I told him I would consider it when he stopped behaving like a spoiled schoolboy.
He laughed. It was the first time I had heard him laugh since the accident.
Over the following weeks, we became friends. When he was discharged, he returned to see me. We went for walks, shared meals, and talked about the futures we imagined for ourselves.
I fell in love with him.
He told me he loved me, too.
But Joseph came from a wealthy and controlling family. They had already chosen the kind of woman they wanted him to marry, and they believed his future belonged to them.
When he learned I was pregnant, he promised he would marry me.
Then, three days before our wedding, he disappeared.
My throat tightened.
I knew my parents had married in 1984.
I knew my father had once been engaged before meeting my mother, but whenever I asked about his life before marriage, he would change the subject.
