Page 71 of Hot and Bothered
“I always tried to do everything you told me to do,” I said. “I always tried to please you. But not anymore. I’m going to live my own life from now on.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother snapped. “What kind of life are you living? Working at abar?” The disdain in her voice was obvious. ”Living with god knows who, doing whatever you want without a single thought for how your actions have affected us?”
“Why didn’t you ever care about how your actions affected me?” My voice rose with every word. “You’ve never asked me what I wanted. You’ve never cared about my thoughts. You’ve never cared about my feelings. You tried to marry me off for some business merger!”
My mother began to reply, but my father held up a hand to stop her. She pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest.
“There’s clearly been a misunderstanding,” my father said. “We never wanted to force you into anything. You never told us you didn’t want to marry Jacob. We thought you two were happy together.”
I inhaled sharply, held my breath for a second, then let it out slowly.
He was right. I’d never actually said the words out loud. After all, I liked Jacob. He was a good guy. He’d treated me right. There was no reason why I shouldn’t have married him, except for that I just plain didn’t want to, and that should have been reason enough.
But it was true, I’d never spoken those words out loud. I hadn’t even thought them to myself until the day of the wedding. I’d had doubts and worries, I’d been uncertain, but I hadn’t seriously considered the fact that marrying Jacob wasn’t what I wanted. I’d really only come to terms with it on the day of the wedding.
Could I really blame my parents for not knowing something I hadn’t even known myself?
The rest of the dinner went much more smoothly than I’d imagined it would. By the time the server brought our food they’d stopped talking about what I’d done and started making small talk, mostly gossiping about their circle of friends or the charity projects my mom was involved in. Maybe they wanted to pretend everything was normal.
When I said goodbye, I thought they’d tell me to come home, but they didn’t. I didn’t really understand why they wanted to meet in the first place.
When I got home, Evan launched himself off the sofa to come over and greet me.
“How did it go?” he asked.
I toed off my shoes and threw my bag on the table.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully.
“What did they say?” he asked.
“At first it was all about how they were disappointed in me,” I said.
“You know it’s not up to you to make them happy, right?” Evan said.
“I know.” I dragged him back over to the sofa and flopped down, pulling him with me. I rested my head on his shoulder. “My father said something that made me second-guess everything.”
Evan put a hand on my knee and rubbed soothingly, waiting patiently for me to continue.
“I never actually told them I didn’t want to marry Jacob,” I said. “I’ve never really said no to them about anything. I always just did what they wanted. I was upset at the way they treated me growing up, but is it really their fault if I never spoke up? They probably thought I was perfectly happy. I never gave them a reason to suspect otherwise.”
Evan made a soft sound, and I could tell he was holding his tongue until I’d finished, even though he clearly wanted to chime in.
“I didn’t even know what I really wanted,” I said, lowering my eyes to look at my hands wringing in my lap. “How can I blame them for not reading my mind? Maybe I brought all of this on myself.”
“Is that what they told you?” Evan asked.
“No, they didn’t say anything like that,” I said.
He tipped my head up with gentle fingers on my chin.
“Do you regret it?” he asked. “Do you regret leaving everything behind?”
“No! Never.” I shook my head vehemently. “If I hadn’t left I’d be married to someone I didn’t love. I’d be stuck in a life I hated instead of making my own way like I am right now.” I cupped Evan’s cheek. “I’d never have met you.”
He turned his face toward my hand and pressed a kiss to the center of my palm.
For the next week, I couldn’t stop recalling that dinner with my parents. They had briefly admonished me for my terrible life choices at the start, but they hadn’t harped on it the way I thought they might have. I’d assumed I’d be in for an earful, and I’d expected I would have had to defend myself at every turn.
