11
Ella
July 2018
H e’s already sitting on the sofa when I get home. I always forget he has a damn key. He’s wearing the beanie he wore the first day we met. We both know he’s doing that on purpose.
“Matty.” I sigh, taking him in properly. It’s been just over a week and it’s like every single part of me has come back to life now he’s close to me again. I want with everything to reach out and hug him, but he looks pissed off.
“Ells Bells.” He’s looking at his shoes rather than me. He’s nervous. “I, uh… here.”
He hands me a white paper bag and I know what’s inside. His hands shake as he hands it over. We both smile at each other as I take it, look inside and fish out a pack of bluebell bulbs. A sign he’s no longer angry with me.
“Bluebells for my Ells Bells,” he announces. I drop the packet on the sofa and immediately find myself in his embrace, inhaling that sweet aftershave that I have ingrained in my memory. Somehow it never smells quite the same until it’s on his body.
“I love you,” I whisper into his shirt, wanting the words to penetrate the fabric and absorb into his skin.
“Hey.” His finger reaches down to my chin, and he gently guides my face so we’re looking into each other’s eyes. He presses his lips to mine and all the sadness and turmoil he has transfers to me, and I give him all my confusion. “I love you too. Never, ever doubt that.”
We stay in each other’s embrace for a while, not wanting to part for any length of time now we know the date of my fate. He inhales my hair while his hands rub my back for comfort.
“Why didn’t you respond to me for a week? I thought you didn’t love me anymore,” I cry.
“I needed space to think and I couldn’t respond without sounding pissed. The amount I drafted and then deleted… I just… I needed time.” He kisses my hair and every hurt he stabbed me with this week is washed away. I could never be mad at him or hold a grudge.
“I thought you might need this.” He steps away and gestures to a large glass of wine on the table. I take a large gulp.
“You were ages, by the way. I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half!” He smirks.
“I went to get you this.” I grab the small box out of my handbag and hand it to him.
“What is this?” He opens the box and I watch his eyes light up when he sees the innocent, dark silver ring sitting in it.
“Read the inscription. That’s why I was so long. I paid them bloody extra to do it for me within a bloody hour. Bloody con artists!”
He reads the inscription on the inside, “ Matty, this is my promise. All my love, Ells Bells .” When he finishes, he smiles. Without a word, I take the ring from him and hold it out between us.
“It’s a promise that whatever it takes, I will be with you. One day, I will marry you.”
He smiles, guiding his ring finger through the ring as if we were exchanging vows. “I accept.”
I giggle as it settles at the end of the finger. “Good!”
“I have something for you, but you have to let me explain myself first.” He leads me to the second bedroom and stops me outside the closed door. His hands move as he grins at me. “Okay, so when you sent me that picture, I made a detour. That’s why I was so long, too. I got here an hour and a half after you sent me that bloody message, had the speech rehearsed and started speaking when I realised you weren’t here. So, yeah, you aren’t going to get that speech anymore. Instead, I’m just going to show you what I did.”
“Why am I dreading this?” I joke and he ruffles my hair. I walk inside to see a white dress bag with the label of the dress shop I was in earlier.
“Matty did you—”
He nods and looks like the cat that got the cream. “Before you even finish that sentence, yes, I did. You told me it was your dream wedding dress, but you couldn’t wear it to your wedding because it wouldn’t be me at the end of the aisle,” he explains. “So, I thought, well, fuck it. Here’s the dress. You can keep it to wear to the wedding we will have one day. You’ve already proposed, right?”
He paces as if he’s giving me a lecture at uni, clapping his hands together as he does. “I know exactly what you’re thinking; why would I buy it when we know our wedding won't happen? Well, Ells Bells, there is a method to my madness. We run away before the wedding. Wherever you want to go, I don’t care. Home for me is with you. We give our notice of marriage, and four weeks after, you put on the dress and marry me.”
“Matty, are you insane?” I exclaim through my tears. “How exactly—”
“You told me about this the day after we met, Ells. I’m not an idiot. The moment we kissed; I knew there was something between us. You told me straight up how things between us would end up. Yet, I’m a man of optimism, surprisingly, given my life so far. So, I’ve been saving part of my wage every month for the past three years.” He pauses for a single second to gauge my reaction. I just blink, so he carries on. “I have money stashed away. All those extra hours I was working, that is why I did them. You can move some money on the sly. Hell, this place is in your name only, so you can sell it and voilà, we’re millionaires,” Matt explains, still pacing the floor. He finally settles and stops moving to look at me. His eyes narrow just a little. I can tell he’s as nervous as anything.
“Matty, the whole point of me not running away with you before now is because my family will lose everything .”
“Well, yeah, that’s the point of you securing the money he’s put in your account before we leave. That’s the point of you selling this place. Ells, I don’t care about them. They’ve been controlling you for your whole life. They haven’t given you an ounce of respect, they haven’t given you anything positive, apart from money. This is it; this is our escape. We get married, and you can’t marry Dean because that would make you a literal legal bigot, which is against the law. What are they gonna do then? Force you to divorce me? You’re an adult, they can’t do shit to us once we legally become married. If they want to come at me with the idea of traditionalism and how they own you, well, once we’re married, in their world of tradition, I would own you, and I will never let you go.”
“This isn’t a very romantic proposal.” I’m trying to lighten the mood, but it doesn’t work.
“What do you say?” he asks. We stand so close together that I can feel his breath beating down on my face. It’s like being in a storm after a heatwave: the best thing ever.
Everything in my mind screams ‘no.’ For the past five years, I’ve been half accepting of this stupid contract to protect my mum and dad, to make sure they, and to some extent, I have a secure future. But no one, literally no one, thought about me as a human being. All I’ve ever been is a business deal, and I’ve accepted it through pure selflessness and family pressure.
Now, I’m with the man I was never meant to fall for, and he’s presented the most obvious plan of all to get me out of this marriage. Since the moment I met him, he’s made me feel free, made me feel like a human when no one else in my life before had.
When I presented the idea of university to my parents, I fought hard for it. I was selfish for the first time in my life. Now, it’s time to choose whether I want to take that selfish step once again and be free.
This week without Matt has been hell on earth and I know I can’t do it again. If I can’t survive one week, why would I let him go forever? I might as well die.
“Look at this, Ells.” He shows me the picture I sent him on his phone. He zooms into my face and the frown is evident, he zooms in further, and I see the tears halfway down my cheeks. “Imagine feeling the way you felt when you took that picture for the rest of your life. This is what you’re signing up to, and you’ve known it for five years. Imagine if you didn’t at least try.”
I stay silent, biting the skin behind my bottom lip.
“Do you love him?” Matt asks when I don’t answer. I arch an eyebrow. “Dean, do you love him?”
“No,” I answer.
“Ells, in the three years I’ve known you, I’ve only met him in passing. You keep telling people he is your friend, yet you barely see him—”
“Because I don’t feel comfortable around him,” I admit out of desperation. “They’re essentially throwing me into an incestuous marriage. Whenever I’m around him, he looks at me like he’s checking me out, or undressing me with his eyes. He says if I want to, we can never kiss or touch or anything, but I can see him resenting it every time he promises me. This week, I thought I lost you, and I even tried to fall for him. I tried to kiss him to prove something to myself, but I couldn’t do that…”
“Finally, we get there!” He heaves a sigh. I arch an eyebrow in question. “You feel trapped. You don’t feel comfortable. Ells, you keep saying that you have to do this for your family. Is your controlling family worth more to you than your entrapment?”
Maybe it’s the way he put it, or maybe it’s because I finally hear the stakes out loud. But the words resonate with me as if they were lingering smells.
“No,” I reply.
“So, let’s run away,” he suggests, looking into my eyes to gauge my reaction.
“Let’s do it.”
∞∞∞
It’s amazing how in the space of three words, I could change the dynamics between us from intense to light-hearted and as light as a feather. I pop the cork on some champagne and pour the glasses.
“To us,” he toasts, and I gleefully clink my glass with his.
“Are you angry with me?” I ask. He glances at me. “For nearly kissing him?”
“No. You didn’t actually kiss him, did you?”
“No.”
“Exactly. Plus, I can see why you would try. It doesn’t matter,” Matty says.
“How did you get the dress so quickly?” I ask, changing the subject as quickly as humanly possible.
He smiles. “I was already on the way to yours like I said, so I just turned around and parked up. Took the picture into the dress shop—”
“How did you know the shop, though?”
“I saw the tag in the picture, plus the hanger has the brand name on it!” He scoffs. “Give me a little credit here.”
“Fine, credit given!”
“I showed the assistant and said you’d just been there, and I wanted to buy the dress you had on. Luckily, she said she remembered you. Apparently, your mum hated it, yet she thought you looked amazing,” Matt explains. “She had the one you tried on. I bought it there and then. She told me it was a perfect fit.”
“You did that for me?” I melt at the thought of it. He’s always been a romantic, but this gesture is something else entirely. He’s so sure of me that he bought me a wedding dress , knowing I’m engaged to someone else.
Most would think that’s creepy, probably, but in this situation, I could think of nothing more appropriate and special.
“No, I did it for me. I really, really want to wear the dress, Ells. I think it would look just amazing on me!” That cheeky grin of his makes a return.
I playfully push his arm and sit beside him on the sofa. “Dare you to try it on.”
“I dare you to shut up,” he retorts and takes a sip of the champagne. “I’ve already spoken to Nick. He said we can stay with him whenever we want, for however long we want until we work it out. So that’s a start. As you can tell, I didn’t plan much past trying to get you to agree with me.”
“Typical!” I roll my eyes, yet the smile betrays me. “I’ll have to be careful with selling this place. For obvious reasons, once it goes on the market, we’ll be on a timer until they get suspicious. Especially Dean.”
“I agree,” he says. “We can approach the estate agents, get all the paperwork done and tell them we want to put it on the market at a later date. We can put it up once we’ve left. A lot of people do that, I think. The main thing is getting away.”
“I’ll start moving my money around tonight. My dad doesn’t have access to my accounts, but I don’t want to take chances,” I say. “I opened a savings account a couple of years ago to save for if I ever did want to run away. I’ve got a bit in there. I’ll transfer some to you as well, or at least get it out in cash and you can bank it, just to be safe. We need to be discreet about this.”
“I agree. If you pack some stuff, I can take some of it to mine and store it until we’re ready to leave,” he says.
“That’s why you don’t pack anything; more space for me!” I grin, and he pokes his tongue out at me. “I just don’t know how I’m going to sell this place with this stuff in it.”
“You hire removal men when a sale goes through. They’ll pack it all and bring it to us. At best, I’m sure Nick can come here if you give him the keys and help them. We’ll never come back, Ells, otherwise they’ll find us.”
“I thought you said once we’re married it won’t matter?”
“It won’t, but you keep banging on about how dangerous they are, and I don’t want to put us in any danger,” he says. “Nick’s a big boy, they don’t know him, so it won't matter.”
The intercom goes off. “What the fuck—” I’m told Dean’s waiting downstairs.
“Um, can he give me a few minutes?” I ask down the phone and the concierge acknowledges my request before I hang up. “Shit. Shit. Shit. It’s Dean. Quickly. Help me clear up.”
“Maybe this is the best time to tell him about me?” Matt suggests with a sly grin, but he goes unanswered.
∞∞∞
“I’m not feeling wonderful, Dean,” I lie, still feigning the illness from the shop.
“Your mother said,” he acknowledges as he stands in the middle of the hallway. I wish he would move into the lounge. “I wanted to check on you. Can I do anything?”
He tentatively puts out a hand on my arm. When his fingers touch my arm, the prickles on my skin sear, wanting him off me as if I’m touching fire. His black hair has been cut recently, and I wonder if he’s trying to impress me or something.
Ella, that’s ridiculous.
“No, thanks.” I shake my head and take a step back.
“Celebrating?” he nods his head toward the kitchen where the open bottle of champagne sits.
Shit .
“No… well, the dress shop gave it to me. Can’t turn down free champagne, right?” I lie, knowing full well it’s the worst excuse on the planet because if he’s spoken to my mother, she probably would have moaned they only provided a half glass of champagne.
“You probably want to chill it, before it goes flat,” he suggests with an arched eyebrow. We both know he knows I’m lying.
“Yeah, I know, thanks.”
“I also came by to give you something,” he says, shifting and putting his hands in his suit pockets. “Thing is, with the way things are between… well, us, I knew you wouldn’t want the big song and dance. To be honest, I don’t even know if you wanted this, but it seems like the right thing to do. So, I thought instead of the whole… tradition, I’d just give it to you.”
I don’t answer, so he brings out a small, obvious blue box.
“This won’t go with that ring next to it, so you may want to move it.” He points to the promise ring Matty got me and instantly I know the Tiffany box has an engagement ring in it. I feel my eyes narrow into a scowl at his stupid suggestion. “Take a look.”
Reluctantly, I open the Tiffany box and find a massive, emerald-cut white diamond. It’s cushioned with diamonds on the band and the feminine side of me melts at the size of it. I mean, almost every girl imagines a massive Tiffany diamond, right?
But then I spy the promise ring and realise that this could be the biggest and most expensive diamond ever, and while I’m impressed, the reality is that I don’t want it if it’s from Dean. If it’s tainted by this arranged marriage, I don’t want it.
“Dean, I—”
“Look, I know you don’t want to wear it, I knew that when I chose it, because if you wear it then, to you, this reality becomes, well, real. I contemplated getting you something small and simple because I knew you’d be more likely to wear it if it’s subtle, but then I thought, no, why should I not buy you what I think you’re worth?”
“You think I’m worth, what? A hundred grand, tops?” I arch an eyebrow and he laughs.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant, why should I not buy you something I think you’d have liked before you realised it was from me? To me, you’re priceless, but this was the most beautiful ring I found, and the most expensive version of it. It’s the best I could find in their shop that represents your worth.”
“Er, I, uh, that’s lovely of you,” I stammer, unsure what to do.
Do I accept this? If I do, I leave an assumption that I’m okay with this and accept the thought that I’m priceless to him. If I don’t accept it, it will make the whole situation worse for me. It’ll create suspicion and awkwardness.
I lose either way, so I might as well accept it; that creates less drama.
“I understand if you don’t want to wear it for a while. But it would mean a lot to me if you could wear it around our parents, obviously on our wedding day and afterwards,” he says seriously. This kind of thing has never been discussed; everything about what our families would stand to lose if we didn’t do this, plenty of discussion about how Amelia and my mum will plan the wedding, plenty of talk about what would happen if I refused it, but not once has someone talked to me about the mechanics of whether I have to wear an engagement or wedding ring, or if he has to. I wonder if this was his idea or whether he was told to by his father.
“Thank you,” I mutter.
“I think… it might be nice for us to, I don’t know, have dinner soon. You know, catch up properly, just like we used to have before this all came out, you know?” he suggests. Neither of us has mentioned our near-kiss, and I for one am thankful for that. I know that conversation will come soon, though.
“Yeah, that would be lovely,” I agree. He smiles at me and walks out of the flat before I even have time to react further.