Mandy’s call was still in progress on the lawyer’s phone when the red lights of police cars flashed across the windows of the house.
“Do not answer,” I told the lawyer.
“It is already too late. They are here.”
A few minutes later they knocked on the door. This time the voice was official.
“Mr. Dave, police. Please open the door.”
I opened the door. Two investigators entered, and behind them stood Mandy. Her face looked tired and frightened, but her eyes still had that old confidence.
“He is lying to you,” she said immediately. “Dave has become aggressive. He threatens me and does not let me into the house.”
I stood silently.
The investigator looked toward me. “Sir, your fiancée has stated that you illegally kept her belongings.”
“Her belongings are by the door,” I answered. “You can check.”
Mandy came toward me.
“How could you do this?” she asked me quietly.
“Do what?”
“Change the lock. Put my things into boxes. Call everyone.”
“I canceled the wedding. I did not lose your things.”
Her eyes first turned toward the boxes in the hallway behind me, and then toward the documents lying on the table.
Ryan opened his bag.
“This is the hotel video, the bank statement, and the audio recording. Everything has been handed over to the investigators.”
The color disappeared from Mandy’s face.
“This was obtained illegally,” she said.
“Do not worry about the video yet,” the investigator replied. “You have more important matters to explain.”
Lucas came to the station himself that evening and gave a statement. He handed his phone to the police, where Mandy’s messages were stored. One of them said: “Dave will sign because he trusts me. If he resists, I will say that he was abusive.”
Mandy looked at these words and seemed unable to believe that she herself had written them.
The investigator put the phone on the table.
“Is this your number?”
Mandy was silent.
“I asked you, is this your number?”
“Yes.”
“Did you write these words?”
Her lips moved.
“I was angry.”
“And you were saying that Dave was threatening you.”
For the first time she did not find a quick answer.
Then the bank employee confirmed that the transfer of twenty-five thousand dollars had been requested with a forged signature. The expert proved that the signature placed on the document was a copy of my signature, but had not been made by me.
Mandy’s lawyer called me the next day.
“My client is ready for an agreement,” he told me.
“I am not asking for anything.”
“You can withdraw the complaint.”
“No.”
My voice was calm.
“I am only doing what the law requires. Its consequences are no longer my responsibility.”
Several hours later the lawyer refused to continue working with Mandy. He said that the client had lied repeatedly in the statement prepared for the court and that he could no longer cover it up.
Mandy’s last attempt was to convince me.
She waited for me in the hallway of the police station, where an old clock on the wall clicked loudly every second.
“Dave, just listen to me.”
“I have already listened to you.”
“Lucas was a mistake.”
“No. Lucas was only the one part that the camera recorded.”
She fell silent.
“I still love you,” she said at last.
Her words would once have changed my whole day. Now they only brought me exhaustion.
“Maybe you really do love me,” I answered. “But you love your own desires more. That is why I am no longer going to protect you from yourself.”
She was crying, but I did not go to her anymore.
A week later, the video handed over for Mandy was officially played in my lawyer’s office. Ryan, the investigator, Mandy, and I were sitting in the room. Her face appeared on the screen.
“Dave will sign everything. He only needs to hear that I love him.”
In the video Lucas asked: “And if he finds out?”
Mandy’s own voice answered: “Then I will convince him that it is his fault.”
Mandy watched the screen and slowly clenched her hands on her knees.
“Turn it off,” she said.
“You said this,” the investigator replied.
“I did not mean it that way.”
“But you said it that way.”
At that moment she heard her own voice for the first time as I had heard it — cold, deliberate, and without any regret.
Tears came from her eyes.
And I thought only one thing: this woman whom I had once intended to marry had already disappeared a long time ago. I had simply realized it late.
The legal process lasted several months. Mandy was charged with attempted fraud and the use of a forged signature. The money was returned to me in full. Part of the wedding expenses was also returned to me by the hotel and other companies when they learned why I had canceled everything.
I moved out of the house.
Not because I wanted to leave it to Mandy. There were simply too many memories inside those walls. I rented a small apartment far from the beach, in a quiet part of the city, where the smell of a bakery came in the morning and a female neighbor grew basil by the window.
I slept alone the first night.
Silence no longer frightened me.
Mandy’s wedding folder no longer lay on the kitchen table. In its place were work notes, the key to the new apartment, and one white sheet of paper on which I wrote to myself: “Do not return to a place where you need to prove yourself.”
Three months later Ryan told me that Mandy’s sentence had been issued. She received a suspended sentence, and was ordered to repay the money and perform mandatory community service.
I did not go to court.
Watching her punishment would not bring me freedom. My peace had already begun.
One morning, when I was getting ready to go to work, I found an envelope at the door. It was from Mandy.
She wrote that she had changed. That she no longer saw Lucas. That she had tried to sell our house only because of fear. At the end she wrote: “If you can ever trust me again, I will be here.”
I read the letter to the end.
Then I folded it and put it in the trash bin.
I did not answer.
Several weeks later I started a new job in another city. In the morning I rode the metro, drank coffee in a small café during my break, and walked near the beach in the evening. For the first time in a long time, thinking about the future no longer caused fear in my body.
I remained friends with Ryan. Lucas wrote to me once, apologizing. He also had to bear his consequences, but I did not consider forgiving him my obligation.
Four months later the first snow fell by the window of the new apartment. Small, silent flakes fell against the glass. On the table beside my work bag lay the old copper key — the one I had held in my hand when leaving Mandy’s house.
That key no longer opened anything. No one used the old lock anymore. Still, I kept it.
Not because of Mandy.
Because of that morning when I chose myself for the first time.
The phone rang again. Mandy’s number appeared on the screen.
I did not answer the call.
A few seconds later a message arrived: “Just once, tell me that everything will be all right.”
I went to the window, picked up the key in my hand, and looked at the snow.
Everything was not all right.
But I was already all right.
The copper key grew warm in my palm.
The old door was finally locked.
Missed the beginning?
