She opened her mouth.
I continued.
“You were entitled to be hurt by our relationship. You were entitled to end our friendship. But you were never entitled to destroy our lives.”
Caleb stepped beside me.
“We didn’t begin a relationship to punish you,” he said. “We began one because we love each other.”
Delaney laughed bitterly.
“You think love makes this acceptable?”
“No,” I replied. “Love doesn’t make every decision right. But neither does your anger make every accusation true.”
For a moment, she looked as though she might cry.
Then she turned away.
We left the conversation there.
We didn’t follow her.
We didn’t post about it online.
We went inside, helped serve food, and spent the evening with people who wanted to enjoy the event.
For the first time, I realized that freedom did not mean convincing everyone to approve of our choices.
It meant accepting that some people never would.
