The room fell silent.<\/p>\n
Gleb smiled, expecting me to announce a wedding date or some pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n
Instead, I folded my hands on the table.<\/p>\n
“The first piece of news,” I said calmly, “is that those keys belong to me.”<\/p>\n
Nina laughed.<\/p>\n
“Oh, sweetheart, Gleb already explained everything.”<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
“Really?”<\/p>\n
He cleared his throat.<\/p>\n
“I was going to tell you after the wedding…”<\/p>\n
“Tell me what?”<\/p>\n
“That… it would make more sense if Mom moved into your apartment.”<\/p>\n
“My apartment?”<\/p>\n
“It’s bigger,” he said. “And it’s close to the hospital.”<\/p>\n
Nina nodded eagerly.<\/p>\n
“I’ve earned some comfort after all these years.”<\/p>\n
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.<\/p>\n
“So your plan was to give away my apartment without even asking me?”<\/p>\n
Gleb sighed dramatically.<\/p>\n
“Don’t make this difficult.”<\/p>\n
“We’re going to be married.”<\/p>\n
“What’s yours will be ours.”<\/p>\n
“And Mom shouldn’t have to live alone.”<\/p>\n
I smiled again.<\/p>\n
“That brings me to the second piece of news.”<\/p>\n
They both looked relieved.<\/p>\n
“I knew you’d understand,” Nina said.<\/p>\n
“Oh, I understand perfectly.”<\/p>\n
I reached into my handbag and placed a folder on the table.<\/p>\n
Inside were copies of my property documents.<\/p>\n
“My apartment was purchased five years before I met Gleb.”<\/p>\n
“I own it outright.”<\/p>\n
“No mortgage.”<\/p>\n
“No joint ownership.”<\/p>\n
“No legal claim by anyone else.”<\/p>\n
Gleb’s smile disappeared.<\/p>\n
“So?”<\/p>\n
“So yesterday…”<\/p>\n
“…after realizing my keys were missing…”<\/p>\n
“…I replaced every lock.”<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
I continued.<\/p>\n
“I also installed security cameras.”<\/p>\n
“And yesterday afternoon…”<\/p>\n
“…the cameras recorded someone using my old keys to enter my apartment.”<\/p>\n
Gleb’s face turned white.<\/p>\n
Nina slowly lowered the keyring.<\/p>\n
I slid another envelope across the table.<\/p>\n
“Here are the screenshots.”<\/p>\n
The photos clearly showed Gleb unlocking my front door while I was at work.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to know why my keys had disappeared.”<\/p>\n
“Now I do.”<\/p>\n
Neither of them spoke.<\/p>\n
“I’ve already filed a police report about the unauthorized entry.”<\/p>\n
Gleb jumped to his feet.<\/p>\n
“Emily, don’t be ridiculous!”<\/p>\n
“You don’t report your fianc\u00e9!”<\/p>\n
“I report anyone who enters my property without permission.”<\/p>\n
Nina finally found her voice.<\/p>\n
“We’re family!”<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
“We almost were.”<\/p>\n
I quietly removed my engagement ring.<\/p>\n
Placed it on the table.<\/p>\n
And stood up.<\/p>\n
“The wedding is canceled.”<\/p>\n
Gleb reached toward me.<\/p>\n
“Please…”<\/p>\n
“You’ve misunderstood.”<\/p>\n
I looked him directly in the eyes.<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
“I finally understood.”<\/p>\n
Without another word, I walked to the door.<\/p>\n
Behind me, I heard Nina asking,<\/p>\n
“What are we going to do now?”<\/p>\n
I smiled without turning around.<\/p>\n
“You can start by giving me back my keys.”<\/p>\n
Then I walked away\u2014<\/p>\n
knowing I’d just escaped a marriage that would have cost me far more than an apartment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The room fell silent. Gleb smiled, expecting me to announce a wedding date or some pleasant surprise. Instead, I folded my hands on the table. “The first piece of news,” I said calmly, “is that those keys belong to me.” Nina laughed. “Oh, sweetheart, Gleb already explained everything.” I looked at him. “Really?” He cleared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7251,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7250\/revisions\/7251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}