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“Eventually,” I say, and then I blurt out something, wanting to be as honest as humanly possible with Garrison. “Or soon.”
He solidifies.
I pale. “I mean, not soon soon.”
“You said soon,” he rebuts. “You meant soon.”
“I meant soon-ish.”
He doesn’t remove his hands off my bare hips. It’s a good sign that I haven’t completely scared him off. “What’s soon-ish?” he wonders. “Before you’re twenty-three?”
Twenty-two is already fast approaching. A little over two months away. And maybe I’ll grow older and think that’s such a young age to be contemplating marriage and babies.
But I left home at seventeen.
I moved across the world at twenty.
My life has been a series of big challenges, and I’ve begun to realize that I might not be as adventurous as Daisy Calloway. I might not jump off literal bridges, but I have my own adventures. My own big metaphorical plunges into the unknown.
I, Willow Hale, am a risk-taker. A challenge seeker. I see that now. I feel it deep in my bones.
And I want someone with me, always, to face risks together.
I want Garrison. For as long as I can have him.
Forever, I hope.
But I’m not sure he wants those same things: Me. Forever.
Ever since I left Philly, he’s opened an escape-door, something to jump out of in case our relationship goes sour. I don’t blame him for that, but it’s harder to know exactly where his head is at.
“Maybe not before I’m twenty-three,” I answer Garrison. “I’d still be in school.”
He glances at the textbook I set behind me.
I just ask, “Have you thought about marriage before today?”
He shakes his head, and I don’t know why but that sends pain rippling down my chest.
Have I dreamed about walking down the aisle towards Garrison? Maybe once or twice lying awake in my dorm with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. They were just thoughts though—I never went so far as to torture myself by looking up wedding dresses or rings on Pinterest. I’m not such a fool.
Garrison watches me crumple into myself. Head down, fingers grazing the threads of my mustard-yellow sock. “Willow…” My name sounds different in his voice. Almost choked. “Hey, it’s not that I don’t want to get married. It’s just that with everything—I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“I understand,” I say softly.
It’s not like I ever thought about babies with him before now. Or rather, a baby.
His hands rise from my hips to my ribs, as though trying to reach my heart. “I thought you’d break up with me by now,” he admits. “And maybe if I was a stronger person, I’d just have broken up with you last December. You deserve someone else who—”
“I deserve you,” I snap at him. Pain in my chest radiates everywhere, clawing down my skin, but I’m holding onto his waist now, not letting go. “When will you start believing that?”
He shakes his head, eyes bloodshot. “I don’t know.” He removes one of his hands from my body to push away the longer strands of hair that’ve fallen in his eyes. “Maybe I never will, and then what?”
“Then I’ll keep reminding you,” I say, confident about this future.
He laughs. “Every day? Sounds fucking exhausting for you.” He stares me down, straight in the eyes with this raw plea like just let me go. For your own sake.
I won’t let him push me away.
“The only thing that’s exhausting is reading this.” I reach back and lift up my textbook. “Who knew accounting could be this dull?”
“That bad, huh?” He removes the other hand off my frame as he steals the book and then flips through the pages. We draw closer, our knees knocking together.
“I’d rather listen to TV static for an hour than read another sentence,” I mutter under my breath.
His eyes flit up to me, able to hear my quiet voice.
He’d tell me if he couldn’t.
Silence strains as he focuses on the text, flipping more pages. Snowflakes flutter peacefully outside, windowpanes frosted from the cold, and soothing crackling sounds emit from the fireplace. But nothing helps stop the tension that builds around us.
Garrison doesn’t look up from the book when he finally speaks. “Maybe you don’t realize how bad of a boyfriend I am because this has been your only relationship.”
It feels like he yanked out a sword and wedged the blade into my stomach. My face crinkles. So what if my firsts have come later in life?
He’s never taken my innocence as naïveté. I’m not naïve. I understand that Garrison is my first and only relationship, but I don’t need to date other people to know that this is a complicated relationship. Not a bad one.
I can’t pull words from my lips. They’re stuck in the back of my throat.
He looks up, meeting the hurt in my eyes, but he continues anyway. “I just want to make sure that you get what you’re saying—wanting to marry me someday soon-ish.”
