Chapter 40
CHAPTER 40
Another two weeks passed. I talked to the doctor in private, explaining that I wasn't engaged to Matt and asked him when I could talk to Matt about our reality. The doctor understood the situation and was even sympathetic to my case, but he warned me that upsetting Matt, which might increase his blood pressure, could cause irreparable damage. Matt's blood vessels in his brain were still healing, and he cautioned me to hang onto my secrets for a while longer.
The staff moved Matt out of ICU and onto a general ward. He started to walk with assistance. He couldn’t walk far, but with the help of the physiotherapist, he moved his legs on his volition. Matt returned to being the witty, easy going, intelligent guy that I had agreed to marry.
It frightened me how easy it was to just slide back into our old routines. I mean, would it be so bad to marry Matt? I may not love him in that heart-pounding kind of love that I had for Jackson, but Matt was a good man, and he would be an incredible father. And it wasn’t like I was choosing between two men. Jackson had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested in me in a romantic way.
When Matt had been a raging lunatic and acted deranged, I had been willing to proceed with this marriage. Now he was sweet, sensitive and kind, but I couldn't imagine moving forward.
I waited in his room while he walked around the ward.
He frowned when he saw me. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting you,” I said lightly.
“Isn’t today Tuesday?” he looked perplexed.
“It is.”
“You have your wedding dress fitting today,” he said, wincing as he sat back down on the side of the bed. His arm that was holding onto the IV pole was trembling.
Oh shit. I completely had forgotten about that.
“Matt,” I said gently, “I don’t need to do that today. I’m going to call and cancel.”
His gaze flew up to my face. “Emily. Come on. You told me that you and Beth are meeting at the bridal store for your final fittings and then you're going out for dinner.”
“I don’t feel like it,” I said with a sigh.
He swung his legs with effort back into his bed. “You need this. You've been sitting beside my bed forever. Come on. Get dressed and get out there. You deserve a break. Take a night off with Beth.”
I stared dubiously at him. “What about you?”
He shrugged and smirked. “Well, I'll eat a delicious dinner on a blue plastic tray and then I might get adventurous and watch some TV with my mom. I think there might be a rerun of Law and Order tonight.”
I didn’t give a shit about my wedding dress fitting but the thought of spending some time with Beth sounded appealing. “Are you sure?”
He winked at me. “I’m sick of you. Get out of here.”
Two hours later, I stood in the bridal store with Beth. I stood on the podium while the seamstress yanked at my dress.
“What have you been eating?” she grunted .
I looked down at the beautiful white wedding dress. “Why?”
She stood up and yanked at the embroidered bodice. “Getting tight in the boobs and too loose in the waist.”
“I think it's fine.”
“Must be fixed,” she said in her thick accent. “Stay there, and I'll be right back.”
In the mirror, I looked like a bride. I owned the most beautiful wedding dress in the world, but I felt sick to my stomach. I was marrying the wrong man.
My hands flew to my face. And there it was. I didn’t want to marry Matt. Tears started streaming down my face.
“You know, I never really thought pink was my color but I think this particular pink makes me look very dewy and fresh,” Beth walked into the room and checked herself out in the mirror. When I didn’t answer, her eyes met mine in the reflection.
She spun around. “Emily.”
“I’m fine.”
She rushed towards me. “You're fine? Is that why you’re standing here crying?”
The seamstress came bustling back in and stopped at the look on my face. “Tears are normal for the bride. Trust me.”
That only made me cry harder. What was I doing? I couldn't marry Matt. Matt was wonderful, but Jackson owned my heart. How could I lay beside Matt on our wedding night when I would only be thinking of another man? It wasn’t fair to Matt, and it wasn't fair to me.
“I can’t do this,” I managed to speak.
Seamstress shook her head. “That’s okay. I have new measurements. You come back soon, and your dress will be perfect.”
An hour later, Beth and I sat in a booth at the back of some dimly lit bar. We wanted privacy, and I needed to talk .
“I thought things were going well for you and Matt,” Beth asked cautiously.
“They are. He’s a changed man.”
“But you love Jackson.”
I nodded in misery. “I feel like an idiot but yeah. I do.”
She twisted the coaster around in her hands. “Maybe you just need to tell Jackson how you feel?”
I lifted my wet eyes to her. “Already did that. Right there in a big dramatic fashion in the hospital parking lot, I confessed my undying love to him.”
Her gaze went big. “What did he say?”
I shook my head. “He looked cornered. Sort of like a wild animal that was trying to gnaw off his leg out of a trap.”
She started to laugh. “It can’t have been that bad.”
“I might have been downplaying just how bad it was. Sheer panic and fear. It was written all over his face.”
She reached her hand out and covered mine. “I'm sorry.”
“I want safe. I want security. I want someone who’s going to come home every night. I want to raise a little family. I want those boring family vacations that everyone complains about. And Jackson is the exact opposite of all of that. He lives a dangerous life. He doesn’t want commitment. He doesn’t want kids. Even if I got him, he would emotionally destroy me. I couldn’t live with that kind of fear and uncertainty in my life.”
Beth gave me a funny look. “Can I ask what you love about him then?”
I swallowed hard. “That’s the irony. He makes me feel safe.”
“Well that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” she argued.
I wiped my nose with the back of my sleeve. I was a disaster doing the ugly cry in public, and I couldn’t even stop myself. “Who am I to him? He came to New York for some mysterious treatment and somehow Matt, not this Matt, but the wild Matt wanted to reconcile with him.”
“What happened between them? ”
“I have no idea. But whatever it was, it wasn’t good.”
“And they never did reconcile.”
“It was like Matt wanted him there but then couldn’t deal with him being there. And Jackson was just waiting, like me, for Matt to show up every once in awhile. So Jackson and I spent time together.”
Beth gave me a sympathetic look. “And you fell for him.”
More tears fell. “It was like the perfect storm. The more aggressive Matt acted, the more protective Jackson got. And the safer I felt. It was like that situation played into all of our needs.”
“And then you two slept together.”
I looked at my hands. “I don’t think it meant the same thing to him as it did to me.”
“It was your first time,” her voice was sympathetic, “of course it meant something to you.”
“It definitely wasn’t his first time.”
We both looked at each other and then at the same time, we started to laugh. I laughed until I cried. Beth had her face on the table, and her shoulders were shaking so hard. When we both came up for air, we both had tears in our eyes.
“Shit,” she said. “I mean, out of all the guys, you had to pick him? Seriously!”
I wailed. “I don’t even know how that happened.”
“How was…”
Really good,” I interrupted. Flashes of Jackson, naked, devastating me with another kiss. Touching me. Lifting me up. Moving on top of me. It was a movie that played over regularly in my mind. Once started, it was hard to stop.
Beth leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her hands covering her mouth. “Julie would have a shit fit if she ever found out.”
A wet snort came out. “Fuck her. She fucked Matt. Repeatedly.”
“Matt doesn’t know?”
I shook my head. “No. How easily did he get off? He had the affair. I get the secret.”
She rolled her eyes. “That sucks. ”
“I can't marry Matt. I need to break this off with him.”
“When are you going to do that?”
I shrugged. “When the doctor says I’m allowed to upset him?”
“But before the wedding, right?”
“Helpful advice.”
“Hey, with your luck, he'll be going straight from the hospital to the church.”
I pointed at her. “Don’t even jinx me like that.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah. I think I have spent so much time living in fear of being alone that maybe I just need to embrace it and accept that I might need to be alone for awhile. But I'd rather be alone than be with the wrong guy just because I'm afraid to be alone.”
We sat there in silence for a long moment.
“You ever hear from him?”
I shrugged. “Just a couple texts here and there.”
“So are you going to keep up the charade until Matt is better? Do you think you'll have a change of heart?”
I shook my head. “No. I know I won’t. I don't want to marry Matt.”