Chapter 28 Lucy #2
“Yeah.” He puts his phone in his back pocket, and I let out a sigh of relief.
He then pulls me in for a hug. “Jonah?” he asks and I just bury myself into his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he huffs out, kissing the top of my head.
We stay like this for a while. Maybe minutes.
I don’t know. “What are you thinking?” he asks. His voice breaking the silence.
I pull away from his embrace and look down.
“I just…” I stop and allow myself a deep breath. I find the strength to not think about the news we just got. I force myself to tell Marsh what I wanted to before all of this. “I don’t know about you, but tonight is perfect,” I say. “This summer has been perfect. You’re perfect.”
Marsh’s fingers intertwine into mine and he lets out a low hum. “I feel the same way, Lucy. I really do.”
“You don’t understand.” I take another deep breath, and he strokes my knuckles with his thumb.
“Marsh, I’ve never felt like this before.
” I look at him, hoping he understands the weight of what I’m telling him.
“I don’t feel like this. I don’t have these kinds of conversations…
I don’t say these kinds of things to people. ”
“I know.” He looks back at me in awe. “And I don’t take it for granted.”
My heart begins to thunder in my chest, and I feel like I could practically combust at this very moment. My hands are clammy and there are knots in my stomach, but I manage to continue.
“I think…” my voice quavers.
It’s too soon to say it. It’s not the right place. It’s not the right time, but I need to say it.
“Luce?” Marsh frowns.
“I think I’m falling in love with you.” My voice crackles.
I’ve never said those words before. I don’t even know what those words really mean, but I know they’re true. I am without a doubt falling in love with Marshall Oakley.
Marsh’s smile fades. I almost think he misheard me until he takes my face into both of his hands and gives me a kiss.
It’s deep, passionate, yet gentle. I don’t know how he does it, but in this kiss, he’s telling me he feels the same way.
That he’s also falling in love with me, with every ounce of his mind, body, and soul.
That this feeling is completely mutual and we’re in this together.
When he pulls away, his gaze focuses on mine and he wipes a tear across my cheek. “Why are you crying?” he asks.
“Because I can’t fall in love with you,” I say.
He lets out a laugh but then frowns when he realizes I’m not joking.
“What do you mean?” he says. There’s a look of concern flooding his features that I’ve never seen before. It’s a look that I never want him to have ever again. His eyes dart back and forth from mine, panicked. “What are you saying?”
Now I don’t have anything to say. I thought admitting how I feel was the hard part, but I was wrong. This is much, much worse.
Marsh reaches for my hand. “Lucy—”
“Please.” I pull away and there’s hurt etched along his face all over again. “I can’t do this, Marsh.”
“What do you mean you can’t do this? You just told me you’re falling in love—”
“That’s exactly why.” My voice cracks. “That was not a part of the plan.”
“Fuck the plan,” Marsh spits out. “I don’t care about the plan.”
“But I do,” I say, and Marsh’s face breaks out into bewilderment. “Marsh, you know my career means everything to me.”
“Of course I do,” he says, his brows now furrowed. “And I would never ask you to pick me over your career.”
“How can I not?” I say desperately. “I need that promotion, Marsh. I’ve been working at The Rue for almost four years and I deserve that title and that raise. I need to keep my job. Do you think they’re going to give it to the woman sleeping with the senior reporter of the parent company?”
“Then we don’t say anything.” Marsh takes a step closer. “We’ll wait until after your promotion.”
“You know we couldn’t be together even afterward.
” I look at him. He knows as much as I do that it puts both of our jobs at risk.
I don’t even need to tell him about Shanna and Sam.
Marsh has been working in this industry long enough that he knows what’s on the line.
“And that’s beside the point.” I let go of his hands.
“Then what’s the point, Lucy?” Marsh says.
He waits for me to answer but I don’t know how to answer his question.
“I’m not buying it’s because of a promotion.
Because if you really cared about what we should and shouldn’t do, you wouldn’t have asked me to help you with your stories in the first place. We’ve always worked together.”
“It was different then.” I feel a break in my voice.
“How?” he says, and I stare back at him wide-eyed. I don’t want the conversation to go here but he’s forcing it to.
“It just was,” I say.
“How?” he insists. “Tell me.”
“Because I was using you, Marsh,” I force out, but he just shakes his head. “Because you were new and you were nice, and I knew that I could convince you to help me and that nobody would ever find out because once I finished my stories, we would never talk to each other ever again, okay?”
“I don’t believe you,” he says.
“Marsh, look at me.” I open my arms out, half shouting. “I’m jaded, I’m messy, I have commitment issues. Who are we kidding? This would never last. I would find a reason to run…You would find a reason to hate me.”
“Is that what you really believe? Or is that what years of assholes you’ve dated tell you?
” Marsh says. “Because I don’t see someone that’s jaded, or all those things you said.
I see someone that sits with my niece and asks her about all her dolls.
I see someone that goes on a Ferris wheel even if they’re afraid of heights because they want me to experience it.
I see someone that believes I deserve good things even though I probably don’t. ”
“Marsh, please.” I shut my eyes. “What do you want from me?”
“What do I want from you?” Marsh repeats and I see the tops of his cheeks redden.
“I want you. I didn’t think I could, or that I was capable of—” He runs a hand through his hair.
“I don’t want this to end, Lucy. I want to give this a shot.
Really be with you. And I know you want to be with me.
You’re just making up excuses,” he says. “You’re scared and that’s okay—”
“Don’t tell me how I feel,” I say. Suddenly, I’m a teenager again and my mom is telling me that I’m overreacting.
My dad is telling me I don’t understand.
Like I’m some na?ve child who doesn’t realize the weight of their father having a whole other family behind their back.
That how I think I feel isn’t actually how I feel.
“Don’t act like you know exactly what’s going on in my head. ”
“I’m sorry.” Marsh draws back. “You’re right, I don’t know.”
“I don’t want to love anyone because I don’t need to love anyone,” I say. “I don’t need anyone to love me either.”
“Why?” Marsh looks at me. “Why are you so against needing someone? Being in love doesn’t take away your independence.”
His words only strengthen my resolve.
“You know what, Marsh?” I rasp. “I think you’re the one that’s scared. Not me.”
He stops short. “Excuse me?”
“What are you even doing?” I finally say.
It’s something I’ve wanted to ask him since the day I met him.
“When I watch you work, you’re one of the most confident and self-assured people I know.
Yet, when it comes to your personal life, you’re so scared of having people look at you like someone that’s pathetic,” I say, the words falling out of my mouth.
“You’re so scared of ruining this stoic persona that you’ve managed to portray to everyone that you can’t even bear the thought of showing up to this wedding without a date.
You aren’t attending this wedding to be the bigger person; you’re attending this wedding because you’re terrified to show people that you’re now alone.
In fact, you’re so desperate to show people that you’re okay, you took the first offer that came your way. ”
“Lucy,” he responds, his voice lowering, “you’re not thinking.”
“No, you’re the one that’s not thinking, Marsh,” I say, my mouth running a hundred miles a minute, a distaste to my tone now.
“I don’t need any of this.” I look around the garden, the party in the distance.
“You’re the one that can’t even tell his own family what happened.
You can’t even defend yourself to someone that cheated on you, because you’re a coward. ”
My thoughts are coming out fast, hot, and hurtful. I can sense in Marsh’s eyes that my words have found their way under his skin, penetrating and sticking.
“I’m the coward?” he spits back in disbelief.
“You’re the one that needed me to write a few stories about being in a relationship, Lucy.
I know what you’re capable of, and the stories you’ve published over the past few weeks were fluff pieces.
You’re so scared to open yourself up to someone that the only way you can justify getting close to another person is by telling yourself it’s fake.
I think you’re the one that has built this cold shell around themselves and are afraid to let people see the real you,” he says, and I look away in refusal.
“You tell people that you’re so against falling in love, but I think you’re the biggest believer of them all.
Otherwise, why would you feel so strongly about letting someone in?
You think protecting yourself will keep you from getting hurt?
All that’s going to do is push away the people that really care about you.
It’s like you’re so mad at what happened with your parents you think cutting yourself off from a relationship will somehow make up for what happened.
All that’s going to do is leave you alone and miserable. ”
“Fuck you,” I say instinctively. My vision begins to blur behind the tears that I’m fighting back. I don’t know if I say the words to him because I hate what he said or because I believe it.