7 years ago, the woman I was about to marry left me for my rich brother. Today, at our father’s funeral, my brother strutted in with her, all shine and smug.
She leaned in close enough that I could smell her expensive perfume and whispered, “So, I guess I won, right? You’re still poor.”
I looked her dead in the eye and said calmly, “Yeah, well, meet my wife.”
She froze, because standing next to me was someone she never expected to see.
Someone who would shatter everything she thought she knew about winning and losing.
My name is David Thornton. I’m 35 years old, and for the past 7 years, I’ve been rebuilding a life that was torn apart by the two people I trusted most. What I’m about to tell you isn’t just a story about betrayal.
It’s about discovering that sometimes the worst thing that happens to you becomes the best thing that ever could have happened.
But before we get into how everything unfolded at that funeral, before I tell you about the woman standing beside me who made my ex-fiance’s face drain of all color, I need to take you back back to when I was 28 years old, working as a high school history teacher in Portland, Oregon, making $42,000 a year and thinking I had my whole life figured out.
Her name was Jessica Hartley. She was 26 when we met, working as a dental hygienist at the practice where I went for my annual cleaning. She had auburn hair that caught the light just right, green eyes that seemed to see right through you, and a smile that could make you forget whatever you were worried about.
We started dating after I worked up the courage to ask her out following my third appointment that year.
I’d never needed that much dental work before, but I kept finding reasons to go back. Our relationship was comfortable. That’s the word I’d use.
Comfortable.
We’d grab dinner at chain restaurants, watch Netflix on Friday nights, and talk about buying a house someday when we’d saved enough for a down payment.
Jessica liked the idea of stability.
She’d grown up in a family that struggled financially, her father bouncing between jobs, and she’d told me on our fourth date that she never wanted to live like that again.
I proposed after 2 years on a camping trip to Crater Lake. Nothing fancy, just the two of us, a campfire, and a ring I’d saved up 6 months to buy. It cost me $2,800, which was a fortune on a teacher salary.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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