At the end, he wrote:
I don’t want you to marry me because you believe I might change. I want to become someone you can trust, whether or not you ever marry me.
I folded the letter.
“That’s the first time you’ve asked me to choose freely,” I told him.
He nodded.
“I should have done that from the beginning.”
We didn’t set another wedding date that afternoon.
We went for a walk instead.
Over the following months, Ryan showed me that his words meant something. He stopped treating every disagreement with his mother as an emergency. He learned to say no without offering ten explanations. When Patricia crossed a boundary, he addressed it himself rather than asking me to endure it.
And when I was hurt, he listened before deciding who was right.
Slowly, I began to trust him again.
Patricia eventually asked to meet me.
I agreed, but only in a public place, with Ryan present.
