“You cannot destroy a family over a woman.”

That was when I understood there was no going back.

“I’m not destroying anything. You are, by excusing Camila.”

My mother cried.

“You will apologize to her.”

“No.”

“And you will keep paying for her school,” my father ordered. “Don’t mix things.”

I took a slow breath.

For two years, I had paid Camila’s private school tuition because she had failed at public school and my parents said she needed “a better environment.” I did it because I loved her and thought I was helping her build a future.

But that night, I saw the truth.

I was not helping her.

I was funding her entitlement.

“From today on, I’m done paying her tuition,” I said.

My parents stared at me.

“You can’t be serious,” my mother whispered.

“I am.”

“Over a dress?” my father muttered.

“No. Over disrespect. Over cruelty. Over the fact that you are teaching her she never has to answer for anything.”

My mother looked at me like I was a stranger.

“You’re choosing her over your family.”

“She is my family.”

No one spoke.

As I turned to leave, my father said the words that broke everything.

“If you insist on humiliating us like this, don’t count on us for the wedding.”

I stopped at the door.

I did not turn around.

“Then don’t come.”

And for the first time in my life, I realized I might get married without my parents—not because they couldn’t be there, but because they had chosen to defend the person who caused the harm.

Part 3

Two days before the wedding, Natalia and I left my parents’ house.

There was no dramatic shouting. I carried our suitcases downstairs, ordered a taxi, and waited by the door while Natalia held a box with her wedding shoes, photos of her mother, and the earrings she planned to wear.

My mother cried in the living room.

“Don’t do this, Santiago.”

“I didn’t do this, Mom.”

Camila stood in the back, red-eyed and silent.

She never apologized.

My father did speak.

“You’ll regret this.”

I looked at him sadly.