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“That too.”That only.
Tyler did a number on me, but that outburst was purely about William.
“Please don’t call off your wedding because I said some very off-color things at brunch. Marriage is beautiful and joyous. Sure, there are ups and downs. That’s why people say marriage is work—a quote I despise, by the way—but I get it. It’s not easy, but the good outweighs the bad. I promise.”
“I was going to end it for good with Allison at brunch. I didn’t know she’d hired a wedding designer, let alone you. The end of the engagement had nothing to do with what you said at brunch.”
“So, it was the kiss? Please don’t say it was the kiss.” I bend forward with my head in my hand. “Damn it, Will, why didn’t you tell me you were engaged?” I shoot up to a standing position and point at him in accusation. “Don’t sayit didn’t come up. Or youdon’t know. That’s not good enough.”
“I’ll tell you, but you have to sit down, sip your cocoa, and give me a few minutes of uninterrupted time to talk. When you do, I promise I’ll let you out of here.”
I drop to the bench. “Fine.”
“Good.” He runs his hands over his face. His pained, confused, chiseled-with-anguish face. “Fuck. I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning is a good place.”
He steeples his fingers and rests them under his chin and nods. “I’ve known Allison since high school. We went to junior prom together but just as dates. We weren’t a couple. I was enrolling in the police academy, and she was going to go to college out west. We reconnected almost two years ago at a bar on St. Patrick’s Day. She’d moved back to town after living in Chicago, and the attraction was stronger as adults than it was when we were teenagers. We dated, casually at first. Soon, my friends were hanging with her friends, and the social circles entwined, where everyone we knew was a couple or friends with each other. My cousin married her best friend. My friend is engaged to her old roommate. Our moms even know each other from their days of working at the middle school together. Everything with Allison was … easy. Us as a couple, being together, it just made sense. When you’re with someone, you don’t just commit to them. You commit to this lifestyle. If you end one relationship, it spirals to everything else. Don’t get me wrong; she’s beautiful, smart, and caring. Everything a man should want in a woman. Still, something was holding me back.”
He places a hand over his heart, and mine feels like it’s pressing against my chest.
“Then, the comments started.When are you going to propose? She isn’t getting any younger.I loved Allison, but I wasn’t ready to get married. I honestly never thought I would be. I put off proposing, and she was a saint for waiting. She told me there was no rush, but a man knows when a woman is miserable. I would see her staring idly at a bride or have a jealous twinge when a couple moved in together. The thought of holding her back from what she wanted in life was a burden I couldn’t bear. I broke up with her, and it was awful.”
“How did you go from breaking up over getting engaged to actually being engaged?”
His shoulders and eyes fall, as if what he’s about to say was his undoing. “Allison showed up at my house with the announcement that she was pregnant.” His eyes open, but his gaze remains lowered. “I didn’t want to get married, but being a dad … that didn’t freak me out at all. I was on board the second she said it, and she was shocked. My dad was on my case instantly. He said I had to marry Allison. I had to do the right thing, and he was right. I proposed. She was so happy. Delirious even.”
He looks away and rubs his eye before continuing, “She lost the baby. It was horrible. The loss was early in the second trimester, yet she was devastated. I stayed by her side. Nursed her while she healed and held her hand as she coped.
“Then, I got shot. They said I died on the table before being revived, and when I came to, Allison was the first person I saw. She was there for every second of my hospital stay. Our family, our friends, this amazing community of ours hovered around, and I was grateful for them. Grateful for her yet so confused. I was alive, yet I didn’t feel like I was living. I was engaged to a woman I didn’t want to marry, but I’d made a promise to her.”
He looks up at me, and I feel like every amount of emotion of his is being sent through the bars and barreling into my chest. “One day, I went to work, and there was this girl in the holding cell, pacing. She was wild and funny without even trying. I thought about her the entire night and was stunned when I saw her at a bar the next day. She kissed me, and I kissed her back.
“So, you asked why I didn’t tell you I was engaged. It’s because I was confused. I pushed you away. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to. Little did I know that one kiss would awaken more in me in a nanosecond than anything else had in my entire life.”
His words are a hymn to my ego. That kiss was life-altering, I agree. Just not the way it was supposed to be.
My stomach sours. “Damn it, Will. You need to be with Allison. Don’t let that kiss ruin everything.”
“It was over with Allison before you and I even began.”
“No. No, no, no. Don’t say that. I’ve been on the other side of that heartache. I can’t be the woman who ended your relationship. Oh my God, Will. You made me theotherwoman!”
“You’re not understanding. It’s not you. It’s me.”
“That’s cliché.”
“Believe it or not, you’re not my type. At all.”
My ego, now bruised, is back to where it’s supposed to be. Trampled and lying in the pit of my stomach. “No need to beat a dead horse about it.”
He runs his hands through his hair and rises. His jaw is clenched, as if he’s annoyed rather than mad. He slides a key out of his pocket, opening the door, and steps inside.
He takes a seat beside me on the bench.
“Our breakup was inevitable. I didn’t feel with Allison what a man who is supposed to spend a lifetime with someone is supposed to feel. I finally did what a real man should do, and I ended it.”
“This is so messed up.”
