“You researched romantic comedies?”
“I wanted to choose correctly.”
The movie was exactly the kind of predictable, heartwarming nonsense I loved. Katherine Heigl collecting bridesmaid dresses.James Marsden being charming. The inevitable conflict and reconciliation.
Caelan had opinions.
“Why doesn’t he just tell him?” he demanded twenty minutes in. “He clearly has feelings. This is inefficient.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Why not?”
“Because then there wouldn’t be a movie.”
“But he’s wasting time. They could be together right now if he just said what he felt.”
“Caelan. Suspension of disbelief.”
He grumbled but kept watching. When the sister drama unfolded, the betrayal and the hurt, he actually looked distressed.
“Family shouldn’t treat each other that way,” he said quietly.
“No. They shouldn’t.”
During the wedding scenes, all those dresses, all that hope, he turned to me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“Do you want this?” he asked.
“Want what?”
“Marriage.” He gestured at the screen. “The dresses, the ceremony, the... all of it. Is this what you wish for?”
The question caught me off guard. No one had ever asked me that. Not seriously, like they actually cared about the answer.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I used to think so. When I was younger. Before...”
Before Damien. Before I learned that loving someone could mean losing yourself.
“And now?”
“Now I think it depends on the person.” I looked at him. “With the right one, yes. I’d want all of it. But only if it was real. Only if it mattered.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes searching my face.
“It would matter,” he said finally. “With the right person. It would mean everything.”
There was weight in his words. Promise. The kind that made my heart race.
The movie continued. The inevitable “dark moment” happened, the misunderstanding that tore the couple apart, and Caelan looked genuinely upset.
“She’s going to forgive him,” I assured him. “It’s a romcom.”
“But he lied to her.”
“He had reasons.”
“Lies are still lies.” His voice was strange, weighted. “Even with reasons.”
