When my health insurance provider called to tell me my payment hadn’t gone through, I didn’t panic—at first. I figured it was a glitch, a weird banking hiccup. These things happen, right?

Except… it wasn’t just a hiccup. It was a hole. A gaping one. Right in the middle of the joint account Jake and I had shared for over two years.

I’d transferred my half of the bills days before. Same as always. Jake took care of the rest. That was our system. He was “better with finances,” or so he claimed. And I believed him—bless my trusting little heart.

Still locked out of the account, I texted him.

“Hey, do you know why the joint account overdrafted?”

The reply came almost immediately.

“Yarn. Seriously, Amy. All that yarn you’ve been ordering? Your crochet obsession is draining us.”

I blinked.

Yarn?

He blamed yarn?

I’ve crocheted since I was twelve. It’s not a passing phase. It’s the thing that kept me sane during Mom’s chemo, during job layoffs, during life’s endless curveballs. And yes, I’ve been ramping up inventory for my first craft fair, but every skein, every hook, every spool of overpriced eco-label string came from my personal account. I budget. I save. I document. Meticulously.

Jake knew that.

But he still tossed the blame like it was lint he could flick off his shirt. Like my creative joy was a frivolous, self-indulgent hobby instead of the quiet heartbeat of my everyday life.

That night, while he snored on the couch—face slack, belly full of pasta I made—I picked up his phone. He never changed his passcode. Never thought I’d snoop. And honestly, I hadn’t planned to.

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