Page 107 of Grease Monkey
Spots dance before my eyes, and my hand flies out to the wall as dizzying waves crash over me. Suddenly, I understand why Richard thinks this apartment is too small because the walls are closing in, the air is being sucked out, and I feel like I’m drowning.
“You want me to get checked for STDs?”
Richard pauses from gathering his things from the coffee table and levels me with a stare that my mom would be proud of.
“Why wouldn’t I? I can’t exactly sleep with my wife, not knowing if she’s clean or not.”
I shiver, suddenly feeling exposed and dirty. “You still want to get married?”
Richard huffs, roughly buckling his briefcase, and throws it on the sofa. “Why would I call off the wedding? Would I prefer it if my fiancée hadn’t been unfaithful? Of course, I would have. But we both know this is a marriage of convenience, Morgana. And I won’t let one little hiccup stop this from working out.”
Marriage of convenience?
I snap out of my stupor and rush to his side, gripping his arm and forcing him to look at me instead of the paperwork he’s neatly collecting into a pile.
“I slept with someone else, and your response is,I’d rather my fiancée wasn’t unfaithful.Why aren’t you threatening to tell my mom about this? Why aren’t you yelling? Throwing things? Reacting the way anyone else would if it were them?” My voice quakes as I wait for the other shoe to drop. This isn’t normal.
Richard straightens, his lips sneering, and releases a bark of laughter as he focuses his gaze on me. I used to think Richard’s blue eyes were warm, filled with kindness whenever he looked at me, and I hated that I couldn’t fully love him the way he deserved. But the eyes trained on me now aren’t those belonging to the man I promised to spend the rest of my life with. They are hard, the blue like soulless shards of ice, and I recoil, dropping to the sofa in a bid to create space.
“People like us don’t get the luxury to fall in love with whomever we choose. We marry for status and power to improve our social standing. A hand-selected partnership, if you will. My mother and father were set up long before they even met. As were my grandparents. Morgana, even your parents met at a function that I can only describe as abride-finding-ball. I don’t understand why you look like this is brand new information. Your mother said she explained all this to you?”
“She…”
But then it hits me. What she said the day she threatened Teddy.But I know my place and sense of duty, Morgana, and so should you. We are there to make sure our men succeed.How did I not see this relationship for what it is? I had been so consumed with grief and guilt over the way I ended things with Teddy, that instead of seeing the red flags, I thought Richard being there for me was out of friendship and then it evolved into something romantic. I am so pathetically dumb.
“God, my mom always did think I was a naïve little girl,” I mutter, clutching my stomach as I feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under me. Which is stupid, since she told me what was expected of me, but I didn’t listen.
“What was that?” he huffs.
“I can’t do this,” I murmur before lifting my chin high and feigning a confidence I do not feel in the slightest. Louder, I repeat, “I can’t do this, Richard. Teddy’s right, I need to start standing up for myself. I don’t want to be a‘yes girl’for the rest of my life. Icheatedand you find that to be nothing but a “blip” in your life plan, one you can hide under the rug and forget. If you loved me, you would never be able to forgive me. Instead, you want to make sure I’m not carrying any diseases.”
He frowns. “I’m not exactly thrilled…”
“And you’re not exactly upset about it either. God, I’ve been feeling so guilty over what I did, so scared I was breaking your heart…” I pause. “Why do you want to still be with me? You’re already working closely with my dad. You’re well-respected in our community. I add nothing extra.”
“You’re the future Governor’s daughter. You’re smart, you’re nice company to be around, attractive…”
“But they aren’t qualities to base a marriage on,” I say, jumping to my feet and tugging at my hair as years of pent-up frustration roils and bubbles, and I can’t stop. “The moment I said yes to your proposal, you’ve been nothing but demanding. First, it was your idea for me to stop working as soon as we were married so we can start having a family…”
“Because you always said you wanted kids?”
“Did I? We never had that conversation. I don’t even know if Iwantkids,” I say, my mouth ridiculously dry as I let everything that’s been festering come to the surface. “Then when this opportunity to lead an audit for a huge client came up, instead of supporting me, you asked if I was really the best candidate for the job.”
“I don’t think I said that, Morgana.”
I scoff, starting to pace as the restless fills my veins, begging me to move. Standing still is too hard.
“You did. And then my apartment. Not once did you ask if I wanted to sell it.Youdecided I would. Likeyoudecided I’ll be a stay-at-home mom. Likeyoudecided we’d get married in the country club. I hate the country club. Every single member is a snobby asshole who used to look down at my brother because he said he hated golf. He wasten, Richard.”
“Okay, so we don’t have to get married at the country club.”
“That’s not the point. For years, I’ve been saying yes to everyone when I know how unhappy it makes me. All I wanted when I was eighteen was to move to Phoenix with Teddy and go to business school. My mom let me have that one thing, in return for giving up Teddy, and every day since then, I’ve continued to let people take little bits of me to make themselves happy. Are you happy, Richard? Because I’m not. I was just too much of a coward to admit it.”
I blink and realize that Richard is staring at me, a pained expression on his face, and that’s when I see his eyes aren’t soulless. They are empty, tired, resigned. He drops to the couch and holds his head in his hands.
“You don’t want this,” I say, coming to the sofa and gently lowering myself next to him. He glances at me from the corner of his eye, and I reach over and take his hand in mine. “You don’t want me. Not really. We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to get married.”
He looks at me with so much regret I almost feel bad.
