Page 60 of Won't Let Go
For a few more minutes, my brothers keep on giving me shit, just as I expect them to. Once they’re done, we finish church, andI race to prepare a slapdash wedding to the woman who’s always been mine.
21
JADE
Sittingin Kit’s living room—well, Gunz’s house—their house? Whatever you wanna call it—I sit quietly in an oversized pair of blue sweats from Bulk, Jez’s old man, as the sisters sip tea and spill tea about our current lockdown situation. Thankfully, they don’t pry me for details about what happened yesterday.
Loretta’s on the couch beside me, only half paying attention to them.
She pats me on the knee. “You good?”
Offering her a tight smile, I nod and lift my mug of warm green tea to my lips. Her frown says she doesn’t believe me, and honestly, I don’t care. When Bink and the sisters came by Josh’s bedroom and all but dragged me out, I haven’t said much. What is there to say?
Except that I’m engaged.
Josh wants to marry me today.
That… I think I’m in love with him.
Oh. Ya know, the typical stuff that I never, in a million years, thought would happen, much less planned to talk about in a group of boisterous sisters.
The front door bursts open, and in struts Jez, with the world’s biggest smile on her face. Everyone quits talking and turns to her. Draped over her arm is a black and red dress. She holds it up for everyone to see, and those sharp eyes of hers cut to me.
“Looks like someone forgot to tell us she’s getting married today.”
Shit.
Okay.
Yep.
This is happening.
Someone let the cat outta the bag.
Bink’s blonde head whips around so fast I’m surprised she doesn’t twist her head straight off. “Jade. What? Holy shit.” She dances on the balls of her feet as a dozen eyes land on me.
Loretta pries my mug from my hands, as I just now realize I’m squeezing so hard, I may Hulk-crush it. Reaching across me, she sets it on the end table, beside a bowl of Dum Dum suckers, then steals my hand and raises it in the air. The hand with the ring. Josh’s ring. My engagement ring.
The whole house bursts into chaotic excitement, and I shrink into myself, growing smaller by the second.
Air saws in and out of my lungs as these beautiful souls congratulate me and toss a million questions in my direction all at once. Their smiles are bright and carefree as I squirm in my seat, unable to speak, as they fawn over my ring, Josh, and our impending nuptials. Before I realize what’s happening, the tears come. My bottom lip wobbles, and everything inside coils tighter and tighter as the world shrivels. Male voices whisper in my head. Loretta’s fingers turn into theirs. Bink’s mouth morphsinto a lecherous grin on a different person’s face—one with a goatee and dark, hate-filled eyes.
I can’t do this.
It’s too much.
Too loud.
Covering my ears, I squeeze my eyes shut and hope it stops. I wish I could be normal. That I didn’t have to live with this. That I could be the old me. Not this person. Not broken. Not overwhelmed by noise and people and… everything.
Ugliness ravages me, drowning the good.
Drowning them. My friends. My sisters. The women I wish I could be better for.
Their words try to penetrate as I rock on the couch, waiting, wishing, hoping for the world to stop spinning. But it doesn’t. His breath touches my neck, and I retch. A finger on my thigh has me twisting away.
I’m sorry.
