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“Kind of shot myself in the foot there, huh? Anyway, back to the story. The entire flight home I cried. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and our night together and wished like hell that we’d exchanged information. By the time I landed in Chicago, I’d made the decision that I wasn’t going to marry Trotter. I was going to break things off and find myself. Possibly come find you in the process. But when I went to my mother about not wanting to marry Trotter, she told me things.”
“Like what?”
“There were stipulations in my trust fund, for one. I know how that sounds, that I was more worried about money than making the right choices for myself, but it wasn’t only that. She was pretty good about reminding me of where I stood in the family. If I didn’t marry Trotter, it wasn’t only me who would suffer, but she and my dad as well. She made it sound like I would be ruining our family. And maybe she’s right. There’s a lot of history between my family and Trotter’s. History that’s about more than finances. I don’t know. I was young. Stupid.”
“I’m confused,” I admit. This seems ridiculous to me. Marrying someone you don’t love just to please your parents is something I can’t fathom. Probably because mine would never do such a thing.
“I know. And I was, too. It’s just that the entire thing is too much to explain in a quick meeting in my aunt’s office.”
“So you were going to find yourself, and maybe me, but you were afraid because they would cut you off? All because of money?”
“That’s not the only reason. When I got home from New York, I found out I wasn’t the only one who spent time with someone else while I was gone. Trotter was…active.”
“And?”
“And, what?”
“And then what? Trotter and you weren’t in love and he did the same thing you did. Had their little fantasy come to life,” I add with a little too much snark in my voice.
“Stop, okay? It was a fantasy, yes, but it was more than that. I promise you. That night meant more to me than you could ever know. You were the first person who actually saw me. Didn’t see my money or background. You saw me. And still wanted me.”
And then it hits me. Brooklyn.
“Her name.”
A tear slips down Hadley’s face. “It was my way of keeping you near me, I guess. It went way against family tradition but I won that small battle. I know we didn’t meet in Brooklyn but it’s not like I could name her airport bar,” she adds with a little laugh.
As much as hearing that she named Brooklyn after our time together means to me, it still confuses me. We spent one night together. Sure, I still think about it. Probably too often, but it was still just the one night.
“Okay, so you got back, told your family you didn’t want to get married to Trotter – which is a stupid fucking name, by the way – and then what?”
She smirks at my remark about Trotter’s name. “Trotter’s gay. His active lifestyle? It was his way of exploring something that had been simmering beneath the surface all his life. You wouldn’t understand what that would be like in families like ours. Unacceptable is putting it mildly.”
“So not only do they demand who you marry, they control who you love? They sound delightful.” She scrunches up her nose and nods. “How’d you find out about Trotter? Did he tell you?”
“I caught him with another man. I went to his house after I got home because despite the fact that I wasn’tinlove with him, he was still one of my best friends. I knew I could be honest with him about our time together and explain that we had to somehow get out of marrying each other. Anyway, I let myself in and, well, he had a guest. Two, actually.” She laughs.
My eyebrows shoot to my hairline. “I take it that was a shock.”
“Definitely. But, not really. Not once I thought about it a little bit. There were always signs. We had a good talk then. An actual talk where we laid it all out to each other. I told him what happened in New York and he told me he loved me but could never love me the way a husband should love a wife. Neither of us wanted to get married to each other but we also didn’t know how to get out of it.”
“This is so strange, you realize that, right?”
She nods sadly. “It is. But it’s always how I grew up so to me it wasn’t completely strange, I guess. Our parents cared about only a few things in life. Money and image being their top two. My parents, well, ours, actually, had closeted open marriages. My mom told me all about it in one of the worst conversations in the history of the world. He proposed the same to me. Marry each other and take lovers on the side. Those were his exact words.”
I clear my throat. “How romantic. And yet you still said yes.”
She gives me a look as if she still can’t believe it either.
“Okay, so your parents threatened to cut you off and your fiancé told you he wanted to marry you to keep up appearances but that he was going to sleep with other people while you were married. None of this made you think that maybe your family wasn’t the most supportive and marrying him wasn’t going to be a good decision?”
“That’s why it makes me sound superficial and awful. That night we met, you talked about your family and how supportive they were. I never had that. I was desperate for that.”
“So you agreed to marry him anyway?”
Hadley nods sadly and I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from saying something that I’ll never be able to take back.
“And where does Brooklyn come into the mix? You’re sure she’s not mine?”
