twenty-five
When Laurie woke up, Jo had closed herself off again. She saw the minute he noticed the change in her. He changed too. It was as if her darkness was visibly spreading to him, stealing his sunny countenance right before her eyes. Laurie pressed his lips together.
To keep himself from kissing me, Jo thought, and wanted the earth to swallow her up.
“All right, let’s do what we always have done. Let’s talk,” he said.
“Let’s eat,”
Jo retorted.
So they did both.
By midday, a weak, mealy sun had come up, but the house was freezing outside and in, and they fed the fire in the smallest library until they were comfortable enough on the carpet in front of it, eating scorching-hot delicious raspberry pie, fresh from the kitchen.
“I think… I always loved you too—that way,”
Jo said with her mouth full.
“You were right after all.”
Laurie pushed his plate away. Closed his eyes, swayed.
“You—I knew it,”
he whispered.
“I knew you did. I could kill you for putting me through this.”
“Look at you, fighting with me the minute I said I loved you.”
Jo smiled and took another bite, burning her tongue. His mouth will have to fix that later, she thought, and blushed so furiously she gave herself a headache.
“Did you expect anything less?”
Laurie’s eyebrow went up.
They ate in silence for a minute or two.
“My parents marriage scared me, you know,”
Jo said eventually. Talking to Laurie was always easy to her, natural. He made her open up in ways she could not even describe on paper.
And she could tell almost everything to a paper.
But Laurie was even better than that.
“Of marriage?” he asked.
“You saw how my parents’ marriage was,”
Jo replied.
“How grief tore them apart. It made my mother hollow, my father withdrawn, indifferent. Justin was so neglected he swears he will never allow himself to be chained to a woman. I think he means it.”
“What about you?”
Laurie frowned.
“Amy and I had a pact never to marry,”
Jo said, and Laurie inhaled sharply.
“In this house we witnessed the death of love, and it was absolutely excruciating. A slow death, day by day. What if I do that to you, Teddy? What if I do that to you, as much as I love you?”
“Wait, you love me?”
He went pale abruptly.
“Are you getting dizzy again?”
He nodded.
“When will you stop doing that?”
He chuckled.
“When will you stop doing it to me?”
He lifted a finger to her lips. “Never,”
he answered his own question.
“The answer is never. Now, where were we? You love me, you exasperating girl?”
“Of course I do. Always have done.”
Her voice was trembling, and she did not even care.
“Why did you not tell me?”
Laurie’s voice was thick with emotion.
“Because I was terrified.”
“Why?”
She did not know if she would have the courage to answer him, but one look of his blue eyes, looking earnestly into hers, open, vulnerable, and she decided to try to be as brave as him.
“I promised myself I would not do that to you,” she said.
“Do what to me? Marry me?
She nodded.
His shoulders fell in defeat.
“And you decided that all by yourself?”
“Well, after you’d asked me, of course. I never dreamed for a second you would—that anyone would. I had no thought of creating a home for myself. What I had with my sisters, and Justin, and you, was enough for me. Back before everything changed. Well, I did not have Justin for long. It was brutal for him, he…”
“I was there, I saw.”
Laurie rubbed his eyes.
“I was trying to be here for him, for you… for all of you throughout your childhood.”
“I know you were. But you were a child too, Teddy. It was not your job to fix us.”
“Nor yours to fix me,”
he retorted.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“But you did it anyway. You saved me, Jo.”
“You saved me right back.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
he asked gently.
“You can’t continue saving me. I am angry and unruly, and I write too much and sleep too little, and I cannot for the life of me fit into polite society, and…”
She was out of breath.
Laurie took her hands in his, turning her to face him.
“All right, listen to me carefully, Jo. I don’t care if you are angry or writing too much or too little or mourning your sisters’ absence. I don’t care about anything, as long as I am here to help you through it. Please let me. It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“In that marvelous list of all my merits, you forgot my worst one.”
“I did?”
he smiled.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I am afraid that everyone I love will leave me.”
“I never will. You are not alone. You are not alone.”
“Oh, you are going to regret those words, my lord. You are going to wish you had left me alone the first time I lose my temper. And if not the first, definitely the tenth. Or the hundredth.”
“When have I ever left you alone because of your temper?”
Laurie’s voice was rising. It’s happening already. I am making us fight already, Jo thought.
“I might have attempted to strangle you at times, or fantasized about it,”
he admitted.
“But I never left until last spring. And I never intend to leave ever again.”
She lifted her hands in the air, exasperated.
“Don’t you see? We would argue every day!”
“I would love that.”
He grasped her hands in his, brought them to his lips. Impossible boy.
“You would not!”
“I would.”
“See, we can’t even talk properly without fighting,”
she said, but she had started laughing. Ridiculous, impossible boy.
“That is not fighting, love,”
Laurie smiled. Beautiful boy. No, not boy. He is all man.
“And if it’s with you I’d let you win every single time.”
And he is such a liar.
“That would never happen, Teddy,”
she said, but her voice had gotten all soft and drawling, like thick, hot sugar.
“Who cares what happens if I’m with you?”
Laurie murmured, bringing his head so close to hers, her curls brushed his forehead.
And he is mine.
“Jo, listen,”
he whispered, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. She melted against him, and his arms came around her waist instantly, to hold her up.
“I have no other ambition in life than to be with you.”
…
He stayed. They argued and kissed at intervals. They talked.
The days passed. He saw her at her worst. He stayed. Throughout her doubts, and fears, and questions, and hope. He waited. He answered her questions. He kissed her senseless when she started spiraling down into the abyss. And then he let her think and come to terms with her own demons. But throughout it all, he stayed.
He stayed.
He stayed.
Dear Beth,
For your enjoyment, I present to you, word for word, my latest conversation with Laurie. How I have not yet driven that boy away—or to Bedlam—I shall never know.
Me: “What if I ruin everything, just like I always do?”
Laurie: “You won’t.”
Me: “What if I push you away?”
Laurie: “I shall only come closer the more you try to repel me.”
Me: “What if my darkness becomes too much for you?”
Laurie: “We will fight it with more light.”
Me: “What if you no longer want me?”
Laurie: “Impossible. But I am sure that I shall fall in love with you the minute I see you again.”
Me: “What if I cannot change for the better?”
Laurie: “I don’t want you to change. I want you.”
Me: “What if I ruin everything?”
Laurie: “I think I’ve already answered that one, but I can answer it again. You won’t, Jo. But if you do, then we will make everything right again. You and me. Together.”
Imagine having that conversation with your fiancée, ad nauseum. How the poor man is not running for the hills is beyond me.
I am getting married in the morning, have I told you that?
I wish you were here. It is going to be the happiest day of my life. I am getting married to my best friend, who also happens to be a gentleman of impeccable manners and unparallelled kindness, as well as an excellent specimen of a man. That last part is not my opinion alone, but the collective consensus of all the unmarried women of the past season, it seems.
No one ever believed I would marry, least of all me. Let alone marry him.
He is all my dreams wrapped up in one—everything I ever wanted and I could never deserve.
And yet, all I can think of is that I miss my sister.
Eternally,
Jo