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“We don’t. But it’s still a big decision. One you can’t make in one minute.”
“Sure. But right now, one thing I know for sure is that no one’s keeping me away from you and that baby in your womb. Our baby,” he breathes, his eyes shining with awe for a moment. “And your father is right about one thing unfortunately. You are my responsibility now. It’s my job to protect you.”
I want to tell him that it’s much more than that.
“Tony, a marriage is forever.”
“I know.”
“You and I haven’t- we weren’t even in an actual relationship.”
“Please, we were dating. We might have been in denial but it’s pretty clear we were in an actual relationship and lying to ourselves about it.”
Something tugs at my chest at that.
“Okay, maybe we were. But it’s a relationship that lasted for what? A couple of weeks?”
“More than two months, Sophia. Two months from the moment I met you till now,” he says softly.
I shake my head even as my heart starts to pound, “That’s not enough.”
“It has to be,” he says, moving towards me.
“Tony it was two months that ended with us betraying each other. I don’t even know if I can trust you!” I yell. He takes a step back at that, his expression clouding over. “And you can’t trust me either.”
“We’ll work on it.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for forcing you into a marriage you don’t want.”
“We’ll work on that too.”
I wipe a tear from the corner of my eyes. I hate that I’m crying right now. Unnecessarily emotional. I guess that comes with the pregnancy. Tony stares at me warily for a beat. I don’t know what to say anymore. He doesn’t seem to either.
Both of us have avoided talking about the most important thing though.
How do you feel? What do you really feel for me?
For the first time in my life, I’m too much of a coward to ask. Because I’m terrified of the answer. And if I look clearly between what’s already being said. He already gave me a technical answer. I’m his responsibility now. It’s his job to protect me. This is about duty above anything else.
“Okay,” I finally say.
“Okay?”
“We’ll get married. We’ll put an end to this nightmare. I’m honestly so tired.”
He nods, relief in his features.
“I don’t know why you look relieved,” I mutter. “You have no idea what you’re getting into by marrying me.”
He smiles then, “I do know though. Because I know you, blondie.”
No, he doesn’t. The entire time we’ve known each other I’ve had to hide parts of myself from him. He doesn’t really know me. Not fully. And neither do I.
We walk back to the room hand in hand. I let go once we’re inside though, moving to take my seat between my sister and my father. The tension in the room could be cut by a machete. I watch Tony’s family as they look at him, waiting for him to speak. Katerina reaches for my hand.
“Are you okay?” she mouths and I nod.
We both turn to look at Tony as he announces our decision. But of course he can’t simply say ‘yes, we’ve agreed to marry each other.’
