1
Ilay next to her in bed and turned to look at the sleeping woman next to me.
Just a few hours before, I would have described her as my wife in my head, and I would have liked that. It might have seemed silly now, but just knowing she was my other half, that the two of us were bound in a sacrament that was deep and old and important, made me feel better. I had done a lot of things wrong in my life, that was for sure, but marrying Amaya was something I’d managed to do right. Even if I had only achieved that by stumbling ass-backward into a wedding while the two of us were too drunk to stand.
But since my lawyer had come by, I knew that wasn’t true. We had never gotten married. Well, we had gone through the motions and made like we had, but in fact, that marriage wasn’t valid thanks to the place we had gotten it from. They had been conducting illegal ceremonies for months and had long-since had their license stripped by the time we got to them, but they had gone through with our wedding for whatever reason. Now, the two of us were coming unstuck at the seams since it had come out.
I brushed a strand of hair back from her sleeping face, and she turned her back on me and faced the other side of the room with a little snuffling sound. I sighed. Even asleep, she didn’t seem to want to face up to what had happened. Not that I blamed her. This was hellacious, the worst thing that could have happened to the two of us. I had gone into this marriage because I needed someone to cover me with my family and get them off my back about settling down, and she had needed the cash I’d offered to stick around. It had been a perfect arrangement until it hadn’t been.
Maybe this was appropriate. After all, we had been conducting this fake marriage after a fake wedding. Everything about the relationship was fake, fake, fake, and realizing that stung deep down in my soul in a way I hadn’t expected it to. I wanted to lie down next to her, to pull her into my arms and keep her close to me, but that wasn’t how this worked. Now that we weren’t married, I had no idea what the rules were. Those gray areas we’d been exploiting together seemed to drip away, leaving the two of us with nothing but grief and hurt for what might have been.
I had no idea how she was able to sleep at a time like this. I felt as though my eyes had been peeled open, and they were never going to close again. As soon as the lawyer had finished up and gone, I had turned to her, eyes wide. Before I could so much as say a word, she had ducked into a long shower and left me by myself. I waited for her in bed, but as soon as she emerged, she draped herself in her nightgown, slipped beneath the sheets, and closed her eyes, letting me know without words that she wasn’t going to talk about this no way, no how. She had been faking sleep at first, I could tell that, but now her chest was rising and falling steadily, and I was jealous she had been able to let go enough to get some rest. It was already close to morning, and the most I had managed was some fevered half-sleep. I turned my gaze to the window where the sun was beginning to creep in opposite me, and normally, it’s brightness would have soothed me a little. Today, it was a glare, a torch turned on the dark truth behind the two of us that I had never wanted to come out.
What happened now? That was what had been running through my head over and over again since I had found out the news. Did we break up? The contract that had been keeping her here had to be null and void now that it had turned out we weren’t even married. That wasn’t even taking into consideration what she wanted now that things had begun to move between us. Because we hadn’t kept this strictly platonic, despite efforts on both our parts to do just that. Just a few weeks ago, Amaya had told me she loved me and packed her stuff to leave. I’d managed to coax her back, but in doing so, I had found myself falling for all the things about her I had tried to ignore for so long. Her sweetness, her kindness, her sense of humor, how humble she was, how smart. How good she looked in a dress. It had been all too easy to slide into these feelings for her when she was around all the time, and the two of us had picked up where we’d left off with our physical relationship. Even now, lying in bed next to her, I found myself wanting to wake her with a kiss, to guide her on top of me and forget any of this had ever happened.
But I wasn’t sure she would want me to lay so much as a finger on her now that we weren’t married. Perhaps she would cut that all off and leave. But we were so entangled in one another now, emotionally, physically, financially, and familially. Both our families had met and promptly formed bonds with each other, and to cut them off from that now seemed unnecessarily cruel. Or maybe I was just looking for reasons to keep her around. I glanced down at the ring on her finger, the glowing gem I’d purchased for her just a week before reminding me of how sure I’d felt of her and of us, and my stomach churned. I tossed the covers back and climbed out of bed. I was doing no good sitting around here and brooding. I needed to get myself a coffee, and then perhaps I could work out what it was I needed to say to her.
Because I wanted her to stay. That was what all of this had been about, really. The ring, the contract, the money—whether or not I would have admitted it to myself, I wanted nothing more than for this woman to become a part of my life. Would I have married her so soon? No, and in fact, if it hadn’t been for the wedding, I likely would have run screaming in the opposite direction from the thought of commitment with a woman like her. But she was here, and I had fallen for her, and the thought of her slipping through my fingers because of some stupid mistake somebody else had made was enough to make me want to yell in frustration.
I headed through to the kitchen to make myself a coffee and wait for her to wake up. I needed something to brighten my senses, take the edge off that lack of sleep, and hopefully, by the time she came down, I would know what I needed to say to her.
An hour later, I hadn’t moved an inch except to pour myself two more pots of coffee. I was getting jittery, and I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t. I just needed something to keep me going. I felt as though I was rooted through the floor, but all this excitable energy was shivering through my system as I waited for her to wake up and come to the kitchen to find me. She couldn’t sleep through all of this, no matter how hard she tried. Some part of me wanted to remain in a state of stasis as well, but this wasn’t how it worked. We didn’t get to escape from the truth that easily. I set my mouth in a hard line and waited for her to come out, and finally, I heard her footsteps and she emerged.
“Hey,” she greeted me, her voice tiny as she just stood there for a long moment. And for that moment, I felt as though my brain had been rendered mute by everything I needed to say to her. Feelings were yelling over the top of one another, filling my head till it hurt to think, and I looked down at my coffee and cursed the caffeine for this.
“You want a coffee?” I finally offered her, and she nodded. I carefully poured her a small cup. She took a long sip and closed her eyes, savoring it as though it might be the last time she ever tasted it. Which I supposed it might if this marriage thing really was over and she was done with me. My heart picked up the pace again at the thought, and I glared down at my hands, willing myself to say something, do something to keep her here.
But nothing was forthcoming. I had spent so long hiding from love that when it appeared right in front of me, I had no idea how to ask it to stick around, and now I was paying for that. She was staring at me, waiting for me to come out with something, and I was just standing there in the middle of the kitchen like a dumbstruck idiot with nothing to say to her.
Finally, I reached out for her and pulled her into my arms. She didn’t protest for a moment. In fact, she seemed to step into my embrace with something close to relief like this was what she had been waiting for this entire time. I closed my eyes and pressed my face into her hair, inhaling the sweet, familiar scent of her, willing myself to say something now that I had her here. But my brain was still empty. I held her tight, cradled her familiar body in my arms, and hoped that everything I needed to say was coming through in the way I was holding her. We had been through so much, the two of us, and I needed her to stay. Facing up to this alone was hellish even in theory, and I wanted her by my side to do it, no matter how crazy it seemed. I could feel her ring on the back of my neck, the symbol of a bond that had never existed, and I closed my eyes and focused on her here with me. She wasn’t leaving. Not yet, at least.
When she pulled back, I reluctantly unwound my arms from her and looked her in the eyes. I could see that hers were glassy with tears, and knowing she was hurt made my chest ache. She stared at me for a long moment and finally spoke.
“Can we keep your family away for a while?” she asked softly. I knew at once what was going through her mind. This shock had been heavy enough that it would be hard not to let it show in front of the people who knew us best. I nodded.
“Anything you want,” I promised her, and I pushed that same stray strand of hair back behind her ear once more. She leaned into my chest, and I held her close. What the hell were we going to do once the truth was out?