"A whole family, ganging up on one poor young man. Have you no shame?"
I stared at her, seething.
"Delilah, who exactly is ganging up on whom?"
"My parents can't eat seafood. How many times have I told you that already?"
She just never cared enough to remember.
A flicker of guilt crossed Delilah's eyes.
"Enough. Philip didn't do it on purpose."
"Take your parents out for another meal later. Order whatever they like, and that's that."
By the time dinner ended, it was pouring outside.
Philip climbed into the front passenger seat like he owned it.
His dog leapt into the back.
"Aaron, sorry about this. My dog gets anxious around strangers."
"Why don't you all just grab a cab?"
Delilah didn't see anything wrong with that.
"Philip's wearing brand-new shoes today. If they get soaked, that's a few thousand dollars down the drain."
"Aaron, hailing a cab is easy enough."
With that, she hit the gas, and the spray from her tires slapped straight into us.
The dress and suit my parents had bought just for tonight were spattered with filth, both of them a soaked mess.
The rain came down harder. We stood outside the restaurant for forty minutes and couldn't get a single car.
My mother's carefully done hair collapsed into a limp tangle, plastered to her face.
She crouched down and wiped the mud off my father's pant leg with her sleeve.
"It's fine, it's fine. A little wiping and it'll be clean."
Somehow the pearl necklace snapped, and the beads scattered across the ground.
My mother knelt in the rain, picking them up one by one.
Tears blurred my eyes. I stepped forward and pulled her to her feet.
"Leave it. We don't want any of it."
"And this wedding, I'm not going through with it either."
The real estate agent called.
"Mr. Pruitt, you mentioned last time you wanted to sell the house. I've got a buyer here, in a hurry, and the price works for them. Are you sure you want to sell?"
I looked back at my parents' aged faces.
They had spent every last cent of their savings to buy me that house.
They had ridden a train for more than thirty hours, hearts full of hope, just to witness me happy.
They had worn their very best clothes, and someone had turned them into a joke.
I gripped the phone and gave a firm nod.
"I'm sure."
When I got home, Delilah hadn't come back.
My phone suddenly buzzed like mad. It was a notification from the security camera app.
The camera was left behind by the previous owner, standing entirely apart from the whole smart-home system.
On the feed, Philip walked out of the bathroom, bare from the waist up.
He wrapped his arms around Delilah from behind.
"Delilah, do you really feel nothing for me at all?"
Delilah stood rigid where she was, the hand at her side clenched tight into a fist, as if holding something back.
"Delilah, my only regret is the timing. I met you too late."
"Your wedding is in three days. There's no chance for us, ever."
"I just... could you grant me one last wish? Be my first woman?"
"That way, I'd never forget you as long as I live."
As Philip spoke, he broke down sobbing.
Delilah carefully wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes.
Then she rose and rushed to the door, about to leave.
"Philip, Aaron and I have seven years together. I promised I wouldn't betray him."
"You... you'll meet someone better someday."
Philip clung to her from behind, weeping.
"There won't be. There'll never be anyone better than you."
"Back when my father had cancer, you canceled your down payment on the house and handed over the entire dowry payment to me without a second thought. Can you really claim you don't feel anything for me?"
I froze where I stood, my nails nearly digging through my palms.
So it wasn't her father who had cancer. It was Philip's.
And I was the only fool still worrying she didn't have enough money to get by.
