I stared at my phone, waiting for the punchline.
$500?
As if the plane ticket, hotel, dress, shoes, and vacation days hadn’t already drained enough of my wallet.
What made it worse was her choice of words: “reminder.” There had been zero mention of this before. She was pretending like this had always been the plan and I had somehow just missed the fine print.
I’d already picked out a heartfelt gift—a custom art piece I’d commissioned months earlier. It featured her and her fiancé’s names, their wedding date, and birthstones, painted by a local artist she had gushed about. It was soft, personal, timeless.
