“I wanted to surprise you for your birthday,” Mark said. “Your birthday is in two days, and I thought I’d finally found a way to make it special.”
He looked at Julia.
“She was helping me choose it. I didn’t know your exact ring size, so I asked her to try it on. Her fingers are about the same size as yours.”
Julia nodded.
“He told me he was buying it for someone he loved very much,” she said. “He didn’t tell me who it was at first because he wanted it to be a surprise. When he told me about you, I thought it was lovely.”
She glanced at me nervously.
“I didn’t know you were going to see us.”
I couldn’t speak.
For hours, I had believed I had witnessed the end of my relationship.
I had imagined Mark replacing me with a younger woman. I had pictured him giving away the future I had begged him to build with me.
