While My Family Spent My Savings in the Bahamas, a Stranger Kept Watch Outside My ICU Door

Valerie, on the other hand, had seven engagement photo outfits.

Her fiancé, Blake, sold luxury boats at Lake Monroe and spoke in motivational quotes he clearly stole from podcasts.

“Your money mindset creates your reality,” he told me once at Thanksgiving, while eating the pie I had bought.

I nearly asked him whether my money mindset had also created his unpaid phone bill, but I swallowed it. I was always swallowing something.

Everything got worse after Valerie got engaged.

Not because weddings are expensive. I understood that. I had attended enough bridal showers to know love in America now came wrapped in imported flowers, calligraphy, and a photographer named Kyle who charged extra for “golden hour.”

But Valerie did not want a wedding.