3.
I didn’t know how Giada would react when I floated the idea of marriage, but I didn’t expect she’d get so angry. For one million dollars, any woman would jump at the chance. Of course the one I wanted would give me a hard time.
Giada Gardner…
Yeah, I knew she would be there at the auction last night.
She’s the only reason I signed up. It was a gamble.
She could’ve placed a bid on someone else, but somehow, I knew she would bid on me when she realized who I was, and I was right.
And she was happy to see me. She wasn’t so happy about being offered money in exchange for a fake marriage.
While it may not be ethical, it’s certainly not illegal.
People get married for different reasons other than love all the time.
But not Giada…
She needs to reconsider because I’ve been in love with her since we first met as children.
She was my first love, I believe. I don’t know how I was able to discern that at such a young age.
Maybe it was because I was growing up alone in a fifteen-bedroom home before I met her.
My own echo kept me company. I was lonely.
I had everything I wanted, but had nothing at the same time.
When her mother came over to do her housecleaning duties, I would watch her work. She’d try to entertain me sometimes, but she couldn’t do that and work at the same time. That’s when she first got the idea to start bringing her daughter.
The moment I saw Giada, I remember smiling.
Finally – thank God, finally – I had someone to play with.
Someone to talk to. My parents thought private school would put me with the offspring of the wealthy families in our neighborhood, and I’d hit it off with them and grow up with a bunch of friends who had the same things we had.
Children who were supposed to be going places.
I never felt like I fit in there. I fit with Giada.
When we were EIGHT, Giada taught me how to ride my bike.
My parents bought one for me. I’m sure it cost a fortune, but they never had time to show me how to ride it, and what’s interesting about that was, I would take time with them, with us, as a family, over an expensive bike I didn’t know how to ride.
At NINE years old, Giada taught me how to play blackjack. We used to play a lot back then, but as an adult, I haven’t played it once.
When we were TEN, we busied ourselves with playing hide and seek and with a house of that size, sometimes it took a half hour for us to find each other.
When we were ELEVEN, everything started to feel different. I knew I loved being around her, and whenever she wasn’t with me, I felt an emptiness – like a hollow tree that still stood tall, but didn’t produce any leaves. I was dead inside. When we were together, my world began to bloom again.
I was more in my feelings when we were TWELVE.
I guess it just came with all the physical, emotional and psychological changes that sprouted with puberty.
Though she was a tomboy, I was more aware of her femininity.
Her softness. More in tune with her. I felt nervousness and jealousy.
We’d go to the park down the street, and whenever I saw boys trying to talk to her, I’d get jealous.
It was also the year we promised to have each other’s backs no matter what.
That all continued when we were THIRTEEN, but we were locked in. I invited her to my eighth-grade dance. She happily accepted, though her mother didn’t seem too thrilled about the idea. Thinking that it was because she probably couldn’t afford a dress, I had my mother buy her one.
When we were FOURTEEN, Ms. Gardner caught us kissing in my bedroom. Well, she didn’t actually catch us in the act, but she could read between the lines. I suppose she saw it in our eyes, or it could’ve been the way we both jumped when the door opened.
That was the last day I saw Giada.
I tried everything in my power to see her again.
I had my mother talk to Ms. Gardner, inquiring about Giada’s whereabouts.
I asked Ms. Gardner myself where Giada was.
She said Giada had her own friends at school – kids she got along with who she could relate to more than me – and she was busy with them.
Those words crushed me.
Was I not her friend? We were close. How could she relate to them more than she could to me?
How do you just up and decide to no longer associate with someone whom you were tight with for so long?
Like, completely ghost them? It was like I didn’t matter anymore.
Like she’d moved on and in the process, she left me damaged.
It was the first time as a teen that I cried.
I felt like my universe had been snatched from beneath me, and nothing could replace it. Nothing could replace her .
And nothing or no one ever did.
I tried. I went through a phase where I dated casually, searching for a woman I could connect with on the same level I had once connected with Giada.
Most of them were feeling me, but I couldn’t feel anything.
Didn’t matter how beautiful the woman was.
How perfect my homies thought she was. I just wasn’t feeling it.
Giada Gardner ruined me for anyone else.
Her presence lingered with me long after she disappeared from my life.
And that kiss – it still lives rent-free in my mind and on my lips.
That’s why I found myself at the auction. The bachelors were given pictures of the women who would be participating. I saw her picture – that beautiful face and those beautiful eyes I will never forget – and I knew this was my way back into her life.
And boy, did it feel good being in her presence again after a fourteen-year drought.
Yes, she may have turned down my proposal, but I won’t stop until I get what I want.
And I want her.
I need her.
I’m not going through life with any other woman by my side. It’s just not going to happen.
I sigh as I take out my wallet, pulling out the black card to cover the $1,800 check while figuring out my next move.
I’ll just have to get her friend, Diedra, to work a little harder to get her friend to accept my offer.
Turns out, she works at a subsidiary of Noble Industries, and I knew she was good friends with Giada because of her social media.
Pictures of them together decorated her feed.
So, I reached out to explain who I was, and apparently Giada had mentioned me to Diedra at some point because she knew who I was without me having to go into too much detail.
In fact, it was Diedra who helped me get Giada to the auction because she knows how much Giada means to me.
She knew about the proposition, too, but she thought Giada would go for it. She was wrong about that.
I take out my phone and find our original text message string:
Kasim : Hey, Diedra, I’m sorry to bother you, but I need your help again. Giada didn’t accept my proposal.
Diedra : Oh crap.
Kasim : Yeah, tell me about it…
Diedra : I’m with her right now. What do you want me to do?
Kasim : Convince her to consider my proposition...tell her how a million dollars could change her life.
Diedra : You offered her a million dollars!
Kasim : I did.
Diedra : why?
Kasim : Because I thought it would be enough for her to agree on the spot, but she looked disgusted when she walked away from me.
Diedra : okay. I’ll do what I can. you better love her as much as you say you do. I don’t want my friend to get hurt.
Kasim : I never stopped loving her.