by Skyla Madi
“Thank you,” I simply say.
His lips pull wide into a proud, happy smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and it makes my heart ache. I hate he’s hurting, and I hate there’s nothing I can do short of finding the fountain of youth to heal Agnes of her ailment and her age.
Caleb steps forward and opens his arms. I gratefully hand over the ball of teddy bears, and they look smaller as he holds them under one arm with ease. “Are you hungry?”
I shake my head. “Are you?”
He gives me one of his endearing half shrugs. “I could eat.”
I gesture toward the food trucks parked alongside the games alley, and we walk toward them. While he orders his food, I buy a stick of pink cotton candy from a clown as he passes by and sit at a small metal table with the teddies. I pick at the cotton candy, loving the way it dissolves the second it hits my tongue and floods my saliva with sweet sugar. I get halfway through the cotton candy when Caleb gives me a look as he walks over with two loaded hotdogs, a huge cup of fries, and two giant Cokes. It’s the same look my father would give me whenever I was caught sneaking chocolate before dinner.
I hold the stick out as he slides onto the seat next to me. “Want some?”
Caleb pulls a face, the kind of face that’d make you think it’s dog poop on the end of my stick and not cotton candy. “God no.”
He slides a hotdog in front of me, and I look down at it, confused.
“You haven’t eaten all day,” he says, pouring fries into the empty cardboard beside the hotdog.
“I’ve had coffee.”
He arches a brow. “Coffee isn’t food.”
I open my mouth to point out hotdogs aren’t necessarily food either but decide against it and toss the rest of my cotton candy into the bin. If eating the hotdog makes him happy, then I’m gonna try my hardest to finish the damn thing. We don’t talk while we eat—or while I eat, to be accurate. Caleb tries. I watch as he picks at it, at his fries too. In the end, as I’m well over halfway to finishing my food, he pushes his hotdog away and pulls his drink closer. For the next fifteen minutes, we people watch and don’t speak. At the table next to us, a woman breastfeeds a small baby and tries to explain to her three young daughters over a large cup of fries she can’t afford for them to play games. According to her, they’ve already used up the money she put aside on the rides. They’re disappointed—two of them pout and fight tears—but they don’t argue with her. Bless them. I can’t help but wonder how Caleb and I will be as parents—if we become parents. Will we be well off? Or will we struggle to make ends meet? I don’t mind how we live so long as we’re happy and not one of us are suffering. My mind swings to Susan and how she offered her condolences about my impending marriage to Caleb. It’s the only reason I’m contemplating our future together. Apparently, Agnes is under the assumption Caleb and I are engaged. Why would he tell her that? To make her happy? Surely the lie is eating away at him? I mean, I can’t imagine he’d come clean now. It’d devastate her…
…but what if it wasn’t a lie? We can make it the truth.
What if we got married at the hospital, by Agnes’s bedside? Would it help him process her death easier? Would it put Agnes truly at peace? I want to marry Caleb. From the moment I met him, I want him to be mine forever, and I want him to know that although he’ll lose Agnes, he has me. He has me, of that I’m certain, and I want nothing more than to be his wife, to share his surname, to take every remaining step through this life side by side, hand in hand. I don’t know how we got here, now that I think about it. How’d we go from being two strangers in a church to the precipice of the rest of our lives together? How’d I go from not knowing a single thing about Caleb to being completely infatuated with him? How did I ever survive a year in New York without him, in the arms of someone else? Once I tore my walls down and allowed myself to have him again, I couldn’t bear the thought of going another day without him.
“Caleb,” I say, pulling his attention from somewhere in the distance.
My gaze flickers over his beautiful face to a small, white breadcrumb on his bottom lip. My mouth quirks with a smile, and I lift my hand to his face. His perfectly shaped eyebrows draw together as I gently brush the crumb away, then lightly trace his lip with the tip of my finger. I pull down on it a little, making it fatter. I’ve always thought he has such divine lips, and as I gaze so intently at each line, I’m overcome with the urge to kiss him. Somehow, I refrain from acting on my urges and instead, I ask, “Will you marry me?”
The words tumble from my tongue with ease, like I was born to say them to him right here, right now, as if it were written in the stars all along. My heart races.
Thunders.
Pounds.
It thrums in my ears so loud, I no longer hear the sounds of the fair. No excited squeals, no laughter, not even the bursting hisses of air from the rides. It’s the strangest occurrence of my life, the opposite of an outer body experience. I don’t want to look up from his mouth in fear of what I might see in his brilliant, mossy irises, but I do anyway and brace myself for rejection. Caleb’s eyebrows lift, almost disappearing into his hairline, and I’m staring into his questioning eyes as they demand to know where the hell that came from.
“Did you just…you want to…” Dropping his attention to the metal table, he rakes his fingers through his hair, then glances back to me, his eyebrows slightly lower. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“You told Agnes—”
“I didn’t tell her anything,” he cuts in, a rare shade of pink painting his cheeks. “She misheard me. I just didn’t correct her.”
“Regardless.” I push forward. “We can have a small ceremony at the hospital, then plan a bigger—”
“No.” He sips at his Coke, and it’s abrupt, out of nervousness; barely a drop settles on his tongue before he swallows hard.
My heart stutters, painfully. I purse my lips and ease back. “No?”
Caleb turns in his chair, angling his body toward me. “I don’t mean it like no, I don’t want to marry you. I do.” He grabs my hands and pulls them into his lap, tugging me to the front of my seat. “I just don’t want you to rush into something as big as marriage—”
“I’m rushing into you—into life with you.” I tug my hand free and scratch my cheek. “I thought you’d be happy.”
“I am happy.”
He blows air out of his nose and sits back in his chair. Am I being foolish? Naïve? I know I’m young, I know I haven’t experienced life fully, but if he’s going to be there every step of the way anyway, why can’t I tether my name to his? My finger to his? My life to his? Why wait?
“I plan on marrying you, Cass, but I wanted the moment I ask you to be perfect.” Screwing up his face, he gestures around us. “This isn’t the Statue of Liberty, or the Eiffel Tower, or the Colosseum. We’re at a fair in Arizona with an armful of teddy bears and two terrible hotdogs in front of us. You want that to be our proposal story?”
“It is perfect,” I argue, resting my elbows on the cold, metal table. “And I’m asking you.”
“You don’t get to ask me.”
I lift my eyebrows. “Why not?”
Turning in his seat, he glances around us, apparently looking for something. “Because that’s my moment. I get to ask the question, and you get to wear the white dress. That’s how it works.”
“Well, since we’re flipping the script and I asked the question, you can wear the white dress.”
Turning his attention to me, his green eyes are vibrant and beautiful. Then he smiles, exposing his perfect, straight, white teeth, and it knocks the air from my lungs. “You really want to get married?”
I hit the table with the tip of my index finger. “Right now.”
“For Agnes?”
“For all of us.”
Caleb snatches my hand and tugs me to my feet. I stumble slightly, then pull against him. Wherever he wants to go, I don’t want to lug five bears along with me. “Can we give the bears to
those children?”
I point over my shoulder, and Caleb follows the direction. For a second, I’m concerned about offending him, but he nods and steps around me. “Good idea.”
Scooping up the bears, he hands me the neon pink one grasping the love heart and takes the rest. Turning, I watch with a stupid smile on my face as he approaches the woman, who’s finished breastfeeding her baby, and engages her in conversation. She pushes her caramel bangs out of her face, and a fierce blush swirls in her cheeks as she pats her cute little newborn on the back with the palm of her hand. Nodding, she beams at Caleb, who’s turned his attention to her three excited daughters. He asks the oldest one which bear she wants and she points at the blue one. He hands it off, then the purple, the brown, and finally, he gives the small yellow one to the mother. They thank him, gratefully, repeatedly, until Caleb turns away from them and makes his way back to me. The woman with the children smiles and waves in my direction, her girls do too, and I smile and wave back. A selfless happiness blooms in my chest and it’s warm and fuzzy, as if a piece of the sun has fallen from the sky and taken seed in my heart. I want children with Caleb too.
Hundreds of them.
“Come on,” Caleb says, taking my hand.
He pulls me along behind him until we reach the line of the large Ferris wheel. As he pays for the tickets, I glance up at it and gulp. I’ve never been on a Ferris wheel before, and it looks taller from down here than it did observing from afar. The seats aren’t caged in. There are no safety belts, just a small gate, and it rocks back and forth whenever the controller stops the ride to let others on. In a few minutes, we reach the front of the line.
“In ya go,” the burly controller says and takes my bear from me.
Caleb grabs my hand and eases me in front of him. I swallow my apprehension and climb the three metal steps and slowly ease into the wall-less, thin metal car. It gently rocks under my weight, and I quickly sit on the red vinyl seats on the left side. Quietly laughing at me, Caleb hunches and steps in. Our car rocks, harder this time, and my stomach revolts. I grip the vertical bar beside me as Caleb makes himself comfortable in the space next to me and slings his arm over my shoulder. He whispers in my ear, telling me to relax, but I’m too busy watching the controller as he closes the half-gate, fastening it by slipping a thin piece of metal through a circle cut in the metal. I fight the urge to pull my phone out of my pocket and Google how many people die in Ferris wheel accidents every year.
The controller returns to his box, and I gasp as our car lurches and we’re lifted high and higher only to be stopped at the very top. My grasp on the pole feels weak, though I swear I’m squeezing as hard as I can, and my palms are wet. Why on earth did he want to come up here? Of all the pretty places on the ground, why the sky?
Caleb reaches across and pries one of my hands from the pole and interlocks my fingers with his. The wheel begins to move again, making me gasp, and we go around and around, over and over, until I feel confident enough to let go and enjoy the ride. Eventually, we’re stopped at the top once more. This time, I sigh and truly appreciate the view of the fair and beyond. An ice-cold breeze nips at any sliver of exposed skin and, if it gets any colder, we’ll have to go home.
“Better?” Caleb asks.
I relax into him. “Much better.”
He brushes his fingers up my neck to caress my jaw then, with gentle pressure, turns my face to his and kisses me on the mouth. It’s lax, then passionate, and finally, tender. In it, the world seems to stop still on its axis, allowing us this moment to be engulfed by each other. When Caleb pulls back, our gazes lock and butterflies escape from the pit of my tummy to flutter between my ribs.
“I know it’s a dodgy wheel at a fun fair and not the Eiffel Tower, or somewhere you deserve…”
“I’d hate to be anywhere else,” I cut in. All I want is to touch him, to run my fingers through his hair, feel his breath skitter across my face, and show him he’s all that matters. “After the distance I put between us…us being together—anywhere—is perfect. You can skip the buildup. You’ve waited so long to have me. Have me. Forget the social expectation, forget the speech, just make me yours forever by asking that one small question.”
He tilts his head, and a million and one emotions flicker effortlessly over his face. “You know I love you?”
I nod and lean forward, wrapping both my arms around his neck. “I do.”
“More than fucking anything?”
I pull him closer. “I do.”
“Then you also know my universe begins and ends with you. It has from the moment I met you on the steps of my father’s church.”
That day at the church we saw into each other’s souls, I know we did. In those brief minutes, Caleb read me like an open book. He knew my dreams, fears, wants, and needs, and he used them against me, to win me. I love him so much I can’t stand it.
I nod again, impatiently, and kiss his firm lips. “Ask me the question.”
Caleb hums, and my blood burns with desperation. I want the question and I want to hear it in his deep, rough tenor. “I had a speech and I don’t have a ring.”
I kiss him again, quick excited pecks that don’t linger. “Forget the speech and I don’t need a ring. Caleb, please. You’re killing me.”
I gaze into his eyes. I’ll never tire of looking into their vibrant, green depths. I’ll never tire of looking into these eyes, eyes that are a pistachio green when he’s happy and a cloudy emerald when he’s brooding.
“Will you marry me?”
My lips part and all the breath whooshes out of me as those four words filter through me. The words I’ve been waiting for, begging for. “Yes!”
I snap forward and kiss him, longer this time, and against his lips, our future flashes in front of my eyes. A humble home behind a white picket fence, a handful of children we have no hope of controlling, and a tiny lap dog that was bought for me but loves Caleb more. I smile against his mouth. The feelings working their way through my body as we share our first kiss as soon-to-be husband and wife is strange. It’s full of life-changing responsibility I admit is overwhelming, but I’m excited for it. It makes me feel…whole. Complete. It’s as if my reason for living has come full circle, and a hole in my chest I never knew was there, is filled with the promises of our forever.
Chapter Fifteen
C A S S I A
I pick at my thumb nail, my stare never leaving the large oak door to my parents’ house. I don’t know how long we’ve sat here with the headlights off, watching. Glow from the warm lights inside make the beige curtains against the windows glow. Inside, I imagine they’re enjoying one of their many flavors of tea and watching whatever’s on TV that’s captured their interest. Maybe there’s my mother’s delicious shortbread biscuits on my father’s saucer or those pre-bought scotch finger ones he likes, the ones that you can snap down the middle. Nerves eat at my insides, twisting my organs into painful knots as waves of nausea ripple through me. Caleb sits beside me, behind the wheel of his truck, his stare never leaving the side of my face.
“Are you sure you want to do this now?” he asks, lowering a hand to my thigh to caress me through my jeans.
I nod. I know it’s late and I smell like cotton candy, hotdogs, and popcorn, but I can’t marry Caleb without my parents. If I’m going to do it tomorrow evening, get married by Agnes’s bedside, I want my mom and dad there. Sitting here, I’m mentally preparing myself in case they don’t feel the same way I do. Caleb insists they do, but unless my parents have become entirely different people in the time I’ve been gone, I won’t hold my breath.
“I’m ready to move past it,” I tell him, threading my fingers together. “Getting married is a big deal. I don’t want to look back years from now and regret not having them there.”
Caleb and I have planned on two ceremonies. There’ll be a small, intimate one by Agnes’s bedside tomorrow evening, and down the track, we’ll have a big wedding celebration and invite all our family and fr
iends. Or maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll be content with our tiny, meaningful ceremony in the small hospital room, dressed in disposable protective wear.
Nodding his head, Caleb rubs at his cheek. “And you’re sure you want me to leave you here? By yourself?”
I smile at him and finally reach for my seatbelt. “They’re my parents. I think I’ll be okay.”
He tightens his grip on my thigh. “I was hoping we’d spend the night together.”
My lips quirk at the disappointment he manages to color his tone with, like he wasn’t all over me on a dark, secluded side street on the way here. I tsk, turning my body toward the door and looking at him over my shoulder. “Don’t you know the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride the night before the wedding?”
Caleb rolls his eyes and glares at the large house, his lips pouted like a bratty child. Pulling his hand from my thigh, he drums his long, thick fingers against the wheel, then blows out an exhale. “I hate sleeping without you.”
“Enjoy it, because after tonight you’re sleeping with me and only me for the rest of your life,” I tease and open the door. Freezing air swoops in, penetrating my clothing. I shiver. “Who knows, they might not even want me to stay.”
I slip out of Caleb’s truck and onto the asphalt. A second later, I hear Caleb’s door close and he joins me on the road.
“At least let me walk you to the door,” he says, taking my hand in his. “I’ll sleep better if I know you’re safe.”
I swallow my apprehension and force my legs forward as he walks me across the road and up the path to my parents’ front door. The last time I walked this path, my father and I had a fight inside and he slapped me across the face. I grimace at the memory. Despite it all, despite the constant emotional berating, the disappointment, the slap…I still love them. I still want them to be a part of everything I plan to build with Caleb. I hope what he’s told me is true. I hope they’re different. I hope they love him, like I do, because he’s going to be their son-in-law and the father of all their future grandchildren, if it happens for us.