He let out a sigh. “I realized then that she was up to something.”
“I knew that confronting her wouldn’t work, so I set out to gather evidence instead. I didn’t warn you because I wanted to catch her red-handed,” he said, stroking my hair.
His mother hasn’t said a word to us since.
Not a text, not a call, not even a passive-aggressive comment on social media. The silence should feel strange, but instead, it feels peaceful.
I sleep easier now.
Trust is a strange thing: delicate as lace, as hard-won as those pearl buttons I’d dreamed about since I was 12.
But that day, in front of everyone who mattered to us, Jake proved something more than love.
He proved loyalty. And sometimes, that makes all the difference.