Chapter 4 Willow #2
He takes the glass again, drinks what has to be melted ice cubes, then says, “I’m talking about getting married to each other.”
“Sorry what?” I must have heard wrong.
He sighs. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he says, his gaze fleeting to the spot under my arm where the price tag digs into my flesh.
My brain freezes for a moment, then bile rises in my throat.
He wants to pay me to marry him? “This is the twenty-first century. Things aren’t done that way anymore.
” I want to add something biting, something that would betray how insulted I feel, but instead I ask, “Why would you even want to do that?”
He takes his glasses off, rubbing his eyes, but stays silent.
“I was serious when I said I’d give you dating advice. You can do this the right way, you know.”
He looks a little hurt, and I feel guilty for it. His fiancée did break up with him, after all. But he doesn’t show any animosity when he elaborates. “I’m required by the family trust to be married before my thirty-second birthday.”
A family trust? I turn my gaze back to the river. “You’re asking the wrong person.” And here I was thinking Noah was different.
“I actually… I actually thought you’d be great for the role.”
“The what now?”
“It’s temporary. Just to meet a stupid condition.
It’s just that… so much depends on this.
I thought you’d… you know. Like I said, I’ll make it worth it.
” From the corner of my eye, I see him spread his hands as he continues, “We’ll go to Vegas, to avoid questions here.
And there’d be an end date, obviously, and…
you know… whatever you need. Just ask for it. ”
My throat tightens at the sadness of it all. So much so that I can’t look him in the eye and instead focus on the Emerald Creek flowing like a poetic reminder of time passing us by. When tears start prickling my eyes, I take a calming breath.
I doesn’t matter how I feel about this. My hang-ups about marriage have nothing to do with Noah. He’d be a great husband, I know it. And he deserves better than a temporary Vegas sham.
My heart breaks for him. “You don’t need to live your life the way a piece of paper tells you to. If you don’t want to get married, then don’t. Though I hope you do, someday,” I add, my voice catching a little. She’ll be a lucky bitch.
“But when you propose,” I continue, “you need to have butterflies in your stomach and lose your appetite for days before and-and-and… your wedding day needs to be the most beautiful day of your life, and you need to marry your bride in your own garden, under the arch of roses your grandmother planted, overlooking the river.”
I can just see it, touch it. Noah’s wedding should be perfection.
He deserves nothing less. “The whole town needs to be there, like today but even better, and everyone will be happy and your wife will be wearing some family heirloom jewel and you’ll have plenty of babies wearing glasses and when they grow up they’ll be driving Ms. Angela crazy and sneaking into Shy Rabit to read forbidden books and you and your wife and all your children will be on the store’s carriage at Laskin and, by the way, you’ll rename the store after her because truthfully that store needs a name. ”
Laying out Noah’s married life the way it should play out, is a delicious pain. It’s not like I was ever going to have that type of life. But he should.
So I turn to him to make sure he understands the magnitude of the error he’s willing to make for some stupid reason.
“None of this will ever happen if you married Willow-Fontaine-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks in Vegas and divorced her months later. No woman in her right mind would want to marry someone who made such a poor decision! I mean think about it, Noah.”
He takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes. He looks exhausted. “This isn’t about love. It’s… You’re really telling me you’re turning down my financial help because I should have some stupid fairytale wedding although you don’t believe in marriage? None of this makes sense.”
On the surface he’s right, he’s absolutely right. But we’re way below the surface now. We’re deep into emotions I can’t allow myself to have.
How do I tell him the only reason I won’t marry him is because I wouldn’t be able to bear the fakeness of it all? If I live next to him for months, that crush I’ve been trying to tame will only blossom into something much more. I know it will. And what will be left of me when my time is up?
When just the sound of his voice turns me to mush. When I can feel the phantom brand of his hand on my back. When I know his scent from just a five-minute dance. When I won’t ever hear the tune I love you baby and not think about him.
In what kind of state will I be after six months of daily exposure?
I can’t subject myself to that kind of torture.
“Think of it as a piece of clothing, Willow. It’s nothing. Doesn’t define who you are. Temporary. Totally returnable. In fact, think of it as just another dress!”
I slip my feet in my shoes and stand, hollowness in my stomach. “You’ll have to find someone else.” Tears spring to my eyes, and I turn away and leave before he can see them.