Chapter 10 Marsh #2
I take in the feeling of sand and surf in between our toes, the crisp ocean air and the moonlight bouncing off the water’s ripples. Eventually we turn back around and ahead is the pier we were just at, now a neon spectacle in the dark.
“I had fun today,” I say.
“Me too,” she agrees softly.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
She smiles. “I just didn’t know how this would all go. I know it was my idea to pretend to date, or whatever you want to call it, but I don’t know, it’s a lot easier than I thought.”
“Yeah, it is,” I say, and we continue walking.
She looks my way, her eyes lingering a beat too long. “Remember when you asked me why I write about sex?”
I remember every conversation with Lucy. Every moment, every laugh, every touch. Everything.
“Mhm,” I say.
She pulls on the sleeves of my jacket so they’re covering her hands. “Can I tell you something not a lot of people know?”
I hold my breath. “Always.”
“My dad cheated on my mom,” she says, and it’s maybe the last thing I was expecting her to say.
“He cheated on her when I was in high school. He’s so technologically impaired, I caught his instant messages to the other woman on our computer.
They weren’t even hidden or anything.” She lets out a pathetic laugh.
I gauge how to respond. Whether she wants me to follow up with questions or if I’m here to merely listen. I’ll be whatever she needs me to be.
“And you know what my mom did?” she asks.
I take a guess. “She left?”
“Nothing,” she says with weight to the word. “She did nothing. My mom knew and she never said a thing to him. They continued with their lives, and they’ve been married for thirty-five years. It’s like nothing happened.”
“Lucy…” My eyes slice to her, but she’s staring at the sand below our feet. “I’m so sorry.” The words feel empty, but I mean it.
“Even though I begged her to, she wouldn’t leave him,” she says, her face remaining somber. “She said that she was doing it for our family.”
“Are they happy?” I ask because I want to know if you can move on from something like that.
“They seem happy,” she says, but she sounds almost exhausted. “But it just kills me to see my mom sometimes. How she can just forgive someone for doing that to her.”
“Sometimes staying with someone is easier than leaving them,” I say, trying to put myself in her parents’ position. “Being a single parent is hard. My mom raised Oliver and me on her own and that wasn’t easy. I can see why your mom made the decision to stay to give you a better life.”
“It’s my fault.” She looks up at me, her eyes swelling with so much hurt and guilt.
“What?” I rear back. “No, Lucy. No, of course not—”
“It is,” she insists, and I know this is a decision she made long before tonight. “It’s because of me my mom stayed in a marriage with someone who doesn’t love her. I’m the reason she’s spending her life with someone who sees her—us—as expendable.”
I process this and can’t imagine how it feels to hold that responsibility your whole life. How do you find the strength to move on from something like that?
“So, that’s why my career is so important to me,” she continues, her voice hurt but almost relieved.
Perhaps her saying it out loud is just as important to her as it is to me hearing it.
“It’s not that I don’t believe in love—of course I do.
But love is fleeting. It leads to heartbreak and hurt.
I don’t want women to feel like love is the answer. ”
Lucy isn’t like anyone I’ve ever met. While on the surface she seems like an open book, there’s a tiny thread tightly sewn around her heart that doesn’t follow any pattern.
It’s a thread that if pulled will take a long time to unravel.
Only someone with patience and care should have the honor to even try to pull the thread so tightly bound.
I don’t coddle her because she’s not a child. Quite the opposite. Lucy’s resilient and headstrong and she’s not looking for sympathy. She’s looking for someone who understands.
“Thank you for trusting me with that,” I say. There are a million things I could tell her about me and my fears—things I want to tell her, but tonight isn’t about me.
“Thank you for sitting next to me on the Ferris wheel.” Lucy brushes the dark hair from her neck and meets my gaze. “I don’t care how much of a rebel you are, Marshall Oakley. I feel safe with you.”
Your Relationship Doesn’t Need a Timeline
By Lucy Reid
August 20
“Too soon” are the infamous words that every person in a new relationship hears from the people in their lives—whether it be a friend, a sibling, or a parent.
People are constantly trying to follow an imaginary timeline for how to dictate the speed of their relationships: sleep together after three dates, don’t say I love you until after they say it, don’t move in together until at least a year.
My advice is that’s complete bullshit.
We always assure people who are chasing financial or professional success that every timeline is different.
The number of times I’ve heard “Vera Wang didn’t design her first dress until she was forty,” or “Julia Child wrote her first cookbook at fifty,” proves that we all live our lives at our own speed.
We’re encouraged to go at the beat of our own drum.
So why does it feel different when it comes to our romantic lives?
I’ve been dating someone for the past few weeks, and I’m ready to move in with them. Let me tell you why that’s completely acceptable.
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