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The lights dimmed in the room and the candles flickered across the tables casting shadows on the faces of the guests. The whispers died down as Bekah's parents entered the room followed first by Jack's mother, then a short while afterwards by his father who looked rather uncomfortable taking the seat next to his ex-wife. Bekah's parents sat on the other side of the rectangular table leaving a gaping hole with two unfilled seats. All eyes stared at the missing couple wondering from where they would make their appearance.
Lexi, however, had her eyes on the empty seat to Ramsey's left. Surely Parker wouldn't miss Bekah's rehearsal dinner. After all, she was the maid of honor. She was Bekah's oldest friend, her best friend growing up. Lexi would have killed Chyna if she had not shown up to her own rehearsal dinner. Not that that seemed to be something in her immediate future. But still as Ramsey's father gruffly pushed back out of his chair, Parker's seat remained empty.
Ramsey's father cleared his throat silencing all further conversation among the attendees. "Thank you all so much for coming tonight to honor the soon-to-be union between my daughter Bekah and her fiancé Jack." He waited for the applause to die down before continuing.
But Lexi wasn't listening to him or his prepared speech. She had been to rehearsal dinners before and had learned to tune out speeches like this. Plus she had made it through three years of law school. She was pretty accustomed to tuning in and out of conversations, lectures, debates, and of course speeches when she saw fit.
She was thinking about how nice it felt for Ramsey's hand to stay on her thigh. How when he moved his fingers just a bit, a tremor ran up her body. How the pressure on her leg intensified the longer that his father stood up and spoke. She just wanted to leave this place with him. He had made mistakes, and there were still so many things that she didn't fully comprehend. But right now all she wanted to do was be tucked up in his arms lost to the rest of the world.
Of course they couldn't just disappear. Ramsey was a groomsman. It was his own sister's wedding. His entire family was here.
She couldn't keep trying to escape her problems. Running away from the world wasn't the answer. It wasn't going to fix what had happened between them, and it wasn't going to make anything easier. She needed to man up and face what was coming her way. Avoiding her responsibilities wasn't going to be the solution in her life. She had gotten herself into this situation and she could get herself out of it.
A passage from one of her existential philosophy classes came to mind as she finally realized what she had to do. For some reason the passage had hit home even then. She had copied it off the website onto a tiny piece of paper, and placed it carefully into her wallet. She knew what was making her think of it now.
Carefully so as not to disturb the endless droning of Ramsey's father's speech, Lexi popped open her hand bag, pulled out her wallet, and rifled through the slips of paper she concealed in its depths. Locating the one she was looking for she read it to herself:
"In some cases, however, a person will try to avoid taking responsibility by trying to avoid making conscious choices altogether. Perhaps she cites uncontrollable passion on her part... the presence of peer pressure… or she pretends not to notice the man's actions. Whatever the case, she acts as though she is not making any choices and hence has no responsibility for the consequences."
Lexi sighed heavily reading and rereading the passage. She knew why this had hit home the first time she had come across it. She had been taking that class her senior year…the semester after she had gone to the beach with Clark, Jack and the rest of his friends. She hadn't really thought about it much since then. The class hadn't exactly been her favorite.
But now the ideas behind the passage seemed crystal clear. She had to make a choice not act as if all the choices were out of her grasp. Wasn't that exactly what had gotten her involved with Jack to begin with?
She had done countless things citing just such things as uncontrollable passion and inability to do anything else. These weren't anything but excuses…and not even good ones. They were ramblings of a confused girl who didn't know what she wanted…who let other people, men sway her decisions for her.
Running away from everything wasn't the solution to what was going on with her right now. Sure she didn't want to be at the wedding, and if she had come to this conclusion about herself a week ago then she wouldn't be here. But now she had a made a choice…a conscious choice. She was here. She was with Ramsey…albeit a little hesitantly. She was going to carry through with her choice. She couldn't keep letting the past dictate her present…and future.
She swallowed hard at the realization that she had a lot of work to do. She needed to practically reinvent herself. She wanted to say that it was going to be easy, but it wasn't.
Just like people had been telling her for years and she hadn't listened, Jack had really done a number on her. She couldn't trust anyone, and she was manic when it came to him. She truly cared about Ramsey, but at the first sign of trouble she had jumped ship. What kind of person was she not to try to stick it out? What kind of person was she to have slept with someone else while being away from him?
She wanted to cover her face in shame. Yes, she had been happy with her Mystery Man for that brief moment when she hadn't had to think about anything else. But when reality set in, she couldn't even tell her best friend who he was. She couldn't tell anyone who he was. That wasn't the kind of relationship she needed. He wasn't the one who had stuck it out with her for a year, long distance to try to make things work. And yet she had been stupid enough to forget all of that with a moment of his warm touch.
Had she been so desperate to be wanted that she couldn't control herself? Lexi pursed her lips in annoyance. She was a despicable human. She couldn't even like herself in that moment. Let alone wonder why anyone else could like her.
Yes, everyone made mistakes, but she was just an idiot about it all. She just avoided everything at all costs…commitment, real commitment, and the responsibility of her actions. She hadn't been able to face up to them and what they meant. And she was terrified because she knew now that she would have to tell Ramsey.
Ramsey. Lexi shuddered at the thought of his quick temper taking over when she told him. Ramsey who had lied straight to her face on a number of occasions and now Lexi knew without a shadow of a doubt that she owed him the truth. When they decided they were going to work things out, if they decided they could work things out, she needed him to know what kind of person she was. She knew he wasn't perfect by any means, but she felt like she was less than dirt in that moment.
