The words hung in the air like something fragile that had already shattered.

I turned to her slowly.

“No,” I replied. “You walked into my life and made it a lie. This is just the part where I notice.”

I looked back at Steven.

“Eight years,” I said. “Eight years of ‘struggling,’ of budgeting, of you telling me we couldn’t afford things. Eight years of me believing we were building something together.”

His jaw tightened.