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I told him no and I kept telling him that up until the wedding day. Which he decided on and made all the arrangements for on his own; picked out a dress for me too, on his own.
“I’m not going to marry you just because you think that’s what I want,” I almost shouted at him on the wedding day.
“Good. Because I’m marrying you because that’s what I want,” he countered.
“But we never even talked about it before I saw that bride and groom.”
He exhaled a large breath, giving me a turbulent look. “Don’t you get it, yet?”
“Get what?”
“I’m not a dreamer, Violet,” he snapped, running a hand through his thick hair. “I told you. I don’t have dreams like you. I don’t close my eyes and automatically see what I want. I don’t automatically want something. I have to learn to want it. It takes time for me to learn to want it. And when I saw you, all choked up and emotional, high on your goddamn teenage hormones while you were staring at them, I got jealous, okay? I got so fucking jealous because you’d never looked like that with me. I got jealous that your eyes were all shiny and bright and stunning because of something that didn’t involve me. And that’s when it hit me. It hit me that I wanted that, you understand? I wanted that look from you. I wanted to put that look in your eyes where your eyes shine so bright that my chest hurts from it, okay?”
I went all silent after that, all speechless but he kept going.
“I want that look from you, Violet. I want it and I’m going to put that look in your eyes whether you want it or not, got that? Now come on, I’m running out of patience here. I’ve heard a thousand goddamn nos from you in the past one month and I’m going to lose it now.”
Oh Jesus.
What else could I do but walk up to him and tell him that he was an idiot. That he had no reason to be jealous. That the reason I had that look in my eyes was because I was daydreaming about him and me.
When I told him the last part, his nostrils flared and he went for me.
He threw me over his shoulder and brought me back to his rose garden, where a priest was waiting for us along with Richard – thank God, their friendship is still going strong and didn’t get ruined because of that almost panic attack incident, Brian and Billy.
And that’s how we got married: him in a black suit and me in shorts and a t-shirt because he didn’t give me enough time to wear the white dress he bought me.
It’s okay though. I wore the white dress later that night.
In this moment, I step up to him.
I get on his feet and wind my free arm, the one that’s not holding the roses he picked out for me, around his neck.
His hands settle on my waist and my body goes flush with his.
And the roses?
They get trapped between us like they did on my eighteenth birthday.
Craning my neck up, I say, “I’m sorry I kept saying no to you.”
“A thousand times,” he growls, squeezing my waist.
I guess, he’s still kinda pissed about that. “I was scared that you were scared.”
His eyes go all liquid at that. All liquid and emotional and beautiful. “I was. I am. But you inspire me to be brave, remember?”
I swallow. “Yeah. You inspire me to be brave too.”
An emotion ripples through his features and I rise up on my tiptoes to press a soft kiss on his beard. “Happy first wedding anniversary, honey.”
“Yeah. It’s that.”
“Oh, that reminds me. Don’t be an ass to my mom tomorrow when she calls, okay? Be nice.”
He gives me a blank look but his jaw tics.
Yeah, he does not like my mom and she doesn’t like him. She still thinks he’ll leave me brokenhearted even though, we’re married now and it’s been two years since he came back for me and I left Connecticut to be with him. And he hasn’t forgiven or forgotten her years of neglect.
But I don’t want them fighting over me.
“Come on. It’s a big day.” I bite my lip and peek up at him through my eyelashes. “It could be your gift to me.”
His eyes narrow in a familiar dangerous and delicious way. “I thought my gift to you was reading that crazy Bukowski guy.”
“Hey, he’s not crazy. He’s my favorite writer. Besides, he was the one who made me kiss you that night.”
He brings his face closer to mine. “How’s that?”
I can’t believe I never told him this story. “Well, he said to find that one thing in the world that we love and then let it kill us. I’d already found that one thing in the world that I loved. You know, when I was sixteen. So I figured that at eighteen, I’d steal a kiss from you and let you kill me.”
