AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No. What is it about women and weddings that seems to bring out the stress hormone in everyone?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen some fancy ones,” she murmured. Just then, it hit her how much different he was than she. He had been brought up with money and prestige, and while she had too, ever since her parents had died, she had lived a quiet life in not exactly poverty, but definitely a lot more frugally than she had when her parents had been taking her all over the country, giving the illusion that they had money, when it was all a house of cards.
She would much rather live honestly than try to show off, acting like she had more than what she had just to give people... What was it? To somehow make herself look better than what she was. She didn’t really understand the point of that.
It had been important to her parents, at any rate.
Finding out the truth had been difficult for both her and her sister. Gladys had honestly probably suffered more than she had.
But it had been a hard truth for both of them.
“I’m sure you have, too. Back in the day,” James said casually.
“Don’t you want to have a big, fancy wedding?”
“No. I don’t. I was thinking if my dad came, that might be two more people than what I actually want to have there. But you could hardly not invite your parent to your wedding, could you?”
“I always thought you had a good relationship with your dad.”
“I feel like I do. Although, he did demand a lot out of me. Looking back, I’m glad he did, it made me a better person, but at the time, I didn’t appreciate it.”
“I guess that’s kind of the way it is with the people in our childhood, right? Because growing always hurts.”
“Always?”
“I think so. Don’t you?”
He seemed to think about that for a while, and she tried to come up with a scenario that would make a person grow but wouldn’t also inflict pain. It was hard for her to come up with anything. Anytime a person got better, it was usually because they went through something that was hard.
“Unless a person really likes things like practicing, or reps in the gym, or burning food, or learning that friends can be brutally honest or heartbreakingly dishonest...”
“I guess you’re right. Maybe not physical pain, but mental pain, and then you have to work your way through it. I hadn’t quite thought about it in those terms before, but you’re right. Growth involves pain, and that’s why we resist it so much in our childhood and teen years. And that’s why they seem so hard. We’re doing a lot of growing, a lot of learning, which involves a lot of hurting.”
“And it makes us tired too. I remember being so tired when I was a teenager,” she said, leaning her head back against the edge of the swing.
She forgot he put his arm there, and instead of meeting the back of the swing, her head landed on his arm.
She popped back up right away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t mind at all.”
He had that tone again. The one he’d used before, the one that made a shot of something warm and sweet curl along her backbone and something smooth slide through her chest.
She looked at him a little longer than she meant to, and then, deliberately, she laid her head back down.
“You’re not a teenager anymore, but you’re still allowed to be tired.” His murmured words held a hint of humor but also more than a little hint of that heart-curling whatever it was. The tone that made her feel like maybe he cared for her more than someone who had just met her today would be expected to.
It was an odd feeling and one she wanted to talk to him about. But she didn’t know how to start the conversation. What was she going to say—how do you feel about me?
“I think that might be the pastor coming,” James said after a few beats of silence.
She turned her head, still leaning against his forearm, to see a car coming up the drive.
“Yeah. I think that’s him. We’re good?” she asked, feeling the tightening of her stomach as nervousness took over.
“I know it will work out. Whatever we do, we’ll handle it together. And we’re going to tell the truth, so there’s no need to coordinate lies. And if he doesn’t like it, we’ll just deal with it. But it’s not going to upset us.”
