I don't remember when people started assuming I would marry her. Maybe middle school. Maybe even earlier. Our families had always been close, and we grew up in the same circles, attending the same events and sharing the same friends. By high school, nobody questioned it anymore. There was never an official arrangement, but everyone seemed certain about how our story would end. The strange thing was that neither of us ever talked about it. We were friends, comfortable with each other, and simply allowed the expectations around us to exist.

Then, in university, I met someone who changed everything. We were never officially together—not because I didn't want to be, but because we both understood the reality of my situation. Instead, I spent years convincing myself that I could change that reality. After graduation, I buried myself in work, took on bigger projects, and built a name for myself within the family business. Every achievement felt like one step closer to earning the right to make my own choices. I genuinely believed that if I became successful enough, powerful enough, my family would finally listen when I told them who I wanted to marry.

They didn't.

Tonight is the engagement party, it became official, it wasn't presented as a discussion. It was an announcement. A decision everyone else seemed to celebrate because, to them, it was the ending they had expected since we were children. The irony was that my fiancée wasn't someone I disliked. She was intelligent, accomplished, and probably deserved far better than a man standing beside her while mourning a future he never got to have. And as I watched people congratulate us that night, I couldn't help wondering if she felt it too—that after spending our entire lives being told we belonged together, neither of us had actually been asked what we wanted.