Joshua was suspended, then fired.
Cheyenne resigned two days later. The St. Paul apartment sat empty — their romance hadn’t survived its first real cost.
Joshua called one evening, his voice stripped of the confidence he’d always worn.
“Cheyenne left me,” he admitted quietly.
Gretchen said nothing.
“She says I never told her the truth about my finances,” he went on.
“You never told anyone the truth,” Gretchen said.
A long silence followed.
“I lost my job at the firm,” he whispered. “I never meant for it to end like this.”
Gretchen glanced at Maxine, doing homework at the dining table.
“That was always your problem,” she told him. “You talked about your good intentions like they erased the damage.”
He exhaled heavily.
“I really did love you, Gretchen,” he said.
She believed him. That was what made it so sad — a person could love you and still choose themselves until there was nothing left of you standing beside them.
“I know you did,” she said. “But every time it mattered, you chose yourself.”
The divorce was finalized two months later, without drama — just signatures, stamps, and a closed file marking fourteen years.
They sold the house in Plymouth. Gretchen bought a smaller apartment near a park in Minneapolis, bright with big windows and morning light.
