He took the girl’s hand.
Then, with a tenderness I had spent years wishing he would show me, he slipped the ring onto her finger.
My heart seemed to collapse inside my chest.
The girl lifted her hand toward the light.
“It fits perfectly,” she said, smiling.
Mark smiled back.
“That’s good.”
I couldn’t hear anything else.
All I could see was the ring.
A diamond ring.
An engagement ring.
For another woman.
The boutique suddenly seemed too bright, too crowded, too small to contain the humiliation spreading through me.
Six years.
I had waited six years for him to put a ring on my finger.
He had told me that we weren’t financially ready. He had told me that marriage wasn’t the most important thing. He had told me that our home and our love were enough.
And now he was buying a ring for a girl who looked young enough to be his daughter.
