She shakes her head, and a single tear slides down her cheek.
I’ve known McKenna since we started at Silvercrest, so I’m well aware she can cry on command and has no problem turning on the waterworks to get what she wants. But I also know when she’s genuinely upset by something, and this isn’t her trying to weasel her way out of things or manipulate me.
She’s not just sorry she got caught; she’s sorry it happened at all.
“Was that the only time?” I ask.
She nods, her lip trembling as she tries to hold back her tears.
“I need more than that,” I tell her gently. “You can’t just nod and shake your head and make this go away.”
She looks at me for a long moment, a myriad of emotions crossing her features, then she looks down at the ring on her finger and pulls in a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
I keep quiet and wait to see what else, if anything, she has to say.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispers, still looking at her ring. “But I panicked, and I made a mistake.”
“Butwhydid you do it?” I press.
“Because I panicked.”
“You said that, but what were you panicking about?”
She bites her lip and gently slides the pendant of her necklace back and forth over the delicate gold chain. I know that move. She has an answer, she just doesn’t want to say it.
I bite my own lip and resist the urge to keep asking her questions to fill the silence. She won’t talk if she feels cornered, so badgering her isn’t going to do anything except make her shut down.
Almost a full minute passes before she lets go of her necklace and pulls in a shaky breath, like she’s fortifying herself.
“I made a mistake,” she finally whispers. “I’m so sorry, West, but I don’t want to marry you.”
Her words aren’t exactly a shock, and I was expecting to hear something along those lines when I came over, but they still hit me like a punch to the gut.
“You seemed to really want it when you were dropping hints like crazy for six months before I proposed,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness out of my tone. “And you seemed pretty into the idea when you gave me an ultimatum on New Year’s and basically threatened to dump me if I didn’t pop the question by the end of the break.”
“West…”
“And I think your sister thought you wanted to marry me because she wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone the entire time Iwas at your place over Christmas,” I continue, my voice heavy with bitterness. “And she definitely thought you wanted to marry me when she kept going on about how amazing it would be if you two could plan your weddings together. Same when she told me that the ring I was thinking of getting you was tacky and she already knew exactly which ring you wanted.”
She winces and flinches away from me, and I take a deep breath so I don’t keep going. I have a bad habit of letting my mouth run wild when I’m upset, and I end up saying stuff I regret, or I hurt people when I don’t mean to.
Saying all of this to her isn’t helping me, and hurting her won’t make me feel better. I already feel like a dick for making her cry, so lashing out is only going to hurt both of us.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “And you’re right, about all of it. But I’m realizing now that I was just so in love with the idea of getting married that I was more excited about the wedding and all that than I was about marrying you.” She winces. “I know that sounds terrible, but my mom and sister have been pushing the idea since we got together, and I got carried away in all the excitement, and…”
“Yeah, I get that,” I say softly when she trails off. “And it’s not like my family wasn’t pushing for it too.”
McKenna’s family is just as overbearing and controlling as mine, just in different ways. My family thinks I’m a dumbass who needs someone to take care of me, and they’ve been pestering me to get married so I’d be my future wife’s problem and not theirs. McKenna’s family holds the incredibly outdated and misogynistic view that a woman isn’t complete until she has a man taking care of her, and her family has been encouraging her and her older sister to lock down whatever guy they’re dating since they were in high school.
“I think we both made a mistake and jumped into things before we were ready,” I add slowly.
Relief washes over her features. “You do?” she asks hopefully.
I nod and chew on my bottom lip for a few beats. “Did you love me?” I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer.
“I think I did,” she says, her cheeks flushing pink with a blush. “But I think I was more in love with the idea of you than I was with you.” She delicately wipes a tear from under her eye with the back of her sleeve.
I nod, even as it feels like my heart is being crushed in a vice.
