The Vow

by Jessica Martinez

  I’m not actually wearing a cup. That would be silly. Mr. Bernier is no crotch kicker; he’s a man’s man, and if he feels the need to injure me, I’m fairly certain it’ll be a punch in the face. Anything else would be sneaky and juvenile, and as pissed off as he’s going to be when he’s led to believe I’ve been sleeping with his daughter for a while now, I don’t think he’s going to cause my testicles any real harm. Hopefully.

  “Suppose I could ask him to not break the moneymaker?” I say, rubbing my nose. “I’m thinking about my modeling career.”

  “Look, I know you have to say stupid things to calm yourself down, but I need you to stop talking. And as soon as we’re in there, I’m definitely the only one doing any talking. Got it?”

  I nod as we come to a stop in front of the door.

  “This is going to go better for both of us if you keep your eyes on the floor and your mouth closed.”

  I scratch the back of my head. Why does my scalp feel so itchy? I want to tear it off. Is it because I’m sweating like a hog, or do I have fleas? Wisper Pines seems nice enough, but maybe there’s a bedbug infestation issue I’m not even aware of yet. “But what if he asks me a question?”

  “Trust me. He’s not going to want to hear anything you have to say unless it’s Yes, sir, we’ll go get an annulment.”

  She opens the door.

  “Hold me,” I whisper. “I’m scared.”

  She closes the door gently behind us, her face strangely serene. I recognize it. Warrior mode. This is Annie with a sword raised, ready to plunge it into someone’s heart.

  “Mom?” she calls.

  Mrs. Bernier appears in the entrance to the kitchen, paring knife in hand. “I thought you were working. Oh hi, Mo. We haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing? I heard your family has moved already.”

  “Fine, thank you, ma’am,” I say. “And yeah, they did.”

  “So where are you staying now?” she asks.

  “Uh, Wisper Pines.”

  “Oh, those new apartments on the north side? I hear those are nice.”

  “Is Dad home?” Annie asks, and I have to love her and hate her for her inability to procrastinate pain. I wonder if it’s too late to bail on this. Annie said I didn’t have to come, but not coming seemed cowardly, and the thought of knowing that they knew and then having to wait for them to come to me seemed like worse torture. Still. I could fake a stomach cramp.

  “I’m in here,” his voice calls over the sound of sports commentary and angry cheering.

  “So, you don’t have to work tonight?” Mrs. Bernier asks Annie again. “I thought you said you did.”

  “I did, but I don’t. I need to talk to you and Dad. Together.”

  Mrs. Bernier’s eyes are swimming-pool-blue like Annie’s, but the skin around them is crinkled from sun and worry. She’s got her warrior face on too now. Luckily it’s directed at Annie.

  Mr. Bernier appears, hands in his pockets, glaring first at Annie, then at me, and I’m filled with awkward dread like I’ve never experienced before. I could drown in this. Or more likely, spontaneously combust.

  “Should we sit down?” I ask.

  Annie shoots death beams from her pupils directly at my head. Right. Not allowed to talk. But I’m not sure I can survive this kind of nervousness in silence.

  “No,” Mr. Bernier says. His voice is terse, and unlike his wife, his eyes, his face, his whole body is aimed at me. “I’ll sit if I need to sit.”

  I stare at the floor, shut my mouth, and vow never to disobey Annie again.

  “Mo and I have some news, and we hope you’ll be happy for us even if it seems a little hard to understand at first,” Annie starts. It sounds vaguely rehearsed, but I’m pretty sure my jittery rambling would not be any better, so I continue on with my job of keeping my eyes on the floor and my mouth shut. “We’ve sort of been together as more than just friends for a little while now, but we’ve kept it a secret. We didn’t think you would approve.”

  I hazard a glance at Mr. Bernier, but I’m so disturbed by the symmetrical blue veins running up either side of his forehead and over the shiny skin-wrapped cranium, that I have to look back down.

  “Anyway, so a couple of weeks ago we decided we wanted to get married.”

  A sharp intake of air sucks in the sound all around us as Mrs. Bernier’s hand flies to her mouth. It’s the nuclear bomb, the mushroom-cloud moment, when everyone is watching in horror, but the horror hasn’t actually set in yet.

  Like she doesn’t notice, Annie soldiers on. “So we did.”

  “Did what?” her mother whispers.

  “Got married. We got married.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “We did.”

  It’s Mr. Bernier’s turn to join in the fun, but he isn’t whispering. “No. You. Didn’t.” Not whispering at all. He’s somehow shouting without raising his voice from his normal speaking volume. We’re too far away to have felt the spit, but I heard the splatter with each word. I’m dying to see if the veins are still running underneath the skin or if they’ve somehow broken through, but I’m too scared to look at him. And I’m suddenly unsure about the future of my testicles. Should’ve worn the cup.

  “We did,” Annie says again. “Two weeks ago. But I just moved my stuff into his apartment today.”

  “You what?” her mother gasps.

  I brace for the explosion of tears, but they don’t come. I’ve made the mistake of expecting my mother’s reaction when clearly Annie’s warrior mask is a genetic trait. Mrs. Bernier has gone whiter than her walls, but she looks more likely to slap Annie than faint.

  Annie doesn’t repeat what they’ve already heard. She turns to her dad and says, “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’ll be mad if I want to be mad. Don’t tell me not to be mad!” This time I actually feel the spit. One speck on my forearm and one on my cheek. I don’t wipe it on the off chance that he’s one of those predators who can’t see you if you don’t move, but when you do he disembowels you and eats your intestines like spaghetti.

  “It was something I needed to do,” she says.

  “What?” Mrs. Bernier says, her voice incredulous. “So Mo could stay?”

  Maybe I’ll be the one who faints. I’d lean on something, but the nearest couch is halfway across the room and closer to Mr. Bernier.

  I’m about to break my no-talking rule with some vehement denial when Annie says, “Partly.”

  I take a step back and lean against the door. Holy hell, we should have talked about this before so at least we had a game plan when they guessed—as any half-thinking idiots would do—exactly why their daughter just married her soon-to-be-deported best friend. This is definitely not my most intelligent moment. Or set of moments.

  “But I love him,” Annie says. “I really love him. And I couldn’t imagine my life without him, so yeah, maybe we would’ve waited a few years if things were different, but we didn’t have a few years.”

  Mrs. Bernier is shaking her head, unblinking eyes on Annie. “Stupid!” she whispers. “Annie, look at what you’re doing to your life! You’re throwing everything away. You could do anything.”

  “But I don’t want to do anything,” Annie says, and I see a momentary break in the mask, a single lower-lip quiver. “I want to be with Mo.”

  “How the hell did you pull this off ?” Mr. Bernier shouts, jabbing a finger at my chest. He’s got Sasquatch-sized hands, huge and covered in blond hair. “You aren’t even eighteen, are you?”

  I open my mouth but turn to Annie before I can perjure myself. Again, more lies we should have discussed—am I telling them I’m eighteen? Or do they know when my birthday is?

  Annie’s not looking at me. “He had consent.”

  He squints. “Consent? Whose consent? Your parents are in Jordan, aren’t they?”

  “We got married before they left.”

  Mrs. Bernier shudders. Finally a chip in the porcelain. “His family was there?” She closes her eyes and pu
ts her palm to her forehead, letting her finger curl up over her hairline, and I’m temporarily distracted because I’ve seen Annie do that before. I’m not used to thinking of her as a product of these people.

  “I am going to kill your father!” Mr. Bernier shouts, jabbing the finger in my direction again, and I’ve got panic and relief, hot and cold, coursing through me. My father. He’s not going to kill me. He’s going to kill my father. This is excellent news—for me and my testicles—and probably not the worst news for my father either, being in Jordan and all. And yet even from six feet away, I can see the violently stabbing finger is unmistakably aimed at my jugular.

  “Um, he’s in the Middle East, sir.”

  Annie glares at me, and I realize that was unnecessary talking on my part.

  “Don’t you dare sir me like you’re some polite little bugger. I’ve always known you were a lying little snake. You’ve been planning this for years, haven’t you? I thought you guys believed you had to commit suicide to earn your virgins in heaven. Lucky you—two for one, right? Citizenship and your very own virgin that you don’t even have to blow yourself up for!”

  My mouth is dry; my tongue is sandpaper. I’m too shocked to say a word, which is good, because I’m just thinking of the triple irony—Annie’s not a virgin, I’m not sleeping with her, and the only time I’ve wanted to kill myself is right now.

  Somehow Annie is blocking all of this out and talking to her mother. Her voice is almost pleading. “Only his mom.”

  “But why would you shut us out of your life like that?”

  Annie is silent for a moment, and I wish she would say what I can tell she’s thinking. They shut her out first. Instead she says, “You know I couldn’t tell you. Look at Dad.”

  All three of us turn and look at Mr. Bernier, who is pacing, sweat pouring down his face and neck, morphing into the Hulk. Any moment now he’ll tear his clothes off and turn green.

  Mrs. Bernier shakes her head and lets her shoulders slump forward. It’s small, but maybe it’s evidence of understanding.

  “We had to,” Annie repeats.

  “Oh, Annie.” Her eyes become glassy. Finally. She blinks, and a line of tears rolls down each side of her face. “You didn’t have to. Maybe you think you’re in love, but you don’t even know what love is.”

  “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself ?” Mr. Bernier roars at me. He’s not jabbing the finger anymore, but he’s flexing his fists and then shaking them out, flexing, shaking, flexing, shaking. “Do you even love her?”

  “Yes.” I risk the unauthorized speaking, because if I need Annie’s permission to answer that, they aren’t going to believe anything I say. Besides, it’s true. “I’ve always loved Annie.”

  “If you loved her,” he spits, “you wouldn’t have married her without her family’s permission. You wouldn’t want to take her away from the people who love her most. You wouldn’t want her all for yourself. Maybe that’s what you Muslims do, but here in America we don’t need to isolate our women just to force them into loving us.”

  “No, of course not. You just isolate them from yourself and from everyone else so they don’t feel any love at all. So they’re looking for the first opportunity to escape and find someone who won’t hold them at arm’s length, someone who’ll actually love them.” I look at Mrs. Bernier. Then Annie. “Isn’t that right?”

  The roar of drama is suddenly gone. The silence is cold and smells like lemon Lysol. The Hulk’s veins are still throbbing, but his face has gone from red to white. I wonder if he’s having a heart attack. This is why I’m not allowed to talk.

  “Get out,” he says.

  I turn, not feeling anything but the shrillness of that silence, and Annie turns with me.

  “Not you,” he says. “I’m talking to him.”

  She doesn’t turn around but puts her hand over mine on the doorknob. “I’m going with him.”

  “Annie, no,” pleads Mrs. Bernier, and the sudden panicky shake in her voice makes me think of my mother. Against all odds, at this moment of all moments, I miss her. I feel like I’m little, and I’ve been unfairly picked on, and I just want to curl up in her lap and cry.

  “I almost forgot,” Annie says softly, reaching into her purse and pulling out her car keys. She puts them on the glass table with a clunk that rings like chimes. “I don’t want these.”

  And we leave.

  Chapter 23

  Annie

  We leave and I make it to the car. I don’t think I will at first. The softness in my knees and hips is spreading up and down my legs, and with every step down the driveway I’m surprised my joints don’t give out completely. Something is melting—cartilage? ligaments? bones?— and I’m liquid, warm and woozy, by the time I drag my body into the passenger seat.

  Mo’s hand is shaking as he puts the key into the ignition, and he won’t look at me.

  I put my head between my knees. “I told you not to talk.”

  “I know.”

  “You shouldn’t have said that.”

  “I know.”

  “I was hurting them enough on my own. They didn’t need that from you.”

  “Maybe I have Tourette’s,” he says. “Except instead of screaming obscenities, I scream totally true things that I’ve been thinking and not saying for years.”

  I press my forehead into my knees. Totally true things. Is that why what I’m feeling right now is not exactly sadness? It’s definitely not what I felt after I told Reed. That was a squeezing dark pain, purple and scarlet and black. This is opaque blue and ice-cold. I’m a little free.

  If it wasn’t for that last over-the-shoulder glimpse—Dad’s face crumpling, Mom’s features permanently pained, with her eyes closed—I’d almost feel okay.

  * * *

  Our evening isn’t terrible. Not at all. I make grilled cheese again, Mo heats up a can of tomato soup, and we eat in front of the TV and drink our soup from mugs because Mo thinks it tastes better that way. It’s no gourmet feast, but when we’re done there are only golden crumbs on my plate, and my lips are buttery and warm. Even after I have food in me, I’m too drained to get off the couch, so we watch three episodes of Arrested Development, followed by Footloose (the newer one), which Mo pretends to hate.

  “I’m going to bed,” I say, finally dragging myself off the couch. “Your sheets are in the dryer.”

  “Oh, yeah. I totally forgot. Thanks for washing them.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say. “Thanks for getting control of yourself and not killing Duchess.”

  “I regret it already.”

  “And thanks for coming with me,” I add.

  “So much better than waiting for him to come here and kill me in my sleep. Wait, he could still do that, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think he would.”

  “Very reassuring.”

  Instinctively, I reach for my phone to check messages before I remember I turned it off after we left their house. “I think maybe I want to give my phone back to them,” I say, thinking aloud. “Do we have enough money to get me one? Maybe a pay-as-you-go?”

  “I think so. Let’s figure it out in the morning.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  The bed is soft, but the pillows are too thick, like overstuffed balloons really, so my neck is arched up at an angle and my body feels like it’s hanging from my head.

  Or it could be the guilt that’s keeping me awake. It’s like I’m clenching an ice cube in my fist. It’s cold and it’s burning me, but I can’t let go, and the ice-scorched skin feeling is too intense to let me fall asleep. I’ve got so many people to be sorry to.

  And then there’s one tiny sliver of guilt scraping away at me from the inside too. It’s small and unexpected, but it’s the only one I can do something about. I slip out of bed and open the door. From the doorway, I can see the back of the couch and a single foot dangling from the end.

  “Are you awake?” I whisper.


  “Sort of,” he answers.

  I swallow, wishing he was one or the other—awake or asleep—so this could matter or not, no guessing. “I’m sorry about what my dad said to you.”

  He yawns. “About wanting to kill my dad, or about me being a lying little snake? Wait, he called me a bugger too, didn’t he? I would never do that, by the way. That’s disgusting.”

  “About calling you a terrorist.” I wait in the doorway, feel the cat slink between my legs, then back into the room. “He didn’t mean it. He was in shock. Not that that makes it okay, but I don’t think he usually thinks things like that. He definitely doesn’t say them.”

  Mo is quiet. The cat glides a figure eight around and through me again.

  “No worries,” he says finally.

  “Okay.” But it’s so not okay.

  Back in bed, the pillows are still too big, so I use a bunched-up hoodie, which is too small, instead. As for the ice cube of guilt, if it’s even possible, I’m starting to numb. It’s still there. But it’ll be there tomorrow.

  Duchess stretches herself across the foot of the bed and I’m suddenly jealous of how easy cat life is. She does what she wants, when she wants, where she wants. What I want, when I want, where I want—I don’t even know the answer to one of those. Or maybe I do. Reed. Now. Here.

  I shove my face into my hoodie-pillow and wonder what he’s doing. Sleeping, probably. I hope he’s still mad or sad, or whatever emotion his grief storm settled into. That makes me a terrible person, but since I’m already a terrible person, I may as well admit it. I want him to be as gutted as I am. To think I could slip from his thoughts like I was never even there, just a meaningless summer fling with some high school girl, makes me want to curl up and squeeze myself until I disappear.

  * * *

  I should be happier. After all, living with Mo is strangely nice. I guess that shouldn’t be so surprising, but I was so traumatized that day at Sam’s, I couldn’t even think about what my life would really be like once I made it through the terrible parts. Telling my parents, telling Reed—those were messy and horrific enough to suck up any thought about the afterward. And now that I’m in the afterward, I feel lost. Almost dazed. If I didn’t have this constant scraped feeling in my chest, I don’t know what I’d feel.