And now she sat at my dining table, staring at the cold photographic evidence of exactly what her hardworking son had been doing during all those late nights, and she had nothing left to say.

Not one word.

“You hosted a dinner,” Julian rasped, his hands shaking as he stared down at the legal papers on his plate, “just to do this?

You planned all of this?

You invited our families here just to humiliate me?” And I took a slow, unhurried sip of my water, and I looked at him, and I told him the simple truth of what I had done.

“No, Julian,” I said.