Unleash Me: Vol. 3

by Christina Ross

  Alex cleared his throat and looked directly into Jennifer’s eyes before turning to Blackwell, and then to Tank and me. “When it came to writing our vows, Jennifer and I had this idea—we’d go back to the first love letters we wrote to each other, and see how those early sentiments reflected how we felt about each other now. At this point, I have about a dozen love letters from Jennifer—and I think she has about the same number from me—but for us, these first letters mean the most to us because, if you think about it, they were the start of us.”

  “That’s actually quite lovely,” Blackwell said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Your vows?”

  “They’re unconventional,” he said as he returned his attention to Jennifer, making my heart skip because his expression was so intense with his love for her, I could feel it pass through Jennifer and strike me. At that moment, before he even spoke, I started to become emotional. But I knew that I had to keep it together for both of them, so I stuffed my feelings down. For now.

  “I first fell in love with you when we went to Maine last summer,” he said to Jennifer. “That’s when everything changed for me. I don’t know what it was that transpired between us, but it was something, and it was magical. It still is. Everything we’ve gone through together has brought us to this point, and I can tell you now that I’m the happiest man on Earth that we’re together, because I never thought that love would happen for me again. But it has. You’re here now. We’re getting married now. When we left Maine and returned to Manhattan was the moment I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Before I wrote my letter to you, I reflected upon our time in Maine, and then I put pen to paper, and wrote you something that I’d like to share with our friends now. Initially, this was meant only for us. But today, I want everyone in this room to hear where I was at that point in my life, and know that I feel even more strongly about you now. I never thought that could be possible, but standing before you now, I can tell you that it is.”

  He pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and started to read: “This is from Steinbeck: A Life in Letters,” he said to Jennifer. “As you know, it’s one of my favorite books. When we were in Maine, whenever I saw you or thought of you, I thought of this particular letter, because I am in love with you, Jennifer. If you recall, Steinbeck wrote this letter to a friend of his, and it reminds me again of how short life is. And how you must act swiftly when you want something because otherwise, you might lose it to someone else. So,” he said. “To the letter.”

  He looked down at it. “‘There are several kinds of love,’ Steinbeck’s passage begins. ‘One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.’”

  “‘You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love. But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you. Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it. The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it. If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration. Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also. It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.’”

  Alex looked up from the letter at Jennifer, and smiled at her. “If you remember, I ended the note with this: ‘For me, it’s the second kind of love that I feel for you. I’m saying this to you now not because I don’t want to say it in person—I plan to do so soon—but so that you have a love letter from me. People don’t write love letters anymore, but I think they’re important. I think letters between lovers are romantic. It can define a relationship. Lift it. I wanted you to know in writing how much you mean to me. In time, I hope you feel the same as I do. I’m looking forward to that day. I do love you, Jennifer. Now, you know that. I love you—Alex.’”

  “Well,” Blackwell said. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “You’re going to make me cry,” I said.

  Tank merely slapped Alex on the back.

  “I want you to know that that love has only grown, Jennifer,” Alex said. “My vow to you is that I will always love you, protect you, and cherish you. And that, like Steinbeck said, I’ll always try to live up to having you in my life. You've turned my life around in such positive ways, I can’t even begin to tell you what they’ve meant to me. But I can say this—I’m grateful that you’ve agreed to become my wife.”

  For a moment, Jennifer bit her bottom lip and closed her yes, but then she composed herself and said, “I’m the lucky one. Thank you so much, Alex. I’m so happy that we’re here right now, standing in front of our closest friends, and sharing with them something that was once private, but which is now public. Our first letters were indeed the beginning of us.”

  He grinned at that, and the dimples in his cheeks that I knew Jennifer loved so much were now on full display. It’s almost too much! I thought.

  “Jennifer,” Blackwell said. “Would you mind sharing your vows with Alex?”

  “I’d be honored to, but as all of you are about to find out, I’m no Steinbeck. That man had a way with words that I’ll never have. But these are my words and they come from my heart.” She turned to Blackwell, who removed a piece of paper from Alex’s desk and handed it to Jennifer.

  “Should I take your flowers?” Blackwell offered.

  “No, I can manage. But thank you.”

  She looked directly at Alex, and then she read her first letter to him. “‘From the very first day that I met you, when that man on Fifth Avenue nearly knocked me down, I’ve been smitten by you. That day, we met at Wenn in an elevator. Who could have known then that the man who stood next to me and asked if I was all right would become my first and hopefully last great love? And that he would fall in love with me? I look back at these past many weeks that we’ve been together with a kind of elation and shame. But now, as I write this, I also look back with a profound sense of love for you. With the exception of Lisa and maybe Blackwell, I think you, of all people, know what it takes for me to say those words, to stare down my fears and to admit that I am in love with you. I’ve never said this to anyone else because those words mean that much to me. They are precious to me. I’ve held them close to me and I’ve saved them for the right person, the only person, for reasons you already know. But now I finally get to say them with meaning. I’m deeply in love with you. You have no idea just how much I’m in love with you. You probably never will. But I hope to show you just how much through my love and my actions.’”

  She cleared her throat, glanced up at him, and continued.

  “‘I feel as if I owe you many apologies for the walls I’ve thrown up and for some of the ways that I’ve behaved, all of which are borne out of the rotten root that is my past. So, please accept my apologies. All my life, I’ve resisted love. All my life, I’ve felt unworthy of love because I was told time and again that I didn’t deserve love. And I stupidly believed it when it’s the last thing I should have believed. You know about my trust issues, yet you stood by me and waited them out because you saw something in me. Whatever that is, Alex, I’ll never know, because to me, it’s a mystery. But you’ve been patient with me because, for some unknown reason, you do love me—I can feel your love. I can feel it in how you look at me, in how you touch me, in how you kiss me, and in how you make love to me. And I�
��m grateful for it. I’m the luckiest girl in the world. Thank you for being the wonderful boyfriend that you are. Thank you for coming out of Wenn that day to help me pick up my runaway resumes, and especially thank you for going to Blackwell to ask who I was. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t know what love is. But I do know now. I love you. —Jennifer.”

  “You wrote that to him?” Blackwell asked.

  “I did.”

  “It was beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m not finished.” She turned to Alex. “It seems like forever, doesn’t it?”

  “It does—in a weird way. It’s as if we’ve known each other all our lives.”

  “I agree. So here are my vows to you, Alexander Wenn. I also will cherish you and love you. I will be your best friend and your confidant. I will be your wife and your lover, and as Barbara mentioned earlier, I will work hard to keep our relationship fresh and new. I will heed her words because what she said to us earlier was true. We’ll have our highs and our lows as the years ebb and flow, but let’s keep the lows brief. Let’s always remember this day as one of the best days of our lives, because I can tell you now that it is for me. You are simply it for me. Since I wrote that letter to you, my love for you has grown and now knows no bounds. That’s a cliché, but it’s true. I love you so much. I’m beside myself that you’ve chosen me to be your wife—and that now we can finally live together!”

  Blackwell rolled her eyes at that, and then said, “Please present your rings.”

  While Alex reached into his pocket to retrieve Jennifer’s ring, Blackwell dipped into one of her own pockets and handed Jennifer a small black velvet box that contained Alex’s ring. When they were ready, Blackwell proceeded.

  “Do you, Alexander Wenn, take this woman to live together in marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in health and in sickness, in prosperity and in adversity; and forsaking all others, be faithful to her, so long as you shall live?”

  “I do,” Alex said.

  “And do you, Jennifer Kent, take this man to live together in marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in health and in sickness, in prosperity and in adversity; and forsaking all others, be faithful to him, so long as you shall live?”

  “I do,” Jennifer said.

  “Please present your rings,” Blackwell said.

  They did.

  Blackwell looked quickly at her notes, and then said, “These rings are symbols of eternity and the unbroken circle of love. Love freely given has no beginning and no end. Today you have chosen to exchange rings as a sign of your love for each other, and as a seal of the promises you make this day.”

  She looked at Alex. “Alex, as you place this ring on Jennifer’s finger, repeat after me. ‘May this ring forever be a symbol of my growing love for you. With this ring I thee wed.”

  Alex repeated the phrase, and he slipped the ring onto Jennifer’s extended left hand.

  “Jennifer,” Blackwell said. “As you place this ring on Alex’s finger, please repeat after me. ‘May this ring forever be a symbol of my growing love for you. With this ring I thee wed.”

  Jennifer recited the phrase, and as she placed the ring on Alex’s ring finger, I noticed that her hand was trembling.

  And with that, Blackwell said, “May you live together in happiness from this day forward. Alex, you may kiss your bride.”

  When he did, it was no mere kiss. Instead, Alex placed his hand firmly against Jennifer’s back, dipped her down so her shoulders were resting on his extended knee, and planted one heated kiss on her lips that caused Blackwell, Tank, and I to burst into applause.

  “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Wenn,” Blackwell said with a catch in her throat. “May you be happy forever.”

  And then, as if on cue, the three of us surrounded Jennifer and Alex and congratulated them. Then, Blackwell went behind the desk, grabbed a chilled bottle of champagne, and popped the cork, beginning the celebration that would carry us deep into dinner later that evening.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A week later, our lives had changed.

  Jennifer hired a moving company to collect her things and bring them to the apartment she now officially shared with Alex, and then, a few days later, I hired the same company to move my belongings out of the apartment we had shared. For Jennifer and me, leaving the apartment was bittersweet—it marked the end of our time living in Manhattan together. But the upside was that she was now married and living with Alex, and I was living with Tank.

  Now that all of my things had arrived at Tank’s, there was one issue that neither Tank nor I could overlook—it was glaringly clear, but I still didn’t want to face it. Or admit it.

  “I have to say, I saw this day coming,” he said when he joined me in the bedroom’s small walk-in closet, where I was opening yet another box of shoes.

  “I swear I can make room.”

  “There never will be enough room.”

  “I can get rid of stuff. Really—you’ll see. Just watch.”

  “And then you’ll buy more stuff. And that’s fine—I get it. You and Jennifer love to shop as much as Blackwell does. You should be able to enjoy that, and I’m not about to stop you.”

  He looked around the closet area, which already was packed with both of our clothes, and then looked at the boxes around my feet that had yet to be unpacked. He shrugged at me. “There’s not enough room, Lisa.”

  “Ughhh…. I don’t want to admit it, but I think I have to.”

  “Admit it. And like I said—it’s fine. Let’s be practical about this. When I bought this apartment a few years ago, it was just for me. But now that both of us are living here, you have to see that it’s not going to work. First, I don’t think you should get rid of your things just because the place is too tight. That’s wrong. Then there’s the entire apartment itself to consider. There’s only one bedroom here. One office. One-and-a-half baths. I know you thought that we could make the one office thing work, but I’m here to tell you that we can’t—you need a proper place to write, and I need an office of my own to do my work.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  He put his arm around my shoulders and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. “It’s past one and I’m hungry,” he said. “You probably are too. How about if we grab lunch somewhere? Then, we can discuss our options.”

  “Where did you have in mind?”

  “You know me—nothing fancy, that’s for sure.”

  “Good—because look at me. I’m a wreck.”

  “I think you look hot.”

  “Well, I’m sweating, so I’ll give you that. Give me five minutes to freshen up, and I’ll be good to go. We can figure out a place when we grab a taxi. Sound good?”

  “Sounds perfect,” he said.

  * * *

  When we left the building, we cut through the crowds of people walking along the sidewalk, and Tank went to the curb and snagged a cab. When we slipped inside, he gave the driver an address.

  The cab was so warm inside, I had to crack my window. “What’s on Park and Seventy-Third Street?” I asked.

  “A neighborhood bistro that serves some of the best pizza in town. And it has outside seating, which is perfect for a day like today.”

  “It must be a little upscale if it’s on Park.”

  “Not at all. I told you—nothing fancy. I thought it would be nice to sit out in the sun and get some air, and that’s the place that came to mind. I know what you like to eat, and I have a feeling that you’ll like it there.”

  I put my head on his shoulder as the cab swung into traffic. “Get some air,” I repeated. “Because my clothes have taken up all of the air in the apartment.”

  He smiled at that. “No, they haven’t.”

  “I’m a wrecking ball of a girlfriend. Did you see that closet? It was as if someone had fired a cannon filled with clothes in there.”

  “We’ll work it out over lunch.”

  “I alrea
dy know what you’re thinking.”

  He reached for my hand and placed it in his lap. “What am I thinking?”

  “That we buy another apartment and move.”

  “It’s not a bad idea. In fact, it’s the only option we have.”

  We turned onto Park, and with a string of green lights facing us, the cab jolted forward through them, moving quickly uptown. “I’d hate to see you give up your apartment because of me.”

  “I’m hardly attached to it, Lisa. It’s just an apartment. So, let’s get a new one.” He squeezed my hand. “But let’s talk about it over lunch, OK? I need a beer.”

  “You need a beer because I’ve ruined your life, and taken over your domain.”

  He looked up at the ceiling, but didn’t respond.

  “You need a beer because already the stress is too much.”

  This time, he looked straight ahead, but I swore I saw him bite his cheek.

  “You need a beer because a beer is your best friend right now.”

  He cocked his head to the side, and this time I was sure I saw him biting his cheek.

  “You need a beer because your girlfriend—”

  “My fiancée,” he corrected.

  “That’s right—your fiancée, and what a sad commentary on your sorry life that is. Your fiancée—who happens to write about the undead, by the way—has ironically killed the foreseeable future for you. Think about that for a minute. Look at what you’ve done to yourself. Run while you still can.”

  I glanced at him when I said that and this time, I won—I actually got Tank, of all people, to break out into a laugh.

  “Yes!” I said. “And here I thought it was nearly impossible to get you to laugh like that. I feel triumphant.”

  “I’m not laughing at what you said—well, not entirely. It was pretty funny, especially that line about me needing a beer because a beer is my best friend right now. That one was particularly good.”