“You’ll figure out a permanent placement for the boys later, right?” he continued, folding his arms over his chest. “How long will they be staying in this house, and will they be leaving before our wedding date?”
I stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, unable to comprehend what I was hearing.
“I became my brothers’ legal guardian because I love them with all my heart,” I said firmly. “I am never going to abandon them, and until they are fully grown, they are going to live with us.”
The pleasant, fake expression on his face instantly vanished into thin air. His jaw tightened angrily, and he pushed himself away from the door frame with a harsh sigh.
“I am NOT raising someone else’s kids,” he spat out coldly.
My stomach dropped into a deep, dark pit as his words echoed in the room.
“Send them into foster care, or the wedding is OFF completely,” he demanded without blinking.
For a long moment, I could not even speak a single word. I just stared at the man I had loved since high school, the same man who had held my trembling hand at the hospital just days ago, and the same man who had promised that we would face everything together.
“But they have nobody else in this entire world,” I finally managed to say, my eyes burning. “I am not sending my own little brothers into foster care.”
My voice cracked on the last word, but I forced myself to keep eye contact with him.
“I know this tragic accident wasn’t something either of us ever expected, but Tristan… my parents just died,” I reasoned through my tears. “How can you even sit there and say something so cruel?”
He laughed out loud, a short and bitter sound that felt like a sharp physical slap across my face.
“I am NOT ruining my entire life and financial future for someone else’s kids,” he yelled back at me. “So either you make arrangements to send them away immediately, or we are completely done.”
Something inside my chest went completely quiet and still in that exact second. The heavy tears that had been threatening to spill over my cheeks simply disappeared.
My profound grief, heartbreak, and overwhelming exhaustion seemed to fold
