Merciless: Arranged Marriage Romance

by Esme Devlin

  Because I choose him.

  I’ll choose him again and again. Even when it’s hard. Even when the grass looks greener.

  I’ll choose him. And what is that, if not the definition of love?

  Chapter 25

  MICHELLE

  Sixty days.

  That was his sentence for what ended up being an assault charge, but he got out after 30 days since it was a first offense and his behavior was deemed good by his parole officer. I would have strung him up by his balls had his behavior been anything less than stellar.

  I missed him, of course I did. And we never really got the chance to define exactly what we were before he went away. We weren’t engaged or boyfriend and girlfriend, or childhood sweethearts or any other title.

  We were just Tommy and Michelle.

  I wrote to him, which wasn’t a concept I was familiar with, but what started out as small “How are you? Is the food good?” scribbles ripped out of my math notebook turned into 3 double sides of A4 paper by the second week. I had to reply to each letter with it sitting in front of me, so I could make sure I didn’t forget anything.

  I suppose in a way, we did go back to the start. No fighting, and definitely no fucking.

  Just two lost people, who both had the future they’d counted on for ten years, ripped away from them.

  I learned that we weren’t really so different. We liked the same things; we just saw things a bit differently. I admired him for how he managed to take everything in his stride. He admired me for how I fought against everything. We agreed we could probably learn something from each other.

  When he did get home, I really missed those letters. There’s something so therapeutic about letter writing. Not like texting, where everything is short and sweet and you can just delete whatever bits you don’t like and reword them. You only really get one chance with a handwritten letter, so you have to think carefully about what you’re going to say before you write it.

  So we still send letters to each other now.

  Not How are you? What did you have for dinner? shit. We talk about the stuff we’re both too stubborn to discuss face to face, now that he’s home.

  He got out just in time for our final exams, not that he needed them anyway, what with having a job for life in the family business. We’ve not had our results yet, but he’s confident he passed them all.

  Of course he’s confident.

  I told him, like I have so many times, that there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

  He told me, like he has so many times, that what is for you, won’t go by you.

  So, what is for me?

  While Tommy was away, I had an idea.

  I told him about it in the letters we wrote to each other, and after a few sarcastic comments, he told me it wasn’t a bad one.

  So that’s what I’m going to do with my little shoebox full of money. I’m going to have an actual dream, a plan, and I’m going to use the shoebox to make it happen.

  I learned that I don’t need Tommy to make things happen, but maybe the reason I’m going to make things happen by myself is because I had Tommy. I’d never have filled the shoebox if it wasn’t for him. I’d never have learned determination or sacrifice. And what he did for me that night, after I lied to him and betrayed him, when he didn’t have to… that taught me that I do have a value.

  He didn’t have to do it, he could have walked away… but he didn’t.

  I don’t think it was about love, or some weird sense of duty to me. I think he saw the one thing that I could never see. He saw that none of it was my fault, in the same way none of it was his fault. Years of hate, distrust, teasing, envy, lies… None of it was really us. We were both fucked by choices other people made, right from the beginning.

  I thought I learned a lesson ten years ago, but ten years later, and Tommy was the one who understood it better than I ever did.

  We don’t get choices in this world; there’s just shit that happens to you, and then there is how you deal with it.

  “I brought you a present.”

  The first time he said those words to me he brought me my shoebox. He’s said those same words every Friday night since he got out. Sometimes it’s a flower, sometimes it’s a bar of chocolate, or a book, or a fancy toffee spiced latte. Nothing huge, just little shit that puts a smile on my face.

  I thought he might start forgetting soon because it’s the middle of summer, school has finished and there’s nothing to remind you what day is a Friday or what day is a Tuesday. He works seven days a week now, so I thought they might all just roll into one for him.

  I’m out in the back garden playing with Dollar, and he’s standing at the kitchen door. The sun is setting far off in the distance behind the trees, and everything including Tommy is dusky. He’s got his hands behind his back and I drop the chew toy that’s in my hand, letting her win.

  I brush my hair back off my face and walk over to him. He’s in a light gray tracksuit, unzipped and showing the white T-shirt underneath. He’s got a smug look on his face and his eyes dance as I approach him.

  “What is it?”

  He brings his hand out and holds up a single key, letting it dangle from the ring in front of my face. I laugh and then narrow my eyes at him playfully. “Is this your best romantic attempt at telling me you want to get kinky with the handcuffs again?”

  I swear he almost starts blushing. “No, you wee hussy. It’s better than that. But if you want me to knock the breath out you later with your wrists behind your back, I’m sure I can find the original set.”

  I push passed him, giggling and sticking the kettle on. He always likes his tea when he comes over. Milky and with a wee bit of sugar in it.

  No threats of bleach.

  “What’s the key for then?”

  He comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my stomach, nuzzling my ear. “Fuck the tea. I need to show you.”

  I spin around, giving him my best what-the-fuck face, but he just laughs and takes my hand.

  “Eh, where are we going?” I ask through a laugh.

  “To my car.”

  That’s all I get from him. He doesn’t even give me time to change, so I hope it’s not somewhere fancy considering I’m wearing cotton track bottoms and a crop top.

  He opens the door and I slide into the front seat. He gets in and switches the engine on, bending over to stick my heated seat on full. I smile at him, he always remembers.

  “Can you give me a clue?”

  He looks at me sideways. “Why do you want a clue?”

  “So I know what’s coming?”

  He pulls out onto the main road, looking both ways and then flooring it out of the junction. “Why do you want to know what’s coming?”

  I just laugh at him, because it’s a typical Tommy answer.

  What’s for you won’t go by you.

  So I sit there, trying not to overthink shit and plan or plot or do anything other than enjoy the moment. I watch the trees as we shoot passed them, full and leafy and one-hundred different shades of green. I notice we’re getting closer to the town center, but I try not to wonder why.

  When he finally stops the car, I look around. We’re in the high street, on a busy Friday evening. If he’s taking me for dinner and thought I’d enjoy it looking like I just ran from the gym, he’s about to learn just how fucking wrong one man can be.

  “Okay, can you tell me now?”

  He gets out of the car, ignoring the question, and takes my hand as I jump out my side. We cross the road after a break in traffic and wander down the street a little until he stops in front of a small store.

  He holds up the key. “I thought it was perfect. I know you wanted to do all of this yourself, but I want to help you. And the second I saw it, I knew it was for you, and I knew you couldn’t afford it. There’s a huge yard out the back so you can work out there if it’s sunny, and there’s a glass veranda if it rains. You can even rent it, if it makes you feel better, and—”r />
  “Tommy.”

  He’s fumbling, spewing words out because he’s clearly nervous, and I don’t know whether my heart is breaking or soaring. I had to put him out of his misery.

  “Can I see it?”

  “Aye, sorry.” He shakes his head. “Of course.”

  He puts the key in the lock and opens the door, letting me go in first while he switches the light on. The storefront is glass, but it’s covered in plywood. Old fluorescent lights buzz and flicker a couple of times before they come on, and finally I get a look at the place.

  There are old cardboard boxes and bags of rubble and rubbish everywhere. Right at the back there’s a counter, crooked and broken and covered in dirt and dust. The walls are a sickening shade of salmon pink and lined with shelves that are more hanging off than hanging straight.

  It’s a mess. It’s a complete dive.

  Everything needs work.

  “You bought this?” I turn around to face him, and he’s standing with his hands in his pockets watching my reaction with a wary look on his face.

  “Listen, I know it’s a shit-hole. I’ll help you fix it up. I’ll come over after work every night until it’s sorted. It was a bargain, and—”

  “It’s perfect.”

  He looks at me funny, as if he can’t be sure I’m not lying. I smile and throw my arms around him to prove that I’m not.

  I’m not lying. It’s perfect.

  It’s broken. It’s rough. It needs serious time and effort and dedication. It needs work. HARD work.

  But I’ll do it. And I’ll love it even more because it was like this when I found it.

  He breaks the hug, moving like an excited puppy into the center of the room. “I thought you could have display cabinets on the walls at each side,” he says, gesturing with his hands. “And then in the middle, one of those big square glass ones like in your dad’s shop. And look through here…”

  He walks through the open door at the back and flicks the light on to reveal a store room. This one is in even worse condition than the one we just came from. “You can keep all your materials and equipment or whatever it is you’ll need back here. Space for a kettle.” He glances at the counter at the far end of the room. “And this is the best bit.”

  Turning the lock, he opens up the back door and steps out into the yard at the back. It’s dusty and the paving stones are chipped, with weeds threatening to take over. “You can have Dollar out here while you’re working. Customers will love that, since they’re pet people, anyway.”

  I’m trying to think of something to say that could sum up how I’m feeling, but I can’t find the words. Growing up, I came across as spoilt because I didn’t appreciate enough the things that I had. That was only because the things I wanted cost more in time than they did money.

  And that’s what Tommy is giving me. Money, yes. But it’s the time part that has tears welling up in my eyes right now.

  He turns around and looks at me. I look into his eyes and that’s when it hits me.

  I still don’t know what love is, but this person in front of me… This human, somewhere between a boy and a man…

  He’s mine. He always has been mine, and now I know for sure that I always want him to be.

  Epilogue

  Tommy

  5 YEARS LATER

  “Do you want a chocolate poptart or do you want a strawberry one?”

  She’s sitting at the breakfast bar making an absolute fucking mess with the yoghurt, drawing shapes on the wooden counter with her fingers.

  “Isla?”

  Her blue eyes look up at me, two little sapphires behind a mess of curly dark hair, and sticks her finger in her mouth as if I’ve just asked her the square root of 3762.

  “Uhm… just give’s a strawberry one, I’m tryin’ to eat healfy.”

  I almost spit out my coffee.

  “I don’t think it works like that, darlin.”

  But she’s already gone back to her artwork so I don’t spend anymore time explaining it to her. She’s got years to learn about the fucking joys of calories and keto and juicing and whatever other daft health trends are popular. Let the lassie eat poptarts.

  I sit down across from her and pull out my phone, texting Michelle to ask her how she’s feeling.

  She stayed at her pals house last night, because reasons, and the place feels too quiet without her, even with the little hurricane sitting across from me.

  My phone vibrates and I check it while snapping Isla’s poptart into a hundred pieces for her, praying for a freak snowstorm to cool the fuckers down quicker. They have to be the hottest substance known to man.

  Michelle: We’re not supposed to see each other, it’s bad luck, arsehole!!

  I chuckle while I message her back. How the fuck is this seeing each other?

  Tommy: Don’t believe in luck darlin I believe in the cards. I’ll see you later X

  “Right hurry up with that, your aunty Lawrie’s gonna be here soon.”

  She picks one up and drops it again, scattering crumbs and sprinkles all over the yoghurt topped counter. “It’s too hot Daddy.”

  I chuckle and go back to blowing on them, checking my watch. Jody and the rest of them will be here in half an hour, and as much as Isla loves her uncles, none of them have a single fucking clue how to tone down their shit.

  Plus, it’s probably going to take Michelle about two hours to deal with the mop that’s sitting on her head.

  I did used to attempt the wee yins hair, I can do plaits and all sorts on her horse’s mane, but once she hit three and it was down past her shoulders, well I’m convinced she lays awake for hours every night tangling it up herself.

  And Michelle will want something extra nice for today.

  I get Isla ready, and hand her and the wee pink bunny that doesn’t leave her side over to Lawrie and Eva. I mean Ava. Just kidding. Ada, and then the four of them arrive and I get a cold bottle of beer shoved into my hands while each of us tries to remember how the fuck you put a kilt on.

  By the time we’re finished, we look semi-presentable, and Jody drives us to the Water Lily since he doesn’t touch beer and felt like it was too early for gin.

  Fucking gin.

  At least it’s not raining.

  I tell the rest of them I’m going for a walk to clear my head, and they can go in without me. I am going to clear my head, the fucking vows she made me write are stressing me to fuck, but that’s not the only reason.

  I wanted to see it.

  I wrap my hand around the post as I turn the corner, and walk along the wee pier. They’ve got the blue fairy lights on already because I told them I wanted a picture of her out here when she arrives. Just herself, standing on the edge and looking out onto the water. I’m going to hang it in my office, a reminder that even when she’s being the most stubborn little cow, at least she’s not jumping off piers and shit.

  I’m standing there, looking out over the still waters and remembering that night when I feel a wee pair of arms snake around my waist.

  I already knew it was her before I looked down at the black and gray ink. I could smell her.

  “I thought it was bad luck to see me before the wedding?” I tease, not turning around.

  “Well, you’ve already spoken to me, so I figure as long as you don’t see me then we can’t fuck the luck up anymore than we have already.”

  I laugh at her logic.

  “I don’t believe in luck.”

  “So you keep telling me, but I’d say I’m looking at the luckiest little bastard that ever did live.”

  I chuckle and take a hold of her hands in front of me. “What, because I’m marrying you? That’s not luck, you were mine from the beginning.”

  “It was luck that I’d tired myself out swimming so much the night before, that I couldn’t cross that lake fast enough,” she argues.

  “You were swimming like your life depended on it,” I say, remembering running down the path towards the car park and trying to b
eat her to the car. She was fucking fast.

  “I thought it did.”

  “And what about now?”

  “Don’t be a shit, Tommy.” She pinches my stomach and I grab her wrists and prise them off me.

  “I’m not being a shit,” I say through a laugh. “I just want to hear you say it.”

  “Now I’m glad you caught me.”

  I turn around, doing a double-take when I see her.

  “Tommy!”

  “Fuck the luck,” I tell her.

  She smiles and looks up at me, and I see the woman I love, but I also see the wee girl I did love, and the wee girl I love now who looks just like her.

  “My Shelly.” I plant a kiss on the top of her head.

  Always has been, and after today, always will be.

  THE END

  AUTHOR NOTE

  As always, I’ll start this by saying a heartfelt thank you for reading — it truly means the world to me that people get as much enjoyment out of my stories as I do.

  Of all the characters I’ve written I think Tommy and Michelle are two of my favorites. When I was writing Michelle as an eight year old, I basically just imagined what it would be like to get inside my oldest daughter’s head for a day — and yes, she is that annoying kid who thinks she’s always right, gets restless during sit-down meals, and would rather be getting up to mischief at the kids table.

  But of course I love her dearly!

  I put a little bit of my youngest in the ‘Five Years Later’ scene, too. She is four and she did genuinely say that to me one day a few weeks ago when I asked her what kind of pop-tart she wanted. And she has hair that frequently gets the hairbrush stuck inside it LOL.