Page 102 of Submission

“You know powerful and domineering men?”

“Megan–”

“Actually, Naomi, I’ve known you since I moved to LA, and you rarely talk about your family or your past.”

“Neither did you, that’s part of what we had in common.”

“I didn’t talk about mine because they were freaking sociopaths. What’s your excuse?”

Naomi looks silently down at her feet, no doubt thinking of another way to avoid talking to me about the truth about her family. She’s right, though. Neither of us chose to share details about our pasts, which seemed perfectly normal at the time, but now I see that both of us were hiding from each other and possibly from ourselves.

“My family is complicated, Megan.”

“How so?”

She looks me dead in my eyes and inspects them as if she's searching for something.

“Did your boyfriend tell you something about my family?”

I pop an olive in my mouth and savor the salty explosion in my mouth as I chew.

“Yes.”

Her entire body deflates.

I’ve never seen Naomi like this…ever.

“What did he tell you?” She asks in a small voice.

“That you’re from New Orleans and that your family is dangerous.”

“Fuck.”

“Do you actually go home to visit them, Naomi, or are you in danger because–”

“There’s no danger. My family is many things but they love me. No one would ever hurt me.”

Like mine.

“I see, so why did you move across the country?”

“I’m avoiding something which is probably inevitable anyway.”

“What?”

“Marriage.”

“Are you engaged?”

I pat my hand on the bed as an instruction for her to sit down.

“I’m not engaged, I’m promised.”

“Promised? What does that mean?”

“The girls in my family are always promised in marriage to a boy from another prominent family. I was promised to my fiancee when I turned one year old. There was even a ceremony that sealed our fates, and the time is quickly approaching when I have to honor that promise.”

“An arranged marriage? In this day and age? I didn’t realize those still happened. I mean, you can’t actually want to marry someone your parents picked for you.”

---