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Seventy-two wasn’t that ancient.
If the genes in my family were to be believed, I could live another twenty years with ease. But just because I could, didn’t mean I wanted to.
“Come,” I said. “I’ll escort you to the pool house. I need to go myself.”
“Fine.” Dylan rolled his eyes. “If you’re going, I might as well join you. I have a feeling once you begin the next part, Nerida, I’ll be suffering enough without needing to piss too.”
I laughed under my breath as Margot drifted to my side and Dylan fell in behind us. The solar lights in the sweeping gardens were so much brighter than the cheap ones I’d had in my family home. These were bright spotlights, angled to spear into the canopy of the many palm trees, stencilling the night sky with ever-watchful sentries, revealing the flitting shadows of moths and other night insects.
“I have a question, if I may.” Margot slipped her hands into the pockets of her pretty burnt-yellow dress.
“Of course.” I moved carefully over the steppingstones that reminded me so much of the garden where Aslan and I had fallen in love. “That’s the whole purpose of this interview, is it not?”
She nodded, nibbling on her bottom lip before blurting, “I’m obviously gleeful that your parents accepted you and Aslan. That speech Aslan gave to your dad was out of this world. So, so romantic. And the fact that he admitted what he did to Ethan? That your father dropped to his knees with gratefulness that Aslan defended and avenged you? That he never revealed Aslan’s secret even though he was friends with the cop searching for Ethan is something you only read about in fairy-tales, but...”
“But?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Well, you were seventeen—”
“Almost eighteen. I turned eighteen on the second of April.”
“And Aslan was twenty-one—”
“He was twenty-two. His birthday fell on the eighth of December.”
“Okay...he was more of an acceptable age for a committed relationship I suppose, but not many parents I know would be happy their daughter had already cut herself off to other experiences and—”
“Other experiences being other men?” I scowled. “Isn’t it good to find love early and avoid sleeping around, running the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and heartbreak?”
“Of course, but...those experiences also make us grow.”
“Aslan made me grow. We evolved together.”
Margot stopped walking. I copied her. Dylan paused behind us, his head volleying between us as we took turns speaking.
“All I’m wondering is...were your parents truly okay with you two getting engaged, or are you perhaps remembering the past with rose-coloured glasses?”
I linked my fingers and studied her. I appreciated her question. I liked that she was thinking about everyone’s point of view and not just accepting my own as gospel, but she wasn’t there. She didn’t know my parents, and she didn’t know me.
Smiling at Dylan as he scratched his short beard, staying out of this particular line of questioning, I said quietly so as not to disturb the stars, “You have to understand, Margot, I was a wild child. An intuitive, rebellious little thing. I’d been raised with freedoms and trust. I could test certain boundaries and become my own person as long as I obeyed my parents’ scant rules to keep me safe. So...by the time I was an adult, good luck to anyone who tried to stop me from doing what I wanted to do.”
Dylan chuckled. “You wouldn’t have taken no for an answer.”
“Not for a second. I loved my parents. I still do even though they’re gone. They gave me the best childhood I could’ve imagined. But even they knew my love for Aslan was different, just like his love for me. They knew they wouldn’t be able to stop me. They knew I’d had sex with Joel, so I wasn’t a delicate little virgin. They knew Aslan couldn’t truly get married, not unless we performed a visa miracle...so...what was the harm in indulging us?”
I ran my hand through my time-whitened hair, long and breeze-teased by decades of salt and sun. “After hearing what Aslan did to Ethan. After seeing first-hand the depth of loyalty Aslan had for me...why wouldn’t they agree to let him protect me for the rest of my life? And if our relationship petered out, what was the harm? A ring was just a ring. A promise was just a promise. I can’t say if they truly believed we’d last the distance, but I can tell you that they believed in our fantasy. And that was what they allowed us to have.”
“You were fortunate to have such open-minded folks,” Dylan said. “I’m not sure if I’d be okay with my boy getting engaged so young, but then again...” He shrugged. “If he mutilated a rapist, all for the girl he loved, then...I guess that’s a pretty big flag that they’re rather deeply involved, and I’ve lost all say in the matter as his father.”
