12. “All Too Well” - Taylor Swift #2
“Yes, that too.” I clear the cobwebs from my rusty voice. “They’ve proposed something they hope will end the riots and acts of terrorism. Something they feel is the only viable option. They were in session all day trying to find another solution, but this was the only thing they came up with.”
I’m stalling.
I can’t do this.
The words won’t leave my mouth.
Beck stabs a forkful of green beans while he waits for me to continue.
Then the words tumble out on top of each other like gumballs from a busted machine. “They want me to marry Henry.”
He freezes midchew and looks at me like he doesn’t remember who I am. Now it’s his turn to be mute, and he stares at me for what feels like an eternity.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I whisper, “Please say something.”
He drains the contents of his wine glass. “I don’t understand. How would you marrying Henry solve anything?”
I explain as best I can, but I must be failing miserably, because instead of comprehension, a steely coldness settles over him. “It sounds as though you’ve already made up your mind.”
“No! That’s the problem. I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t know what to do,” he parrots.
“I’ve been going back and forth in my mind the last two days, and I’m no closer to knowing what I should do than I was. Please help me, Beck.”
He’s quiet for so long I can feel each one of my nerves splitting into a frayed end.
I know he’s still processing all of this, but I wish he would do it out loud so I could know what he’s thinking.
It’s always been one of the more frustrating differences between us.
My words hit a greased slide to my mouth, bypassing my brain altogether.
His marinate in his cerebral juices for a while until their flavor is just right.
“Let me get this straight,” he says, adjusting his knife and fork so both are at exactly six o’clock on his plate. “You were asked several days ago to break our engagement and marry Henry. Since then, you haven’t breathed a word of this to me and have instead been debating what you should do?”
“What would you have had me do instead?”
“Call me immediately? Tell them right then you wouldn’t do it? Anything but fret about it like there’s a decision to be made.”
“But there is a decision to make,” I say, palms up. How is he not getting this?
Beck sags into his chair. “You’re actually considering this.”
“You think I should abandon Wesbourne when I have it in my power to save her?”
“It’s not your problem, Celia.”
“It became my problem the day I was born into a royal bloodline. Possibly the only royal bloodline.”
He scoffs. “Does that somehow make you nobler than the rest of us?”
“No, it makes me required by blood to give everything I am to this country.”
“No one would blame you for saying no to this.”
“No one except me.” I don’t realize how true the words are until they’re out of my mouth.
Would I really be able to hold my head up if I walked away from my country when she needed me most?
It would negate everything I tried to do in the future.
If I only contribute to society when I stand to benefit from it, it means Henry’s right. I am selfish.
“Isn’t this the kind of thing we decide together? We’re on the verge of getting married, for fuck’s sake,” Beck says, and I flinch. He never curses.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and brush my hands across my trousers. “What’s your proposition?”
“Tell them you’re not willing to do this, then marry me like you promised. It’s as simple as that.”
My eyes flit to the enlarged portrait hanging above the table. It’s from our engagement shoot. We’re standing in front of St. John’s, the oldest cathedral in Wesbourne, the exquisite architecture creating a gorgeous backdrop. We look happy and in love, because we are. Will this break us forever?
“And if I choose that option, what happens to Wesbourne?” I say it softly, not sure I’m ready for the answer.
“I don’t know, but we can leave, go live somewhere else. America, England, France. We’ll buy a villa in Fiji. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’ll be together.”
My tongue is numb, a heavy, dead weight in my mouth. “That’s not all that matters, Beck.”
If you had asked me five minutes ago if he felt the same way I do about this nation, I would have said yes without hesitation, but it’s becoming apparent his devotion to her is vastly different from mine.
“I can’t believe you would do this to me,” he says. “To us.”
“You make it sound as though I’m in this situation by choice.”
He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be hard to get out.”
I gape at him. “How can you say that? Everything about this situation is hard.”
“If I were in your shoes, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
He’s right. I’m a fool to not have seen it before.
Beck wasn’t raised the way I was. He’s had to fight for everything he has.
A mother who deserted their family, an alcoholic father who all but left his twelve-year-old son to raise his younger sisters, an ex-wife who divorced him after what he thought were three happy years of marriage—life hasn’t been kind to him.
He had to work three jobs just to put himself through university.
While he’s succeeded against the odds, he’s not willing to sacrifice everything he has for a country that did little to help him when he needed it.
And now I’m considering leaving him as well, cementing his belief that he is unworthy of love.
I can’t do it. If I love him, I can’t destroy him like this. There has to be another way.
“What if we found a compromise?”
“A compromise.”
“We wouldn’t be legally married, but . . .”
He looks at me without blinking, and I know the wheels in that brilliant head of his are spinning fast. Without a word, he tosses his napkin onto his plate and pushes away from the table.
The action knocks over my glass, which is still half-full, and the wine oozes into the stark white tablecloth and dribbles onto the hardwood floor. He doesn’t even notice.
“Beck. Can you please say something?”
He’s now leaning against the countertop. Tension ripples through the muscles in his back, but he doesn’t answer.
I stand and move to the cupboard under the sink, where I know I’ll find a bottle of white vinegar and a roll of kitchen paper. He doesn’t even glance in my direction. “Beck?”
Grabbing the supplies, I mop up the spill on the floor, then turn my attention to the purple-red splotch on the tablecloth. “How am I supposed to know what you’re thinking if you won’t talk to me?” I pour vinegar onto the stain to neutralize the pigments.
“I assumed my thoughts on your”—he pauses, as if searching for the right word—“suggestion would be a foregone conclusion.” Tight ropes in his arms strain beneath his rolled-up shirtsleeves.
“It’s not all cloak-and-dagger these days,” I say. “We could make it work.”
He spins around to face me. “Do you think so little of me that you assume I would be happy to play second fiddle to another man?”
“Of course not.”
“And yet you propose this preposterous arrangement, assuming I’d be thrilled.”
“I am trying,” I say, “to find a way to keep my world from completely imploding. This is the only thing I can think of!”
“Your mistake was thinking I’d consider being your mistress. I’m supposed to be your husband, but for some reason, you’ve taken that option off the table!”
The slap of his words reverberates through me. I keep dabbing at the wine-and-vinegar-soaked tablecloth and duck my head to hide my brimming eyes. “My mistake was thinking you loved me enough to do whatever it took for us to stay together.”
“You’re the one tearing us apart.”
I am losing my grip on my tears. Where do we go from here?
“I still have another day before I need to give them my answer,” I say. “What if we talk again tomorrow?”
Beck moves his hands to his narrow hips, hands that I love, that have cradled my face so many times. “You seem perfectly capable of deciding on your own,” he says. “Once you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back.”