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“So, Rickie Flynn Junior is the arranged marriage.” I don’t know if he’s talking to me, or muttering to himself, but I’m not able to answer him either way. “Your father wants you to marrythat manto solidify mob bonds. That’s…”
He clucks his tongue and turns away from me, but he isn’t hiding the energy shift. The whole room is flooded with iciness, and I feel like I’m totally to blame for it. I don’t know what I did wrong.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”
“Huh?”
I heard him, but I need to see his face as he says this.
I can’t explain why Ineedto see his face, but I do.
“I know this is what your father wants,” he tells me as he finally meets my eyes. “But you don’t always have to do what other people tell you. You can make your own choices.”
“Ha, and there was me thinking that you’d met my father before.” I give him a pointed look. “He doesn’t easily take ‘no’ for an answer. I’ve tried. I’ve told him over and over again that I don’t want to marry a man who’s all wrong for me. I grew up with him and Mom, who were eternally in love with one another. They showed their love every single day, and that’s what I want.” I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “How can he not think that’s what I want.”
It’s honestly really frustrating.
I hate the fact that I don’t seem to have a voice in my family. It’s always been that way.
“You are a grown ass woman, Emma. I wouldn’t want to see you forced into anything.”
I offer him a one-shouldered shrug. “Well, I don’t think I have any option really. I’ve been running and hiding as much asI can, but I can’t do it forever. I can’t always run… I can’t always hide especially when I don’t want to give up my family forever. They might not be the easiest people in the world, but that doesn’t mean I want to live a life without them.”
Finally saying that out loud hits me hard.
It makes me realize how true that statement is.
I’vebeenrunning, I’ve been avoiding them and it’s got me nowhere.
I still want them in my life. I already lost my mother, I don’t want to lose the rest of them as well.
But how can I have it all?
“Emma, youdohave a choice. You always have a choice.”
“But how?”
It’s hard to keep my frustration inside.
This has been bubbling up for years.
Decades.
Maybe for as long as I have been alive. Especially ever since my mother passed away. I’ve felt pretty much alone since then.
“There is always a choice. There will always be someone out there who’s better for you than Rickie Flynn Junior. Someone who will care for you and treat you right. Someone who will love you in the way that you deserve to be loved.”
I stare at him with wide open eyes. What the hell is he talking about now?
“Do you think there’s some knight in shining armor about to come and sweep me off my feet? Someone that’s so great my family will be happy to put off the wedding to Rickie fucking Flynn when it’s going to help my father with territory or whatever? I don’t see that ever happening. At this point, I don’t think my father willeverchange his mind.”
“Well, I don’t know about all of that,” he admits, making my heart sink further. “But there is always one option… me.”
My jaw slackens, my mouth hangs open.
Did he just say what I think he did?
Am I losing my mind here?
