Page 62 of Rejected
They ate in silence for a minute or two.
“My parents marriage scared me, you know,” Jo said eventually. Talking to Laurie was always easy to her, natural. He made her open up in ways she could not even describe on paper.
And she could tell almost everything to a paper.
But Laurie was even better than that.
“Of marriage?” he asked.
“You saw how my parents’ marriage was,” Jo replied. “How grief tore them apart. It made my mother hollow, my father withdrawn, indifferent. Justin was so neglected he swears he will never allow himself to be chained to a woman. I think he means it.”
“What about you?” Laurie frowned.
“Amy and I had a pact never to marry,” Jo said, and Laurie inhaled sharply. “In this house we witnessed the death of love, and it was absolutely excruciating. A slow death, day by day. What if I do that to you, Teddy? What if I do that to you, as much as I love you?”
“Wait, you love me?” He went pale abruptly.
“Are you getting dizzy again?” He nodded. “When will you stop doing that?”
He chuckled. “When willyoustop doing it to me?” He lifted a finger to her lips. “Never,” he answered his own question. “The answer is never. Now, where were we? You love me, you exasperating girl?”
“Of course I do. Always have done.” Her voice was trembling, and she did not even care.
“Why did you not tell me?” Laurie’s voice was thick with emotion.
“Because I wasterrified.”
“Why?”
She did not know if she would have the courage to answer him, but one look of his blue eyes, looking earnestly into hers, open, vulnerable, and she decided to try to be as brave as him.
“I promised myself I would not do that to you,” she said.
“Do what to me? Marry me?
She nodded.
His shoulders fell in defeat. “And you decided that all by yourself?”
“Well, after you’d asked me, of course. I never dreamed for a second you would—that anyone would. I had no thought of creating a home for myself. What I had with my sisters, and Justin, and you, was enough for me. Back before everything changed. Well, I did not have Justin for long. It was brutal for him, he…”
“I was there, I saw.” Laurie rubbed his eyes. “I was trying to be here for him, for you… for all of you throughout your childhood.”
“I know you were. But you were a child too, Teddy. It was not your job to fix us.”
“Nor yours to fix me,” he retorted.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“But you did it anyway. You saved me, Jo.”
“You saved me right back.”
“Then what are you afraid of?” he asked gently.
“You can’t continue saving me. I am angry and unruly, and I write too much and sleep too little, and I cannot for the life of me fit into polite society, and…” She was out of breath.
Laurie took her hands in his, turning her to face him.
