12
Ella
August 2018
T he diamond on my finger teases me as I glance at my phone. It looks gorgeous, I hate to admit it. It shines whenever light hits it and it makes my breath hitch every time I see it. But when I spy the promise ring beside it – Dean will hate that I refuse to move it – my heart breaks and aches for Matty all over again.
But I promised Dean I would go out to dinner with him. I glance at the text from Matty: ‘Good luck tonight, Ells Bells. Let me know when you’re home. Love you xx.’ I smile to myself and send a heart emoji back.
I hate feeling like a cheater; though it’s not exactly that, it is in a roundabout way. I feel bad for Matt because I love him and he loves me, but he has to share me with my betrothed . It’s like some weird, twisted fiction show that you’re waiting for everyone to clash.
I hope it doesn’t come to that.
“Everything okay?” Dean asks from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah.” The smile gets wiped off my face. He parks the car and I arch an eyebrow at his choice of dining.
“You picked a… a lounge for dinner?” I marvel as we walk toward the entrance.
“Well, yeah, I know upmarket black-and-white uniform posh places aren’t your kind of thing,” he notes with a chuckle.
“That explains the casual clothes on you, then.” I snort, looking at his unusual choice of jeans and a shirt as we walk into the lounge. This is the type of place I’d come to with Matty on a date; more upmarket than our first date, but less formal than where my parents would usually choose.
When we sit down, I notice him looking slightly uncomfortable at the menu selection. I look down at my menu and smirk.
“I think I’ll go for some tapas if you want to share?” he mentions.
“Why not? If there are chicken wings, I’m easy for whatever you want. I’ll have a white wine as well.”
“I’ll go up and order.” He takes the menu with him. I grab my phone out and check it. No text from Matty. I watch the counter where Dean stands in the queue and see the two girls sitting to the right of where he stands; they keep looking at him and giggling to themselves. One of them goes gooey-eyed at him as she stands up.
I wish they could have him. I feel the diamond on my finger; it feels weird, it’s where it shouldn’t be. Or at least, one that Matt buys me should be there.
I stare as he gets to the front of the queue and wonder if we’re finally going to have the conversation about the almost kiss, or whether he’s going to act as if it never happened. I’d rather the latter.
“Done,” Dean announces as he sits back down, putting my wine in front of me and the beer down for himself. “So, the reason I wanted to bring you out, Ells—”
“Dean,” I warn.
It’s like he wants to piss me off. This is the third time he’s called me that.
Does he do it on purpose? He must.
“Sorry, Ella,” he corrects himself. “I don’t even know where that’s come from.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” I tell him, and he nods in acknowledgement. I don’t tell him that it’s only okay when Matty says it.
“I’ll try. I just wanted to spend some time with you. We have barely spent any time together since well, it all happened, despite being so near to each other, you know. I miss you. Seeing you the other day… it hit me.”
His words are like a knife, slicing, slicing. I know there’s a hidden meaning there. I know he’s taunting me. I knew there would be this kind of awkward conversation between us eventually because I suppose it needs to be addressed at some stage, but it still makes me wince.
“I was busy.” I leave out the part where I was busy with another man and purposefully deflect from what happened the other day. “You should know, you went to university.”
He smiles. “This is true. I remember the busy parts, deadlines looming. Did you enjoy it, your course?”
I nod. “Loved it.”
“I’m pleased.”
I look at him properly as he takes a sip of his beer. “What were your student days like? You never really talk about it,” I ask.
“It was just the typical student life, you know. Drinking, partying, studying, pulling all-nighters to get my work done.” He smirks, and the glint of fond memories shades his eyes.
“I envy you, you know,” I admit, and he gives me a questioning look. “You got to live the student life without this shadowing you. I’ve been on a countdown for the past five years and knew my days were numbered.”
“You say it as if marrying me is a death sentence, Ella. Is it?” His voice hoods and I know my words hurt him. Maybe I was a little harsh.
I look away as the waitress comes along with our food. She places the plates around the table and tells us to enjoy before walking off. I faff with putting the small plates in front of each of us and wondering whether to put the whole plate of chicken wings in front of me. I stare at them, deciding after a moment that it wouldn’t be nice to not offer him at least one.
“Is it a death sentence?” he asks again when I start picking at the potatoes and putting half the dish on my plate.
I choose my words carefully. “It’s not. But… we both know where the other stands. You got told when you were twenty years old. You already had most of your student life, able to run around, kiss and sleep with who you wanted to, you got your teen years before this became a thing. I got told when I was sixteen. I had to fight to get an education, and I have spent the last three years worrying that I wasn’t even allowed to let loose and have fun. I haven’t been able to have sex yet.”
He sighs and takes two of my chicken wings before piling the rest on my plate. Well, at least he had the decency not to take half the bloody plate. In return, I take two of his squid rings and give the rest to him. We both nod at each other in acknowledgement of our food limits and the rest of the feast is a half-and-half deal.
“I know it must have been… you know what? No, I don’t know how you’ve been feeling about it. Now I understand some of it, but I can imagine how it must have felt, Ella, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’ve had this over your entire late teen years. I’m sorry they have controlled your life for so long.”
I notice he doesn’t comment on my sex life.
He carries on when I don’t answer. “The other day… I don’t know what happened, but I think we should talk about it.”
I sigh and eat a piece of potato so I can give myself a minute to compose. “Yeah, I was just overwhelmed. I’m sorry I did that, I didn’t want to lead you on, and I just… I don’t know what came over me. It was almost like I was trying to force myself into loving you.”
He doesn’t meet my eyes, but he puts his fork down and looks my way. “It’s no secret that I wanted that kiss, Ella. But… no matter how I feel, you cannot force yourself to love me by kissing me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry that I hurt you by doing that. I know in a way I have to accept this, and I think that was my way of trying, despite it being wrong.”
We both know I’m uttering crap; we both know I’m still going to try to get out of this until I literally say, ‘I do.’
He says nothing more, so I say, “Why have they done this to us? I know you know. I think it’s pretty shitty that everyone knows the reason why I’ve been pushed around and controlled for my whole life, and yet I have no clue.”
“You know what, Ella, I agree with you.” He takes a sip of his beer.
His words surprise me. All this time I’ve thought of Dean as the enemy, but he’s not. Behind all the suits, the business degree, and the rich man bravado is the friend I’ve always known.
He sighs. “If I could tell you, I would. But it’s not my place—”
“Bullshit, Dean. We’re the victims in this and we always have been. You may not be a stranger, but neither of us wanted this, did we? Let’s be honest, you probably slept with a few women at uni who you thought could be more than a one-night stand. You probably had a girlfriend. Then when you turned twenty, you got told you’d have to marry the girl you used to babysit, who you chased around the house playing dolls with when I was three, and let’s be honest, when you look for a wife, you probably don’t settle for the girl you shared a bath with when you were six and she was two.”
He sighs again. I watch him eat a chicken wing with his fingers and if I wasn’t so irate, I’d probably be laughing. Dean isn’t one to eat like a normal person. I wait for him to finish and take a sip of my wine.
“It’s not like that at all,” he defends, and I know he’s just feeding me lies and trying to defend himself.
“Then please, tell me what it is like, Dean. You’re dodging my point.”
He sighs again. “I had a girlfriend at university. Quinn. I met her during Fresher’s week, and we just hit it off—”
He stops speaking to eat some potato and I look down at my promise ring.
“The honest-to-God truth is that I have loved you since I was eighteen. But I knew you were too young for me, that we were too much like family, so I moved on. When I met Quinn, we were inseparable. We moved in together for the second year and stayed there for the third year. I was planning to propose to her on our graduation day. When my parents told me about our arrangement, it broke me. That’s why I ended up not coming to the party that night that we got told.” Tears cloud his vision.
Here I’ve been for the past five years thinking he’s been taking it in his stride, being happy about it when it’s crushed him as well. Well, aren’t I being a prized brat?
But maybe if I tell him about Matty, he might understand. He could hunt down Quinn and be with her on the side. I could be with Matt. It could work.
“What happened to Quinn?” I question carefully. I ignore his mention of his love for me. He doesn’t need me to rub salt in the wound anymore. That wouldn’t be fair.
“I told her the truth. It broke her as well. She moved back to her parents and I sold the house and moved to where I am now. Haven’t heard from her since.” He shrugs.
I decide to broach the subject. “You know, this thing between us, what’s stopping you from getting in touch with her? No offence, but I don’t love you, Dean. Why can’t you have your one and be with her, in all but marriage? I would be fine with it.”
He laughs. “A nice thought, Ella, thank you. But it doesn’t quite work that way, does it?”
“Why not? Our marriage is whatever it is for our parents’ gain. That doesn’t mean we have to love each other. I’ll come to family Christmases, I’ll let you hold my waist when we’re with them, and I’ll even kiss you under the mistletoe at my mum’s Christmas party if that’s what you want. When we walk away from them, why can’t we see other people? They don’t have to know, Dean. Why make ourselves even more miserable?”
I want to gauge his reaction to this; maybe he’d be more open to it now I know he’s been in my shoes.
“Because it’s never as simple as you make it out to be, Ella. Feelings get hurt, jealousy happens, someone would slip up. It’s better to have loved and lost than to never love at all. Besides, I truly don’t think we’d be miserable. Sure, the lines are there between us. Why do you ask? Do you want my permission or something?”
Oh, shit .
“No.” I shake my head. “You want a way to make this work between us, I’ve been doing my research. Open marriage, it’s called. I just think if we want this to work, maybe we should think outside the box.”
He shrugs. “Fair enough. Do you not want to give it a chance though? I get that you don’t want to force yourself, but maybe once the vows have been said, we might loosen to the idea.”
“Why are you pushing this marriage so hard? I can’t think of you as anything more than my brother from another mother.” I sigh. “No amount of Tiffany diamonds, expensive wedding dresses, or niceties can change that.”
“That’s fair enough.”
“So, what? Where does that leave us?” I ask, trying to dig further. If he could accept this open marriage, that could mean Matty and I don’t have to leave and everyone in this scenario can have what they want.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Well, what happens? I mean, I could live in my penthouse—”
“Ella, you do know that they expect you to sell that place. As soon as we’re married, they expect you to put it on the market, give them the sale money,” Dean explains carefully.
I arch an eyebrow. “That penthouse is in my name. And mine only.”
“Yeah, but we’ll be living together, so what do you expect to do with it?” He raises his eyebrows back at me, a little smile on his face at my uncomfortableness. Is that because he’s happy I feel uncomfortable or is it out of sympathy? I can never quite work Dean out.
“Do what I want with it, obviously,” I retort, sitting back in my seat. “Even if I did sell it, no one else but me is getting the money for it. Fuck that.”
“I’m on your side here—”
“Oh really? You’re sitting here telling me that you respect my feelings yet are not willing to let me live in my own flat. I’m not even allowed to have a relationship. That doesn’t come across as on my side,” I spit.
“I didn’t say no to any of that,” he replies, and I can feel his stress coming across. “But I can only go by the rules we’ve been laid out, Ella. I’m happy to, I don’t know, build a separate annexe on the house, or buy you a flat nearby. As for a relationship – what do you want from me, Ella? Because we’re about to enter a marriage—”
“A forced marriage, Dean, let’s not throw the religious expectations around here,” I cut him off, knowing that is exactly where he’s going.
“We have certain… expectations on us. To provide a family, to attend functions, to look a certain way,” he explains. “I don’t understand how you could have the time—”
“I’m meant to be sitting at home every fucking day of the week, Dean. I’m not allowed a job, not allowed to do anything but be a housewife from the fifties. I’m sure I can find the time to actually find someone I love,” I snap back. The rage bubbles away inside of me like I’m a shaken bottle of champagne; the cork is about to burst open and my rage about to go flying everywhere.
“I’m sure we could work something out but… this isn’t about what we want. This life we live, the way we have to live, it’s not – it’s never going to allow us to live the way you seem to want,” he explains.
“It does,” I snarl back. “You lot just don’t have the balls to defy anyone. Whatever this… disgusting arrangement was born from, there is not a good enough reason behind it to do this kind of shit.”
“I understand this is hard for you, but this is our lives now,” he patronises. “Why are you so against this? I understand you don’t love me, and that’s one thing. But why can’t you just accept it for what it is?”
“Unlike you, I see myself as the human being I’ve been born as and I would like to live my life the way I want to,” I retort.
“I mean, that is a fair argument.” He nods. “But we have to find a way to move forward together, so all I can promise is that when we are married, I will try to make you as happy as you can be. But with the nature of our wedding, Ella, I can’t promise anything until that day.”
This is going nowhere. Leaving with Matty really is the way to get rid of this stupid, goddamn, impending, life-ruining moment.
“My parents have a party coming up next month. They’re already planning it. It’s with work; the anniversary of the company—”
“Oh, that party.” I recall the many parties like that previously – cocktail parties at Dean’s parent’s house. Alcohol and posh people always met for a boring night in terms of no one getting drunk enough to make fools of themselves in front of their bosses, and it left Dean and I bored upstairs because all we wanted to know was whether Frank from Accounts was going to finally slip up and make a move on Rhianne, twenty years his junior. He never did, damn him.
“Yeah. Obviously, you’ll have to be there as my… fiancé,” he says the word carefully. “You’ll have to wear the ring and we have to act like we’re in love. No one but our families know about the arrangement.”
I shake my head in disgust. “What’s the back story; I know you’ve got one cooked up already.”
He shrugs. “We’re childhood sweethearts. Been together for a year now and I proposed on your graduation day. It’s merely a twist of the truth, Ella.”
“Fucking typical; twisting the truth. It’s a damn art between our parents and you now, isn’t it?” I spit.
“Ella, come on—”
I scrape my chair back. “I’ll walk home.” He starts to stand up to follow me. I walk out of the restaurant, the tears falling freely as the chill sea air hits my face.