I swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry.”
“I told you not to say that.”
“I don’t have anything else.”
“Then don’t have anything.”
She wiped under her eyes with the heel of her hand, then looked down at the ring.
I knew what was coming before she touched it.
“No,” I said.
Not because I wanted to keep the engagement.
Not because I had any right.
Because watching her take it off while I lay there useless felt like having my failure made visible.
Her fingers closed around the ring.
She twisted once.
It did not move.
Her breath hitched.
That small human struggle nearly undid me.
I had put it on her hand. Slid it over her knuckle while she cried happy tears and said yes like I was giving her forever. Now she had to fight it off in a hospital room because I had made forever out of cowardice.
She twisted again.
The ring came free.
Her hand looked bare without it.
Wrong.
Maybe everything did after a promise died.
Georgia held it in her palm for a second.
Then she walked to the side table and set it down beside the coffee she had brought me.
Not gently.
The small sound of metal against laminate cracked through the room.
“There,” she said.
My throat closed.
“Georgia.”
She shook her head. “No.”
