“Anyway, my grandmother,” I continue, “told me to slow down. To think about it. To be smart.” I glance down at my hands, at the slow melt of ice cream along the edge of the cone. “I didn’t.”
He doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t rush me. So I keep going.
“I jumped in. Fully. Headfirst. It felt like it was what you’re supposed to do, you know? When something looks right, feels right?—”
“You trust it,” he says.
I glance over, a little surprised.
“Yeah,” I say. “Exactly. When we decided we were going to get married, it was when I was really getting into design. I’d always grown up around the shop, obviously, but I was taking classes then. Learning how to actually create pieces, not just sell them.”
He nods, watching me closely.
“So I designed my own ring,” I say, a small smile pulling at my mouth. “Sketched it out, worked through it with my grandmother. We did it all together.”
“That must have been really special for you,” he says, like that makes perfect sense.
“It was kind of my dream thing,” I admit. “Something I made. And with her. Plus it was something that felt…like me.”
He angles himself, turning more toward me now. “So what happened?”
I let out a small breath.
“There’s not really one big moment,” I say. “At least not from my side.”
He waits.
“I thought I was doing everything right,” I continue. “Hitting all the steps. Moving forward. Building something. But for him…”
I shrug, one shoulder lifting as I stare at my cone. “The closer we got to the wedding, the more he realized he didn’t actually want to get married.”
Ty’s jaw tightens just slightly. “He told you that?”
“Eventually,” I say. “Not all at once. It was more like a gradual pulling back. Hesitation. Little things that didn’t line up anymore.”
I glance out toward the street, watching people pass.
“And then one day it just became clear.”
There’s no bitterness in it. Not really. How can it be when it’s simply facts?
“I’m just grateful we stopped before we sent out invitations,” I add. “Because that would’ve been a nightmare to undo.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “That would’ve been a lot to handle on top of everything else.”
I slip into self-deprecation mode. “See? You can find miracles if you look.”
“He didn’t deserve that ring,” Ty says. It’s immediate and his words are certain. “That’s not even me being dramatic,” he adds.
I let a tiny snort escape. “You don’t even know him.”
“I don’t need to,” he says. “He had someone who designed her own ring. That’s—” He gestures toward me. “That’s not something you mess up.”
Something in my chest shifts at that. I look down at my ice cream, which is now absolutely melting past the point of structural integrity.
“Careful,” he says, nodding at it. “Your rocky road is living up to its name.”
I laugh, catching the drip before it falls. “Feels on theme.”
