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“Should I have lied?”
“No. I knew the truth. It’s nice to hear it from you, actually.”
“Do you think it means I don’t love you?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think that all the time.”
“I don’t know what else I can do. I am getting really tired of trying to convince you that I love you. You’re my wife, I married you, you’re having my baby.” He left it at that, with the unspoken weight of what he had done to John Spade hanging between us.
“What if Valencia hadn’t been pretty?” I said. “What if she had just been your average, boring, teenage girl? Would you have gone to these lengths to find her little sister and take care of her? What it always comes back to is that you love Valencia’s little sister, and I happen to be her. Forgive me if I wanted a love of my own, about me.”
He just looked at me. He had that glazed over look that meant he really did not understand the importance of our conversation. I’m bored with this. Just be happy again, said the look. If he truly wanted to be with me, he was misjudging the importance of our conversation.
“Didn’t you want a real love
, too? Why are you devoting your life to taking care of me? It’s not going to deliver Valencia to you in the afterlife.”
“Play the hand you’re dealt,” he said again, and shrugged, again.
“You weren’t exactly dealt me. You were perfectly happy with Belinda.”
He laughed. “No I wasn’t. What can I say, I felt connected to you. That night was a life-changing event. I didn’t get over it. It gave you and me something in common, something huge. It connected us.”
“What would you do if she was still alive? Would you find her, tell her that you’re sorry, make it up to her?”
“I don’t even remember what she looked like,” he said.
“Right.”
“I don’t! That was twenty some years ago. I’ve gotten over it. You need to get over it too.”
“You just said you got with me because you weren’t over it! And now you’re telling me to get over it? That makes a lot of sense.”
“I wasn’t over it then, but I am over it now.”
“Everything you’re saying is contradicting everything else. I’m asking you a serious question. Don’t you want a life that’s real?”
“What do you mean real? Our life is real. And the accident with your sister is in the past. You and I are about to have a baby. I’ve gotten over all of that and I’m living in the present. The present. You should let it go too, and join me here.”
I nodded, as if I agreed.
“So do you want to go to a movie?” asked Adrian.
“Sure. Why not,” I said. It was at least a way to avoid talking to him any longer.
“Good,” he said, patting me on the shoulder and going off to find the car keys.
“Give me a minute,” I said, and locked myself in the bathroom under the guise of putting on makeup. I glared at myself in the mirror, painting my lips a resentful shade of crimson. I could not stop the angry pep talk going on inside my head: Stop relying on this fake marriage, stay on track, keep focused on shedding your dirty skin and starting over.
“We’d better go now, if we’re going to do this,” Adrian said, knocking on the bathroom door.
I came out, brushing my hair, avoiding looking into his eyes.
“You look very pretty,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder and giving me a squeeze.
“Stop being nice to me, please,” I whispered.
“I like being nice to you,” he said.
