13. Chapter 13
Chapter 13
-Kace-
I was unsure if I was doing the right thing. I had never had to do something like this, but I was determined to figure out if someone could actually touch this dead thing in my chest, and if there was even a tiny possibility, I might learn what love was. Maybe Annabella was the person who was going to show me.
“Explain my side?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Will you listen?”
“I will listen,” I confirmed.
“And not interrupt me?” she asked.
“I won’t do that. But can we go outside and eat together?”
She thought about it, then stood up, and I smiled a little.
“One insult, and I'm out of there,” she warned me.
“No insult. I just speak plainly,” I admitted.
“Fine, one word, and I'm out of there.”
“I will stay quiet through your version,” I promised.
We both went outside, and Annabella sat in front of me. She poured herself a little juice while I observed her and snacked on small pieces of fruit.
“Are you a heavy metal fan?” I asked.
She looked at me, surprised. “Not really.”
“You just listened to it while training.”
“I was just angry,” she whispered.
“At me,” I stated.
“At Zac,” she corrected.
“Sorry, your sister’s fiancé?” I asked.
Annabella nodded, and I grew intrigued.
“Why?” I inquired.
“We used to be friends.”
“Friends?” I echoed.
“Best… friends. We have known each other forever, and I thought with time he might start feeling the same thing as me…” she whispered.
I suddenly realized something and dug into my pocket where the ring she had given me was. I held it up, and her eyes grew wider. I hadn’t meant to carry it around. I had just forgotten I had put it in my pocket.
“It has ‘BF’ on the inside. Can I take a wild guess and say this came from him?” I asked.
Annabella nodded, and I reached over, handing the ring back to her. She took it but didn’t put it on. She just looked at it, and then tears began appearing in her eyes. Oh shit , I thought. I was not good with tears. Yet she didn’t let them spill, but wiped them away and took a deep breath.
“I never knew he found me… annoying,” she told me.
“What?” I inquired.
“We were best friends, and while I eventually realized he would never feel the same, I thought he was fine with us being friends. My sister told me that was not true. She said he thought I was annoying and that I was hanging onto him, clingy even. He never told me… and she gave me this option—an escape.”
“Our marriage,” I concluded.
She nodded. “Yeah. I realized what people were saying behind my back. What they had thought about me for years: some pathetic woman panting after her more beautiful sister’s fiancé. I couldn’t take it. I didn’t think I would sign the papers, but it just became too much. And then you… you believed the exact same thing. I thought you were my escape, but maybe I will just always be the crazy and pathetic sister,” she confessed.
So many things made sense to me in that moment, and I realized how deep my words had cut. I watched as Annabella did her best to keep wiping away the tears, but they kept flowing. However, she didn’t seem to want to cry in front of me.
“I am not crying!” she stated, thinking I would see her as weak if she was, or maybe even more pathetic. But I saw who the real pathetic ones were.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered.
“You never asked…” she shot back.
“It has been going on for a long time—the rumors,” I informed her.
“I know… I know that now.”
“But I believe your version,” I declared.
She sniffled and focused on me, her eyes red. “You do?”
“I do,” I confirmed.
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
No wonder my wife’s confidence had been broken. She was obviously compared a lot to her sister, and all her fears about not being good enough had been confirmed when she learned of the many rumors swirling around her.
“You don’t believe me?” I asked.
“I… don’t know what to believe,” she confessed.
“Well, I can promise you that I believe your version more. It seems like Zac wanted the joy of putting you down but was too much of a coward to be honest with you,” I explained.
She looked so surprised, her eyes growing big, and I gave her a small smile, which she returned.
“I was too quick to say what I said. I thought you would explain it then,” I admitted.
“What?” she inquired.
“I was… pushing you,” I explained. “To see if the rumors were really true.”
“Why not ask me?”
“I… often find people not wanting to be honest when they are asked directly.”
“Then you must not have very nice friends,” she said.
I let out a little chuckle. No, I didn’t. I had realized that after my accident.
“Things are changing,” I told her.
“Yeah, you got married,” she teased with a little smile, and I saw her trying to lighten the mood.
“I did, and so did you.”
“What a great pair we make…”
“We could make it great,” I countered.
“Oh, come on, we have only spent a little time together, and we keep getting angry at each other,” she pointed out.
“We are still learning,” I argued.
“Or maybe you just can’t build a marriage like this?”
“What if we proved people wrong?” I asked.
“You think that is possible?” she inquired.
“I think if we try, yes.”