again?"

The silence that followed her question was deafening.

Because I didn't have an answer she could believe in.

"For years I thought we were building something real. Something unshakable. I gave you everything I had—my loyalty, my love, my time—and still, the moment she came back, you cracked like it was nothing. Like I was nothing."

Her voice shook—so quiet, so raw, I had to close my eyes just to survive it.

"And now... even if you say you love me, even if I wanted to believe it... you've made it impossible. Because now there's this voice in my head I can't shut up. This constant, horrible voice that whispers you were never enough."

"Do you know what it's like to look in the mirror and wonder what made her better?"

she asked, her voice splintering at the edges.

"To scroll through her Instagram and dissect every photo? Every goddamn caption? Wondering if she's smiling because of you. If that photo was taken by your hand. If you laughed together that night. If she knows your favorite wine. If she wore that red dress for you."

I could hear her breathing—shaky, shallow.

"She has short hair,"

she said bitterly.

"And suddenly I'm wondering if that's what you prefer. If you ever hated how long mine gets. If when I dance, you cringe because I didn't go to college. Because I didn't chase some impressive career. Because I don't come from some rich, polished family that makes you look good at parties."

Her voice cracked, and I felt every piece of her shatter through the door.

"You made me question everything about myself. Things I never once felt insecure about. Things I was proud of. Now I catch myself editing who I am in my own head—because of you."

A sob slipped through before she could stop it.

"I never used to do that. I never used to feel small. I used to love who I was. But now? Now I look at her and wonder if I was just the safer option. If you chose me because I was easy. Because I wouldn't leave first. Because I'd stay."

Her next words were barely more than a breath.

"But you left anyway."

My chest caved.

"I hate that I compare myself to her,"

she whispered.

"Because logically—I know she's not better. She's just... different. But it doesn't stop the spiral. It doesn't stop the 3AM war in my mind where I'm tearing myself apart, wondering what made you want her more. What made me not enough."

She exhaled shakily.

"I don't want to be someone's backup plan, Aaron. I don't want to be the girl who only gets picked after the other one doesn't work out. I don't want to spend my life wondering if I was ever really your first choice... or just the one you could count on to forgive you."

I didn't move. Couldn't. Her words were landing like strikes to the chest—every syllable deliberate, every sentence cutting into bone.

"You planted insecurities in me I never had,"

she whispered.

"Or maybe I did. Maybe they were just quiet. But now they scream. And now that I see you, I feel them rise again—loud, sharp, ugly."

"There is no safety with you, Aaron,"

she said, barely above a whisper. But her voice—God, her voice—was sharper than any scream.

"None. You stripped it from me. You yanked the ground out from under me and called it love."

"I'll always wonder,"

she went on, her eyes distant now, like she was talking to the version of me that destroyed her.

"I'll always carry that fear in my chest like a ticking clock. I'll always brace for the moment you turn cold again. The second you start pulling away and I'm too in love to see it—again."

She took a shaky breath, lips trembling, her hands clenched into fists at her sides like her body was doing everything it could to hold her together.

"And I'll never know the answer to the one question that haunts me the most."

I swallowed hard, dread curling around my spine.

"What question?"

I asked, barely managing the words.

She looked up at me then, and I almost wished she hadn't. Her eyes were red, swollen, drowning—but there was no mercy in them. Just hurt. Just devastation. Just the final blow she was about to deliver.

"If things had worked out with Selene..."

her voice cracked on the name, like it physically hurt her to say it.

"would you have ever come back?"

Silence.

The kind that isn't empty, but loud. Screaming.

I opened my mouth, desperate to speak—to explain, to beg—but nothing came out. There were no words. No pretty lie. No painful truth that could save me.

Because the fact that she had to ask... that was already my answer. Because I made her doubt us.

She let out a bitter, breathless laugh. It wasn't amusement. It was agony shaped like sound. Like she couldn't believe she'd once trusted me with her whole heart.

I stepped forward, tears burning in my eyes, shame clawing at my throat.

"June, I—I would have... eventually... I swear..."

"Get out."

Two words. Sharp. Final.

"Please—"

"GET OUT!"

she screamed, the full weight of her grief crashing into me like a wave I never saw coming.

And I knew then—I had broken something in her that might never be able to trust again. Not just in me.

But in love itself.

I left like her dad asked me to. Then, she slammed the door behind me.

But I leaned into the door.

"I'm not fighting for a second chance because I think I deserve it, June—I don't. I'm fighting because you deserve better than the version of me that hurt you. You deserve my best. You deserve love that shows up. That proves itself."

I placed my hand on the doorframe.

"I will fix what I broke. I will earn back what I lost. Not with words, but with who I choose to be from this moment on."

My voice drops.

"I love you. I'm sorry. And I know trust doesn't come back overnight. But if there's even the smallest part of you that wants to try—then I'll be here. Becoming the man you can trust again, Can you remember the last six years and not just the last few months?"

Silence.