No. That isn’t how things are going to operate around here. I can be patient all day, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to insert myself into his life. It can be a loveless marriage, but it will not be a companionless marriage.
“Janice, could you return the tray and food to the kitchen? I’ll take my meal there.”
Janice nods, but I don’t miss the upward pull of the corner of her lip.
I march out of the room on Janice’s heels and stalk forward toward Darcy’s office—a place in this house I’ve been many times—instead of the kitchen. After winding hallways come to a halt, I stand outside his office door. I twist the knob before I talk myself out of standing my ground with the man who gives me whiplash.
He’s mid-chopsticks to mouth when I barge through the door.
The noodles plunk back into the bowl, splashing the soup broth onto him and the desk. Darcy hisses a curse before rolling his chair away from his desk.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” His tone and false smile indicate this encounter is nothing close to pleasurable for him. He yanks a tissue from the wooden box on his organized desk and dabs at the splashes covering his face and white button up.
“I was under the presumption that we would eat ramen together.” I cross my arms, only feeling a wee bit bad about the soup on his shirt. He has plenty of other button-ups to choose from.
“You were incorrect.”
He begins wiping soup splashes from his desk, and I notice the way his sleeves are rolled and cuffed on his forearms. My eyes are drawn to his flexing muscles as he wipes the desk, but then I deflect my eyes because I don’t need those muscles burned into my brain when this marriage is a sham.
My fists clench, and I drop my arms and anchor my fists into my hips. “Look. We need to set ground rules for living together. Rules that are not outlined in the contract. Basic human decency rules.”
Darcy mutters under his breath and tosses the tissue in the nearby trash can. He turns to me, and we engage in a battle of the silent game. The darts we fire through our gazes speak volumes.
Finally, he breaks the intense silence, scrunching his brows together as if the words on his tongue taste sour. “You live here. During non-working hours, you stay on your side of the house and I will stay on mine. We will eat at separate times or at least in separate locations. For no reason should we enter each other’sbedroom or use the other’s bathroom.” He pauses, then adds, “We will be like two ghosts in the night who never meet.”
Somewhere through his statement, my hands fall to my side. Sadness grips my heart at his words, and I can’t decide if it’s because of the twinge of loneliness in his voice or if it’s because I don’t want to live like a ghost in my dwelling place. Nor do I want to live with a ghost.
“You met me in the aisle,” I blurt. Realizing too late I can’t take the words back, I drop my eyes to my feet and chew on the inside of my cheek. The new silence in the room settles in awkwardly, and I want to bolt. I was so vulnerable walking down the aisle alone. He heard the rescue call in my heart and saw the pleading in my eyes. No man has ever read me like that before, and I thought… I just thought… “Never mind.”
I turn to rush out of the room, vaguely hearing the scrape of a chair behind me, but before I make it through the door, he grabs my wrist, and I freeze.
Different anime scenes float through my mind of the man grabbing the woman’s wrist as she tries to walk away from him. My heart always fluttered, but I never thought it was something men did in real life.
No, in real life, they let you walk away.
But Darcy isn’t letting me go. And I can’t bring myself to turn around.
“Trust,” he says in a low tone. He clears his throat. “I trust you to be by my side in the capacity that I need you to be. And you,” he clears his throat again, “you can trust me to be by your side.”
“Then eat ramen with me tonight. And have dinner with me every night moving forward.” Should I tell him the meaning of that statement in Asian countries? It is our wedding night. I fight the urge to laugh hysterically at the absurdity of this entire situation.How did I end up here, God? Is this what you want?I once again question His will, though admittedly, there is a peace within my soul.
Another heavy silence hovers over us. But then he releases my wrist and nods. “Okay.”
Chapter Sixteen
Darcy
“On Wednesdays, we wear pink. I’ve told you this a thousand times, Mr. Marshall.”
I pull the edges of my pants up to reveal pink socks. “I didn’t forget, Keisha.”
The fourteen-year-old rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, and I think my wife, when she was young, might have resembled this girl.
My wife. How does that phrase sail across my thoughts so smoothly now?
“It needs to be visible at all times. Here, I have a pink scrunchie you can wear around your wrist today.” Keisha yanks my hand and drags me up the steps of the group home and into the common area. She’s a force for a short, scrawny teen. “Wait here.”
I do as I’m told because if I’ve learned one thing during my time volunteering here, it’s that these young adults are always right and you better listen to every word they say and complete every task they ask of you.
