by Unknown
The hostility that had waned into a silent broil is now back, and I really just want to go home. And then to add to my queue of emotions, sadness decides to join the party, because the thought, Jason would have never left me alone on my birthday, pops into my head, followed by, Yeah, he’d just leave you…period.
Period…
Hmm, I wonder if that’s my problem. Am I PMSing right now? Is that why I feel like I could totally snap and become one of those people on some TV show about a woman freaking out and chopping everyone up into little pieces? No clue. And I don’t really give a fuck right now.
Aiden returns with our drinks and starts chattering away.
Oblivious. I have never met a person so absolutely unobservant in my life. Either he's completely clueless to the female way of passive-aggressively saying 'you're a fucking douchenugget' because of his lack of past relationships, or he purposely just chooses to ignore it.
As I sit here visibly fuming in my chair, my arms crossed over my chest, my right leg crossed over my left, with its foot wiggling at the speed of light in my fury, he continues his one-sided conversation as if I'm happily chatting along with him, when all I'm really doing is giving him a death glare. Oblivious.
I'm not even really listening to what Aiden is saying until I hear the words "about to deploy," and it snaps me out of my anger just long enough to start paying attention to what he's talking about.
"...and I was wondering what you thought about maybe doing what Brittany and Chris are going to do before his next deployment," I hear the end of his sentence.
"What?"
"Brittany hasn't told you?" When I shake my head, he explains, "Before Chris deploys on the next trip, he and Brittany are going to get married." At my startled look, Aiden pushes forward, "Well, it's obvious that's what their relationship is leading to, so why wait? Before he leaves, he'll be able to make sure she's got everything she needs, everything from the extra money it puts in his paycheck to insurance, and then she'll also have access to everything on base without the hassle of getting searched every time. All the gyms, the commissary and PX, the family center, which will definitely be helpful when dealing with a deployment. They have support groups and shit. It gives a guy peace of mind while he's in the desert, not having to worry if his girl back home is okay."
He looks from my face to where he pulls one of my hands out from where it was smashed between my arm and my side.
"So what are you saying?" I ask meekly, a mix of emotions roiling through me. Fearing he means what I think he means, panic at what my reaction will be when he clarifies, and maybe even a little bit of...excitement?
"I'm saying...or rather I'm asking...do you..." He licks his lips and shifts in his seat as he squeezes my hand. "Do you want to get married?"
My jaw drops and all I can do is stare into his beautiful eyes. He looks so hopeful, so nervous. I don't know what to say. Only thirty seconds ago, I was so pissed off at him for ditching me at the casino I could have dumped him right there, but now he's asking me to marry him?!
He starts rambling, "I'm sorry I ran off at the casino to play. I couldn't tell you what I was doing then, but I was making a wager with myself. I told myself if I won enough money in two hours to buy you a ring, then I would ask you to marry me. If not, and I lost, then I would take it as a sign I was insane and forget about it. But, I won! I won enough to buy you pretty much any ring you could want...well, from like, Zales or something. Not like Tiffany's or wherever the hell it is with the rings as expensive as a fucking house."
I can't help but giggle at his outpouring of word vomit. And after hearing his explanation of why he'd even consider it okay to leave me alone on my birthday, I can't help feeling like a total bitch for getting so pissed at him for it.
“I…” I begin, but nothing comes out. I need to think. Marry Aiden? I mean, everything he just said about the benefits is absolutely true. It would make life a lot easier. But…do I want to marry someone because it would be convenient?
“I need a cigarette,” I state, standing abruptly. He sits back in his chair and lets go of my hand, looking disappointed. “I just need a minute to think, Aiden. This is coming out of nowhere. Give me ten minutes by myself without you looking at me with those puppy dog eyes. This is a big decision you’re springing on me.”
“I can give you that,” he concedes, and I feel his eyes burning into my back as I make my way out onto the patio outside.
It’s a little chilly out in the dress I decided to wear tonight, but luckily, there are tall, silver heaters scattered around the deck. I take a seat next to one, pull out my menthol cigarette and pink lighter, and take a much needed inhale of the nerve-calming smoke.
Marry Aiden? I repeat inside my head.
For some ungodly reason, a scene from one of my favorite movies, The Sweetest Thing, pops into my head, when Christina Applegate’s character tells Cameron Diaz’s, “And if it doesn’t work out, you could always get divorced.”
I snort a laugh to myself. I haven’t even decided if I’ll marry him yet, and I’m already planning an escape route? Good sign, good sign.
I shake off the aggravating thought and try to make a mental checklist of the pros and cons of saying yes.
Pro: Everything he said about Brittany and Chris—the extra money, the insurance, access to all the facilities and support on base.
Con: Knowing in my heart I’d be marrying a dude for convenience, even though that’s technically how he just tried to sell himself.
Pro: A guy actually wants to marry me. And not just a guy, a really good one, who treats me well and does everything I always wanted Jason to do.
Con: Knowing I’ll be marrying someone who is just a replacement for the one I really want. He may be scarily similar to the love of my life, but he’s not him.
Pro: I can actually see myself marrying Aiden. I can see myself being content as his wife.
Con: We’ve only known each other a few months. Is that really enough time to know someone enough to marry them?
I weigh both sides of my list, and after taking a giant swallow of my drink and the last drag of my cigarette, I sit up straight, square my shoulders, and then stand.
When I slide myself back into the booth, Aiden looks like he’s about to come unglued he’s so nervous. I decide just to put him out of his misery, telling him with one nod, “Yes.”
“Yes?” His voice goes up an octave higher than I’ve ever heard it before, and it makes me smile.
“Yes, I’ll marry you, Aiden,” I spell it out for him.
“Holy…holy shit!” he shouts, and I see the few patrons of the bar and the bartender turn to look at us. “She said yes! I asked her to marry me on her birthday, and she said yes!”
Everyone in the bar claps, and I feel my face heat up. I know I should be feeling a lot happier about everything—this is not how the heroines in my books feel when they get their happily ever after and their heroes ask them to marry them—but this is reality. I’ve come to realize my books are fiction. Book boyfriends aren’t real. They’re written for fantasy, to escape reality and dream of things that don’t really happen.
And with that depressing thought in mind, Aiden comes around to my side of the booth, pulls me out of my seat, and dips me in a long, passionate kiss that would’ve had any other woman’s toes curling in her shoes.
Me? I’m just grateful when it ends and the bartender hands me a congratulatory drink on the house.
Two days later, when we drive back home, we stopped by Kyle’s house and brought home an eight-week-old kitten. She was all black with green eyes. When Brittany had told us her and Kyle’s cat, Jager, pronounced like the liquor, who now lived with Kyle since they broke up, had kittens, I’d wanted one so badly, but Aiden told me no; he wasn’t a cat person.
I knew it was bribery to cheer me up, or maybe his form of an olive branch or apology for leaving me alone in the casino. In the end, I forgave him, because now I had my Jade, someone to pour my love into while
my soon-to-be husband is deployed. Maybe she’ll be enough to distract me, to keep that evil voice from coming back in my head.
Phone’s blowin’ up, they’re ringing my doorbell
September 7, 2005
I hear the phone ring from where it sits on Anni’s bed. I’m in one of her metal dining chairs in her kitchen, where she is currently highlighting my hair. She’s closing up one of the foils after lathering the strands inside it with bleach, since I’ve been talked into lightening my hair because Anni told me a change might do me good. And as she pinches it shut, I hop up from my seat and bolt into her room, trying to catch the call before it stops ringing.
I don’t even take the time to look at the screen to see who it is before flipping it open and asking a breathless, “Hello?” pushing back a couple of foils that have flopped onto my forehead and over my eyes. The voice that comes over the line makes my heart immediately jump into my throat, and I close my eyes.
“Kayla?”
God, that voice. That deep, soothing, Texan accent pours over me like warm cream. The months I’ve gone without hearing it had not faded the memory of it, and I still heard it in my dreams nearly every night, except for on the nights I was either too exhausted or had passed out too drunk to dream.
Tears well behind my closed lids, and I can’t make myself respond, so it isn’t surprising when he asks, “Are you there? Kayla? Is this still your number?”
“Jason?” I breathe. That’s all that can come out. The name I haven’t spoken aloud in weeks, not even to Anni, escapes from my lips, sounding like someone long dead had just called me from the other side.
“Hey, babe. What’s up?” he asks, like a day hasn’t passed since the last time I saw him, like he hadn’t gutted me and left me for the vultures.
I stumble back into the kitchen and my legs give out underneath me just as I reach the chair I’d been sitting in only moments before. I look up at Anni through my water-rimmed eyes and see her mouth, ‘You okay?’ before Jason starts talking again.
“What you been up to? How was the move?” And that’s when I hear it, the light slur to his words as he asks the questions. Jason drunk-dialed me.
I glance at the time on the microwave sitting on the kitchen counter and see it is four in the afternoon my time, which means it is only three in Texas. Why is he drunk in the middle of the day on a Tuesday?
“Hey, Jason,” I say quietly and move my eyes back to Anni when I hear her sharp intake of air. When she starts storming toward me with her arm reaching out to take my phone from my ear, I hop up from my chair and get behind it, putting it between us as I hold my hand up to stop her. “The move was fine. Everything is…fine. How have you been?”
“Oh…I’ve been all right, I guess. I miss you a lot,” he tells me, and the first of many tears finally escapes my eye.
“I miss you a lot too.” I pause. “How are your parents? They doing good?” My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it moving the fabric of the frumpy T-shirt Anni had me put on before she started dyeing my hair. I can hear my pulse in my ears as I listen intently for the sound of the voice I’ve missed more than anything.
“They’re good, they’re good. Well, I’m drunk as fuck and just wanted to tell you I love you. I’m a fucking idiot, and I love you. There’s a dumbass out in the world that loves you, just so you know. That’s all I wanted to tell you, so…yeah.”
Sucker-punched. Right in my solar plexus. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t think of anything but the words ‘I love you’ in Jason’s voice repeating itself over and over as it twirls and dances inside my head. How long had I ached to hear those words from him? Dear God, I think I’m going to pass out.
“Kayla? You there?” I hear from a distance. It sounds hollow, and I realize I’m no longer holding the phone up to my ear.
“Why? Why are you saying these things now? Why are you doing this to me?” I wail into the receiver.
“Babe, what’s wrong? I’m not doing anything to you. I just wanted to tell you I love and miss you. That’s all.” He sounds confused, like he really can’t understand why calling a girl whose heart he shattered to tell her he loves and misses her would not be a very kind thing to do just out of the blue.
It infuriates me, and the anger at him I had pushed aside resurfaces. Wanting to hurt him as much as he hurt me, back in Texas, and now, confessing these feelings, with as much venom in my voice as I can muster, I spit at him, “Well, you should have thought about that before you just threw me away, Jason. I miss you, and God knows I love you, too, but you can’t fucking do this. I’m getting married.”
Silence. And then I hear the flick of a lighter and a deep inhale as he pulls smoke into his lungs, letting it out slowly through those perfect lips I can still visualize as clearly as if I could see them right in front of me now.
“Married? To who?” he finally asks.
“His…his name is Aiden, and he’s good to me,” I reply, not knowing what to say.
“We only broke up like four months ago,” he says, the hurt I was trying to inflict evident in his voice.
“Broke up? Jason. We were never officially together. You never asked me to be your girlfriend. You never called me yours. You used me and then just tossed me away when you were done with me.” I begin to cry, and this time I let Anni take the phone as I crumple to the floor in a heap, sobbing so violently I don’t even hear what she says.
Kayla’s Chick Rant & Book Blog
September 19, 2005
Today was my wedding day. We woke up early and got to the Lillington Courthouse right when they opened, Brittany and Chris tagging along as our witnesses.
We told my family what we were planning about a week ago, letting them know we were just going to do a quickie ceremony at the courthouse, but then we want to do a ‘real’ wedding when he gets back from deployment. My mom said in that case, she’d just wait for the real one. She thought it was too soon to be getting married, but having been around Aiden a lot more in the past couple of months, she had really grown fond of him. She also liked the fact I’d be moving back in with her while he’s deployed.
There’s no sense in me staying by myself, us paying rent while he’s gone, when I could just move in with my parents and save up all the money. Then, when he gets home, we can go apartment hunting. This weekend, we’ll be moving all his things—which isn’t very much besides his clothes, a dining table and chairs, and some kitchen stuff—into our little shed next to our house, and then a few days later, he’ll deploy for the next four months.
I found the ring I wanted yesterday. I was at the mall with Anni and walked into Reed’s, and when I spotted it, I knew it was the one. I always knew I wanted a pear-shaped diamond, and this one was so pretty, with a pear in the center circled with tiny diamonds, and then a few down the sides of the band. The wedding band matched, but was way different than anything I’d ever seen before. It was two white gold bands that were attached to each other, and the engagement ring slid in between them, making it look like one whole piece.
I called Aiden at work and told him what I’d found, and he told me to go ahead and get it, and to find him whatever wedding ring I wanted him to have. He couldn’t have anything too fancy because of work, and he’d more than likely be wearing it on a necklace anyways, since it probably wouldn’t be too safe wearing rings while working on airplane engines. So, I chose a white gold band with a small bevel detail down the center, simple, but not boring.
The ceremony wasn’t anything special. I dressed in a pretty coral, floral-patterned dress, and he wore a shirt of the same color. We first went into the clerk’s office and filled out the marriage license, immediately followed by the magistrate’s office, where we said our vows. After a brief, awkward kiss in front of the stranger, Brittany and Chris signed the marriage license, and then we left to go get some lunch. Aiden went to work a few hours later.
Now, I know what you’re really wanting to know. What happened after my last post, when I t
old y’all about Jason calling me—thank you for the comments of complete outrage by the way, and to whoever asked the ever-important question if my highlights turned out okay, yes, they look awesome!
I couldn’t exactly go home to Aiden looking like run-over dog shit after crying over another man for two hours, when Anni was finally able to stop all my blubbering. God love that woman. Even in my hysterics, she managed to get my foils out, wash, and even tone my highlights, finishing off with a deep conditioner. All the while I was a limp ragdoll bawling my eyes out.
Jason had ripped open all the wounds that had just begun to scab over. And that’s when Anni brought out the big guns, also known as a giant bottle of wine. I guzzled that shit like it was water…well, like water for normal people. I can’t stand water. Squirrel!
So as I focused on keeping myself upright on the stool in her bathroom as she blow-dried my hair, she talked me down in her mystical Anni way, and when she drove me home, I only looked semi-crappy, with fabulous hair. Aiden asked me what was wrong, and Anni made up an excuse on the spot, saying she had made me watch a Nicholas Sparks movie. She’s my hero.
It’s my fault to think you’ll be true. I’m just a fool.
Aiden’s been deployed for exactly one month today. I’ve kept myself pretty busy with work and hanging out with Anni and Brittany so far, so it hasn’t been too bad. The day of his deployment was a pretty emotional one.
We got up early and loaded all his rucksacks into the car, then went to the airplane hangar on base that his plane would be leaving from. The place was huge; I had never been in a hangar before, and the wide-open space was hollow and depressing in itself. There were rows and rows of bench seating, where families were gathered, waiting for the time to say goodbye to their loved ones for the next four months.