by Jamie Knight
“I know that your marriage is a sham,” Landon tells me.
I wrinkle my nose at him, an urge to punch him in the face coming over me. I’m not going to do it, but I really fucking wish I could.
“You should get it annulled immediately before anything bad happens,” he says.
I don’t like this tone he’s taking with me and I really don’t like being threatened.
Who does this guy think he is?
Even if the marriage is a sham, Savannah wanted it to happen, so who is he to swoop in and try to mess things up?
“Savannah and I love each other, and our marriage is real,” I tell him.
I don’t know how many other times I’m going to have to tell people that I love her – probably a lot, if we’re going to keep up this charade. It just feels weird saying it so much.
Landon makes an ugly laugh.
“Really? Why did she keep you a secret for all this time? You just came out of nowhere and now the two of you are married?”
I shrug.
“It happens,” I say. “Love at first sight. It wasn’t out of nowhere for us. I’m sure you heard how much she loves me the other day in your jet,” I punch back.
It’s vulgar, but it seems that with this guy, that’s the only thing that seems to work. I can see he’s getting more and more upset. It would appear the snake has buttons that can be pushed, and I’m glad to have found that out.
“It doesn’t happen.” He ignores my crude remark and just responds to the first part of my statement. “Savannah doesn’t hide things like this. And I would have known if the two of you were involved.”
That sounds shady.
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do.”
Even though we’re technically arguing, I’m keeping my cool.
“Savannah was supposed to marry me, not you. Who are you, anyway? Some low-rent Romeo?”
I take a deep breath and calm my temper.
“Ever since she turned eighteen, we were supposed to be together; Joseph was on my side,” Landon says.
It sounds almost as creepy as Savannah made it sound, and she only gave me the highlights. I have a feeling Landon isn’t telling Joseph all the gory details of his plan.
I also have a feeling Landon is telling Joseph some nonsense, because it looks like Savannah cares about her dad, and I doubt that would be true if her dad was a total fucking jerk like that.
“And?” I ask her.
“What do you mean ‘and?’” he asks me. “She’s supposed to be with me. That was always the plan, her father was on board, it was going to happen, you came and mucked it all up and, now, you’re going to fix this little problem or I’m going to cause a whole lot of problems for you.”
I smile because he thinks he’s in control, but his demeanor is telling me that he’s at a complete loss.
“Well, Savannah obviously doesn’t want to marry you, since it’s been years and the two of you aren’t married. And you know it has nothing to do with her not wanting to be married because she married me, and we’ve only been together a few months,” I point out.
Half of that is a lie, but I like the idea of Landon not getting what he wants in the cruelest sense.
“You fucking bastard. Maybe the two of you deserve each other. You both like to fill yourselves with delusions – yours is that you think that your marriage to Savannah is anything more than a farce and Savannah’s is her fantasy of becoming a doctor. It’s madness and you’ll pay for it.”
What is he talking about? Savannah’s delusions of becoming a doctor? What does he mean by that?
Could he have…?
I’m about to ask him all the questions I can think of, because I’m beginning to suspect that Landon isn’t just creepy to be around – he might be even more nefarious – but Joseph walks back in and the faux cheer returns to Landon’s face.
“Ugh, planning a wedding is so much work,” Savannah’s dad says. “I’ve already spoken to like five people, but this second wedding is going to be a blowout, I promise you. My daughter and her husband deserve the best!”
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I have a feeling Savannah agreed to the second wedding because she didn’t want to arouse her father’s suspicions regarding our little arrangement.
I probably could have done a better job of hiding my annoyance, but everything is going off the rails. Outside of the actual marriage, nothing has gone according to plan and it seems that it will continue this way.
“I’m sure it will be great,” I say.
I need to be a more supportive ‘husband’ if any of this is going to work.
“I hope you and Landon were making friends?” Savannah’s dad asks.
I turn to the asshole and put on a fake smile.
“Yeah, we were talking,” I say.
“Robert is a great guy,” Landon adds. “Savannah chose well.”
I’m going to suggest to Savannah that the med school we go to should be far away from her wannabe husband. It looks like her dad is clueless regarding Landon’s true nature, so the next best thing is to distance ourselves. Hopefully she’ll be on board.
“I am well aware,” Savannah’s dad says. “I’m not sure if you know this or if Savannah told you, but when Robert and Savannah were much younger, the two of them became friends. I mean, we were only there for a short time – the auto-parts plant that is – but they were together almost every day.
“It was great. Savannah tended to stick to herself, so I was so happy when the two of them became such great friends. I had been planning on sending her to a summer camp because I wanted her to hang out with more kids her age, but she begged me not to and I couldn’t say no to my little princess.
Anyway, one day, the two of them were playing next to some unused equipment. I probably should have had someone watching her. Letting kids wander an auto-parts plant wasn’t the smartest of choices – but she tripped and fell. She hurt her ankle and this guy – little, tiny Robert, who was known as ‘Rob’ all the time back then, comforted her and this guy – this small, underfed boy – he carried Savannah all the way through the plant until they found me.
It was so cute how much he liked her. I have to say, Robert,” he now turns and addresses me directly, “you impressed me as a young boy and I’m happy with how you turned out as a man. I know you’ll protect my darling daughter.”
I’m getting a little uncomfortable with all this attention. I’m a bit surprised that Joseph thinks so highly of me. I hadn’t even expected him to recognize me, which is part of why I hadn’t told Savannah before now about our history.
It is a rather nice compliment that he remembers me, even though he is making me seem like some scrawny, puny little boy, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to forgive him just yet. There’s just this whole hurdle I can’t get myself over, having to do with him closing down the factory my dad worked at.
“Thanks for saying all of that, it’s really nice, but I really need to get going. I have to… take care of some things.”
What I really want to do is get out of here and get a grip. I haven’t spent much time alone since getting married and it feels like I need to just figure out some of my own stuff.
“Before you go,” Joseph stops me. “I think we should all have dinner tomorrow. We should get acquainted since we’re all family. I should meet your parents, maybe they’d like to help plan the wedding?”
Ugh, I had forgotten all about my parents. The initial plan was to keep this whole thing a secret from them, and that’s why I wanted everything to remain low-key.
I’m worried about how they’ll feel about this whole thing. If they come to dinner, then they’ll learn about the elopement and I’ll have to come up with a reason why I didn’t tell them – it’s too much.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure if they’ll be able to make it on such short notice and they’re not really the going out types.”
I’m trying to find a viable excuse, something that wil
l work for the interim, until I can think of something even better.
“But it’s an important occasion,” he insists. “Their son is getting married. I’m sure they wouldn’t want to miss this, and it’ll be my treat.”
I’m not sure if I should outright say no. I don’t want to make up some outrageous lie that I can’t take back – it would just complicate things further.
“I’ll have to ask them; I just can’t guarantee anything,” I tell him.
“I’m sure they’ll say yes, my boy. I’ll call Savannah later and give her all the details. I’m expecting to see you guys – all of you – there tomorrow.”
I say goodbye to Joseph and Landon, not having made any kind of commitment, but knowing I’ll need to sort this thing out somehow.
I don’t know what to do. My options fall under two umbrellas – tell my parents or don’t tell my parents. Each one has shitty outcomes.
If I tell my mom about the marriage, I’ll have to lie about why we eloped and then they’ll ask me why I didn’t tell them. If I don’t tell them, there’s a chance they find out anyway or Joseph gets all suspicious.
I decide that I need an outside perspective. I can’t figure this out on my own.
Chapter Twenty-Six - Robert
Once I leave Joseph’s place, I take out my phone and call Brent. I’m pretty sure he and my sister will have some good advice for me.
“Hello?”
“Brent, can I come over and talk to you and Lindsay? I need some advice,” I ask.
“Of course. We’re home right now, so just stop by.”
I thank him and hang up. I don’t have my car with me – it’s at my place – so I’ll need to take a cab there.
I call one and have it drive me over. On the way there, I text Savannah and let her know where I’m going and give her the address in case she needs to stop by. I get to Brent’s place and knock on the door. He answers the door and I go inside.
“Lindsay! Your brother’s here!” he calls out.
I hear some moving around upstairs and then see my very pregnant sister coming down the stairs. She’s moving as quickly as she can and when she reaches me, she gives me hug.
“Rob, it’s so good to see you! You really need to visit me more often!”
She pulls back and swats my arm. She’s right, because my visits have gone down in frequency. I see Brent a lot because we go to school together and run every day, but I got busy and haven’t stopped by the house in some time.
“I’ll try, and I’ll have a little more incentive to do it once this bun is out of the oven,” I say, in reference to her pregnancy.
Lindsay makes a face by scrunching her nose, but then she gets excited.
“You need to come and see the nursery!”
She grabs my hand and pulls me upstairs. We go into one of the rooms and it looks like the two of them have been painting. There’s newspaper laid down and paint cans and partially painted walls.
“Brent and I have been getting everything ready for the baby. We wanted to go with something neutral and then, maybe one day, when this little guy has his own personality, we can always redecorate.”
I’m looking around the room and I’m reminded of how much I’m ready to have a wife and family. Technically, I’m halfway there – but I guess it would be better if I had ‘real’ marriage.
I’m not even sure if kids are what Savannah wants. I know she wants to be a doctor, but to have a successful, stressful career and kids? I know that could be hard to juggle and I don’t know that she would want to. It wasn’t important enough for us to discuss, since we only planned on being married for a year.
I have to wonder why I’m even asking myself this question.
Is having kids something I want with Savannah? The marriage has been better than expected, but does that mean it could actually last, as a real thing?
I hear someone coming up the steps and turn around to see Brent.
“What do you think?” he asks about the nursery decorations.
“It looks nice,” I say, and it really does.
I’m sure their kid will love living here.
“So, what do you need to talk about?”
I’m brought back to the here and now and the fact that the marriage I got myself into has current problems.
“Yeah, it’s about Savannah,” I say.
Brent nods knowingly, but Lindsay looks confused.
“Savannah? That name sounds familiar…”
I can see her trying to remember.
“Why don’t we go downstairs?” Brent suggests.
The three of us head to the kitchen and Lindsay starts making sandwiches. I think about what I want to tell them.
Would it be a good or bad idea to tell them everything? I wonder.
Leaving Las Vegas has made me feel like this is more sordid.
And now that I might have to tell my parents about this… I don’t know what to do.
Lindsay sits down with the food and although it looks delicious, I’m not feeling particularly hungry. Lindsay and Brent dig in immediately, so I just launch into my tale.
“Um, so I guess I should start off by letting you know that I’m married. I got married yesterday.”
My sister starts coughing and puts down her food. Brent rubs her back while she tries to get composure.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Lindsay is still clearing her throat a little.
“I went to Las Vegas the other day and got married to Savannah King.”
Lindsay gets a look on her face that’s a mix of confusion and maybe anger and definitely disbelief.
“Wait a second. First off, that name sounds familiar. Secondly, did you know about this?” she asks Brent.
He gets all wide-eyed and looks at me, but I shrug. Then Brent turns back to my sister.
“Okay, so I drove the two of them to the airport yesterday morning and Savannah’s a person in our class and I guess I had some knowledge about all of this, but it slipped my mind to tell you,” Brent explains, badly.
Lindsay gasps.
“It slipped your mind to tell me that my brother was getting married? How does something like that just slip your mind?”
Brent looks like he’s at a loss for words.
“We can figure that out later, but you,” she is now focused back on me. “You’re going to tell me everything. I want the details from start to finish,” she demands.
“Well, I guess it all started with when I got kicked out of school because Savannah and I got accused of cheating.”
Lindsay looks at Robert, obviously confused, but he holds up a finger, as if silently telling her to just wait.
“Neither one of us confessed, but I’ll tell you about that later,” I say.
This way, it looks like I’m telling Lindsay everything and, in telling Lindsay everything, I’m going to end up rambling.
“So, yeah, I got expelled, went home, lamented about losing my scholarship and how I would get into another school and then Savannah showed up at my door with this idea that if I marry her, then she’d pay my school bills and she had her own reasons for needing me to marry her, so a fake marriage seemed like a good idea. Plus, we’d get divorced in a year, so it was only supposed to be temporary.
“We went to Vegas, got married, and I thought that was that, but now her dad wants us to have a second wedding, so he can invite people and see his daughter walk down the aisle and he wants to meet Mom and Dad – and I had planned on never telling them about this.
“I don’t know what to do. I feel like if I tell Joseph no then he’s going to get suspicious and figure out what’s going on, but I don’t want to disappoint our parents. What should I do?”
I turn to my sister with all the expectations of having her fixing my problem.
She’s looking at with wide eyes. I’m guessing she’s just taking in everything I’ve just told her. I have to admit, it’s pretty fucking crazy.
She starts nodding.
“
Okay, okay, okay. So, you married Savannah as a sort of deal that will hopefully benefit the two of you and, now, everything is starting to get a little heavy because the real world is encroaching in?”
I don’t respond for a minute because my sister just dropped a whole lot of brutal honesty on me.
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” I finally admit.
“I suggest that you just bring Mom and Dad into this lie. It’ll be easier in the long run. If they find out about how this whole thing is fake, they’ll be devastated. When you get divorced, they’ll just have to get over it,” Lindsay shrugs.
“I like that plan,” Brent says, agreeing.
What they’re saying makes sense. I mean, what are my other options? This marriage keeps becoming a larger and larger affair and there’s only so much I can hide from my parents before they find out on their own and that would be even worse.
“Okay, I’ll tell Mom and Dad that I got married,” I agree.
I’ll just have to figure out something about the elopement to tell my parents. I’ll have to give them a similar lie that Savannah’s dad is going to hear, so I just won’t go into too much detail…
This thing is getting way too tricky.
Lindsay gets up.
“I’m going to go and get Mom and Dad on the phone.”
She leaves the room to find her phone. I turn to Brent and decide to tell him even more about what has happened to me recently.
“There’s actually something else I wanted to tell you guys, but I’ll tell you for now,” I begin.
Brent nods.
“So, Savannah had this idea that maybe someone manipulated our tests and that neither one of us cheated.”
Brent furrows his brows.
“Does she have any more details?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“No, it was just a theory she came up with. I wasn’t totally sure when I first heard it, but in thinking about it, it kind of makes sense.”
Brent looks thoughtful and I can see the mechanisms working in his brain.
“Well, we’ll need to find a way to prove it, then. If you guys can prove it, then they’ll have to let the two of you back in.”
But where to find this proof? An idea came into my head that maybe Landon could be involved. But how would he have gotten all of this done?