“He means he said yes. And I said yes.” Jo looks at me, wonder and disbelief and hope all tangled in her eyes. “It means…”
“We’re getting married,” I finish, and the sound of that coming out of my mouth fills my head with a furious tumult of wild emotions, each more chaotic than the last. Her hand in mine, however, grounds me.
Charlie stands up. “No.”
Sherri moves to make a triangle between Jo and Charlie. “Hold on, honey. Just…breathe a second.”
“Are you talking to me or Dad?” Jo asks.
“Both.” She shakes her head, turning her attention to her daughter. “My god, I—Jo. Come on. You’re not serious.”
“I know it sounds a little…” Jo trails off, shrugging.
“Ludicrous?” her dad finishes. “Insane? Not happening?”
“Charles, stay calm.” Sherri touches his chest with a hand. Looks up into his eyes, a plea in hers. “I know how you’re feeling. But let’s just stay calm and figure this out together, okay?”
“There’s nothing to figure out, Sherrilynn. She’s nineteen. She’s not getting married. And certainly not to some playboy celebrity she literally just met half an hour ago.”
I can’t help a flash of hurt and irritation at being pigeonholed. “I’m not a playboy, sir. With all due respect, I’m not like that.”
“I know my daughter has had a silly crush on you for years. She plays your videos on repeat. She’s watched all your movies. You’re just taking advantage of that. But she’s not a plaything for you, buddy.” He straightens and puffs out his chest, anger blazing in his eyes. “She’s my daughter. She’s a teenager. She’s sick. She’s…innocent. And I’m not going to let you take advantage of her.”
Jo is quiet, but fierce. “Dad, stop.” She steps between us. “I’m not a child.”
“You’re my child.”
She swallows hard—I can hear it. “Daddy, please. It’s not like that. He’s not taking advantage of me. How could he? If I asked him to leave, he would.”
“So then ask him to leave.”
“No. I will not.” She stays quiet. “Was it a celebrity crush when I’d never actually met him? Yeah, it was. Was I thinking my dumb video would actually be seen by him? No? Could I have ever in my wildest dreams ever imagined this would happen? Heck no! This is as much a shock to me as it is you.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening.” Her dad whispers this to her. “You don’t know him. You can’t marry him.” He swallows, licks his lips. “You’re sick, sweetheart.”
Jo laughs, a quiet sniff. “Dad, I know.” She puts her hands on his shoulders. “That’s why.”
“It doesn’t make sense.” He shakes his head. “You can’t. You need…you need us. You need to be taken care of when…” He shakes his head, clears his throat. “Jolene, baby. This is just not happening. You can’t marry a man you just met literally half an hour ago. It’s crazy.”
“That’s why I have to do it! I’ve spent my whole freaking stupid life being ruled by this damn disease! It’s defined me. I never went to a normal school. I never had normal friends. All my friends except Bethany are cancer kids. I never went to homecoming or prom. I’ve never been asked out. I’ve never been reckless or—or irresponsible. I couldn’t! I was always in the freaking hospital! I couldn’t even leave our house half the time either because I was recovering from chemo or radiation or because my immune system was so jacked up from everything that going out in public would risk me getting even sicker. You guys took me on a tour of the world that was beyond anything I could have dreamed of, and you will never know how much that’s meant to me. You can’t. I know I’ve said thank you, but that doesn’t cut it.”
She grips his shirt in her fists.
“What you have to understand is that I’ve never done anything crazy or irresponsible. I want to do this. I know it makes no sense. But he showed up and we have a connection. We have chemistry. I like him—him, Dad. Not the celebrity, but him, the person I can see he is in the short time I’ve known him. I want to be a little crazy just once in my life. I want to risk my heart.” Her voice is thick. “I want to be looked at the way he looks at me. I like the way he holds my hand.” She looks at me briefly, then back to him. “And…and maybe we get married. And maybe I…maybe I don’t want to be…innocent, Dad.” She pushes him a little. “I want to have something like a life. I want to do something just because I want to do it, and not think about my disease. This is my chance. And I’m going to take it.”
Charlie turns away, paces a few steps across the kitchen, then stops. Rubs the back of his neck. “How am I supposed to say no to you, Jo?” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I want you to have that, the chance to…I don’t know. Do something normal. Although, by any metric, this is far from normal. But I get that you want to do something just for you. But baby girl, there are…practical considerations. You do have to think about reality. I’m not trying to burst your bubble, here, but—”
Jo cuts in. “Dad, I am thinking about reality. And honestly, I have no idea what happens next or how any of this is going to go. I don’t think Wes does either. But no matter what, I’m not going to just run off and leave you guys.” She ducks her head. “I haven’t forgotten that I’m dying, Dad. It’s not something you can just forget. And…when the time comes, you’ll be with me. But I do also want to spend whatever good days I have left…some of them, at least, with Wes.” She glances at me. “There’s a connection there, Dad. I can’t explain it. But it’s real.”
Charlie sighs. “You don’t have to explain it to me, honey.” He glances at his wife. “I knew from the moment I met your mother that I was going to marry her. It was like a voice in my head, in my soul, and the very first time I saw her, I heard that voice saying, ‘that’s it, she’s the one. Marry her. Don’t let her get away.’” His gaze goes back to Jo. “And I think if…if I’d known one of us only had a certain, limited amount of time, I think—I know—that I wouldn’t have waited, no matter how crazy anyone else may have thought it was.”
“This conversation is the closest you’ve ever come to acknowledging out loud, to me, that I’m terminally ill,” Jo says. “And I’m not sure I like it. You’ve always just been…cheerfully determined to pretend everything is normal, and honestly, Dad, that’s all that’s kept me sane, some days. It’s allowed me to pretend I’m normal, and when you’re anything but normal, that’s a real gift.”
Charlie’s shoulders shake. “I love you, Jo-Jo-bean. So much. I’ll do anything for you.”
“Even letting me marry a playboy celebrity I just met?” She shoots me sly, teasing smile when she says this.
“If it’s really what you want, then yes, honey, even that.” He breathes out slowly. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, honey.”
She snorts. “Look at it this way, Dad—I’m not really risking anything in this. I’m not gonna be around long enough to get my heart broken, right? He is,” she says, jerking a thumb at me, “but I’m not.”
Charlie’s eyes narrow, and he flinches as if struck. “Jolene Park! I don’t find that very funny.”
“Neither do I, as a matter of fact,” I say.
Jo sighs. “I’m sorry. But honestly, it’s not entirely a joke.”
“Even less funny,” Charlie says. “I know humor is one of the ways you process this, but it’s hard for your mother and I to joke about it.”
“I know.” A sigh. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Charlie turns to me. “And you, Mr. Britton. You are aware of what you’re getting yourself into, right? This isn’t a normal situation. You can’t just pull my little girl into your orbit for a little while and then move on when you get bored. Now don’t get testy,” he says, seeing the protest appearing in my expression. “I don’t know you from Adam, so I’m just covering my bases. I feel like it’s my bound duty to say the things even she herself may not say. My daughter has the biggest heart in the world. She’s the most joyful, caring, positive perso
n I’ve ever known. She’s suffered more than just about anyone I know, and yet I’ve never heard her complain. So, I’ll say this for her: if you can’t see this through, then you have no business even trying.”
Her mom cuts an apologetic look at Jolene, adding to what her dad was saying. “Sorry, honey, but this has to be said: you’re not a normal girl, and this isn’t a normal situation. I know all you want is to feel normal, just once. I get that, and you deserve to have that. So, Westley, what we’re saying is, if you really believe you have what it takes to be what this girl needs and wants, then all right, okay. But just…” Sherri sighs, starts over. “Honey, you’ve been through too much to risk being hurt, now, when you’re already dealing with something no one should ever have to deal with.”
Jolene slumps forward on the island, head drooping. “I hear what you guys are saying. But…I disagree, in a certain respect. What do I have to lose? I’ve never been in love. I’ve never had my heart broken. I’ve never been liked by a boy, much less wanted by a man. When am I going to risk my heart, if not now? Maybe he’ll flake out. Maybe I’ll get hurt and have to come crawling back home and you guys will have to put me back together again. But it literally is now or never, for me.”
Sherri looks at me. “And what do you gain from this?”
“I’ve never felt a connection like this with anyone.” I shift, lean against the door frame, prop one foot up on the toe of my other boot. My stomach churns from the intensity of all this. I don’t know what I was expecting when I left LA, but I sure as hell wasn’t anticipating any of this. “Look, I was discovered or whatever when I was seventeen. I had a girlfriend before that, but it was one of those puppy-love, holding hands at the mall-type things. My life literally exploded, all at once. I’ve been on the run from project to project ever since. Surrounded by people, offered scripts and recording deals, stage plays and musicals and TV and…anything you can think of. I turn down more than I accept simply because there just aren’t enough hours in the day, but I’m still running ragged all damn day, every day. And yeah, I’ve had the chance to date some people you’ve probably heard of. But I haven’t. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m not going to invest my already limited time dating someone just because society feels like I should, since she’s famous and I’m famous. I haven’t dated anyone because I haven’t felt connected to anyone.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I want that connection.” I sigh, and hold up my phone as a gesture. “And when I saw Jolene’s video, at first I was like, holy crap, she really just proposed to me via TikTok. But then I watched a few more times, and I just…I felt like I knew her. Like I…I dunno. Like I’m meant to know her. I really don’t even know how to put it into words. But I had to do something. So, I drove here, and I knocked on her door. And I knew right then in that moment I was right, when I first saw her—I knew in my very soul that I’m meant to know this girl. The connection I felt watching the video was real. So… I’m gonna see this through. I’m not going to get bored. I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to send her home because it got too hard. I don’t commit to anything unless I’m sure I can honor that commitment.”
I stare at Jolene, and she stares back.
“This may not look like a traditional relationship,” I say, as much to her—and myself—as to her parents. “But I feel like as long as it works for us—for Jolene—then that’s no one’s business but ours. I have no intention of pulling her away from you guys—you’re her support system. You’ve been there for her, her whole life and I’m just meeting her. I’d be an idiot to think I can navigate what she’s going through and what she needs on my own, and I’m not an idiot. Or at least, I like to think I’m not.”
“Well,” her dad says. “You don’t seem like an idiot, and you’re saying the right things.”
“But I’m an actor, and that’s what I do, right?” I say, arching an eyebrow.
He lifts his hands. “I mean, the thought did cross my mind.”
“Mine too,” Jolene says. “Now, I admit I’m far from an expert, but it seems like at some point you just have to take the first step when it comes to trusting someone.”
“So…now what?” her mom asks.
Jolene just laughs, shrugging. “I don’t even know.”
“I think now Jolene and I have some plans to make.” I squeeze her hand.
Love, Concentrated
Jolene
“Jo, are you sure about this?” Mom asks me for the fiftieth time in the past hour.
It’s the day after Wes appeared at our house; he got a hotel room, as he needed to catch up on sleep, and Mom and Dad wanted me to have some distance from the intensity of the first meeting—to think about things, to be sure. He came back this morning, and we all had breakfast together, and if anything, I’m even more sure than I was yesterday. I can’t say the starstruck shine has worn off entirely. I just…I long to be near him, every moment. I want to know everything about him. I want to kiss him and never stop, and while that makes me feel hot and tingly all over, it’s also intoxicating, invigorating, thrilling. He seems to feel the same. His eyes follow me everywhere I go, watching, assessing, seeking, searching, roaming, raking.
I want to be alone with him.
I want to sit and talk with him from sunset to sunrise, and beyond.
I survey the carnage of my packing frenzy. “Yes, Mom. I’m sure. I’m sure I’m sure.”
She wrings her hands. “It’s all just so sudden.”
I hide a smirk. “Mom.” I sigh, laugh, and step aside, gesturing at the suitcase. “Go ahead.”
She widens her eyes, takes a step toward my suitcase, then stops. “You’re an adult. You can pack your own suitcase.”
I have to bite my lip. “I know. But it’s clearly eating you up inside, and it’ll make you feel better to repack it. I know you want to.”
She groans. “So bad.”
“Go for it.”
She eyes me. “Sure?”
“Yes, Mother. You have my permission to repack my suitcase.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathes.
She’s an avenging goddess of organization and efficiency as she tears my clothing out of the suitcase, hands blurring as she unfolds my haphazard stacks of shirts, shorts, skirts, dresses, and tops and rolls them into tidy little cylinders, and just like that, I have room in the previously overstuffed suitcase for a couple pairs of shoes, a hoodie, a nice cardigan, and my toiletries as well as a pile of underwear, bras, and socks.
I stand back, grinning. “Man, you are so good at that, Mom.”
She flips the top closed and zips it with authority, then glances at me. Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “You just played me, didn’t you?”
I can’t help but burst into laughter. “Like a fiddle.”
She rolls her eyes. “You could have just asked, you know.”
“It was more fun this way.”
She’s laughing, now too. “You spent over an hour on that con, Jolene. Pretending to fold and sort and pack, all while I watched, knowing it was driving my OCD nuts.”
“You don’t have OCD, Mom. You’re just a neat freak.”
“It’s a spectrum, I’m telling you. Am I Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets? No. Do I have rather specific compulsions regarding cleanliness and organization? Yes.”
I look up at the ceiling, thinking. “Hmmm. Alphabetized spice rack? Check. Clothing organized by season and by color? Check. Dust Buster in every room of the house? Check.”
She tries to hold a stern expression. “Cleanliness is next to godliness. And organization is an integral part of cleanliness.”
I kiss her on the cheek. “I know, Mom. And I’m thankful for your compulsive dedication to godliness.”
She begins refolding the clothing I took out but decided not to take with me; I put the rest back on the hangers and in the closet. When my room has been returned to its naturally orderly state—that’s a joke, by the way—Mom sits on the edge of my bed and toys
with the zipper tab of my suitcase.
She’s chewing on something—she has been this whole time she’s been helping me pack, but she’s still working out how to say it.
I sigh and sit next to her. Wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Whatever it is, Mom, just say it. You can talk to me.”
She sniffs a laugh. “Funny.”
“For real, Mom. I know you’re trying to figure out how to say something. So just…out with it.”
She runs her fingers through her hair. “I don’t…I don’t know how.”
“Just be blunt,” I say. “At this point, there’s no point in being tactful.”
Another sigh. “You’re really going to marry him? Like, actually marry?”
“I think so.”
She looks at me, uncomfortable. “I know you’re nineteen and not a child. But you’re also…innocent.”
I groan. “Mom.”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “You told me to just say it, so I’m saying it. You can’t shush me now because it makes you uncomfortable.” She holds my gaze, giving me the Serious Mother look. “You’re a virgin, Jolene. He’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I suppose I don’t, not for certain. But I find it hard to believe a handsome twenty-one-year-old male actor at the peak of Hollywood fame would be. It’s just smarter to assume he’s not a virgin, that he has experience you don’t.”
I lift a shoulder. “Okay, granted. And?”
“You know the birds and the bees, Jolene—”
A cackle bursts from me. “Ohmygod, Mom, yes. I know how sex works. I’m a virgin, but not exactly by choice, and I’m definitely not a child.”
“But you’re marrying an older and more experienced man, Jolene. Certainly you can see how I feel like it’s my duty to at least have an honest conversation with you about… expectations, I suppose you could say.”
I blow out a breath, because honestly, this is a topic that’s been on my mind pretty much constantly since things happened with Westley yesterday. I look at my door, which is closed—Wes and Dad are on the porch, drinking coffee and talking. Hopefully Dad hasn’t said anything too embarrassing.
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