Chapter 3

Jared couldn't force out a single decent word.

The way he saw it, I might not be his wife yet, and I would soon be a woman he cast off, but somewhere in his head I was still his to own.

So he spoke without thinking.

"In your dreams. A woman who spreads herself around belongs at the bottom of the river!"

Then he caught himself.

He realized he'd said the wrong thing, gritted his teeth, and changed his tone.

"You've got some nerve. The reason I'm calling off the engagement is all on you!"

"You did so many things to wrong me. Why shouldn't I be the one to break it off?"

Ivy nodded right along with him.

"Exactly!"

"Cousin, we wanted to leave you some dignity, keep being family and visiting like nothing happened. But you're too shameless to take the kindness. Do we really have to say it out loud and drag your name through the mud?"

The words dripped with insinuation, and the onlookers were suddenly curious about what I could possibly have done to make both Jared and Ivy turn on me.

"What Jared's saying can't be coming from nowhere."

"Debbie's pretty, sensible, comes from a good family. If there were no problem, why break the engagement?"

"How can a woman wrong a man? Could it be... that kind of thing?"

"Very possible. Jared doesn't seem like a man with a cold, black heart, does he?"

I knew how enough loose talk could melt a person's reputation, so I blocked the two of them before they could slip away in the confusion, and pressed them, question after question.

"I wronged you?"

"Everyone in this village knows I've liked you since we were kids. After the engagement I treated myself as one of the Shaws. How many times did I nurse your parents when they were sick? How much did I worry over them?"

"And now you've got Ivy, and you say I wronged you?"

"If you don't make it clear today, we'll take it somewhere that will make it clear."

Five:

Jared went mute.

He knew it too. I had never done a single thing to wrong him. The one thing was burning his college acceptance letter, but that letter hadn't even reached my hands yet. He couldn't blame me for something that hadn't happened.

Ivy couldn't get a word out either, only kept insisting it was all a misunderstanding.

That was when the crowd caught on that the two of them had been talking nonsense the whole time, so they joined my parents and cursed the pair as ungrateful vipers.

I looked at the two of them.

"One of you is a scum who betrayed a marriage promise, the other's an ungrateful wretch who forgot everything done to raise her. You really are a matched set. But you don't get to have it both ways. If you want to break the engagement, the custom gets followed."

"And one more thing. You just reminded me. I'm not only breaking this engagement, I'm taking back every cent I spent on the two of you all these years!"

Jared had already been anxious the moment the custom came up.

The second he heard money, he got worse.

"Whether it went to me or to Ivy, you gave it all willingly."

"Money that's been handed over doesn't get demanded back."

"Coming here to break it off today was me doing you a favor. Since you're too shameless to take it, I don't need to say more. What can you even do if I don't follow your little custom?"

"I'll be off to college soon. I'll never lay eyes on trash like you again in this life, so don't think you get any say over me..."

He stopped there.

Jared clapped a hand over his mouth, seeming to realize he'd said too much.

I didn't stop him this time. I turned to the neighbors instead.

"Fine. I'm calling the police right now, and every one of you will testify for me, that he's a scum who ruins a woman and then throws her away!"

"Never mind that Jared hasn't even gotten into college. Even if he had, I don't believe any college would want a man like him!"