twenty-one
FRANCESCA
Wedding Eve
Iwake before the sun is up. Jackson is snoring lightly beside me. My nerves keep me from lying in bed, so I quietly roll out from under his arm and head to the bathroom.
Tomorrow is it. Tomorrow I will no longer be a Casanova and instead I will be Francesca Marie Gage. Mrs. Gage. I smile to myself in the mirror.
“Mrs. Gage.”
“Mrs. Francesca Gage.”
“Chess Gage.”
“Love of my life.”
“Gah!” I jump a mile. I’ve got to stop losing myself in the mirror.
Jackson chuckles, strutting in behind me, circling my waist with his arms. “Sorry, babe, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Jesus! Well, you did.” My heart slows down to a much more normal speed.
“I should have just kept watching you, that was cute.”
My face flaming, I turn and bury myself into his chest. “I hope I didn’t wake you. It’s early still.”
“You know me, I don’t sleep past sunrise.” He watches me then asks quietly, “So, are you ready?”
I take a breath and lean back so I can look into his eyes. “I think so. You?”
“Absolutely.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Francesca. How can I not?”
I shrug. “Aren’t you scared?”
“Of what?”
When I don’t answer, he continues. “Baby, I know you’ve been stressed putting this wedding together. I’m praying that it’s the emotion of doing it so fast and not because—”
“I’m afraid I won’t be good enough for you.” I basically yell it in his face, I’m so anxious to actually speak the words out loud. It’s been bottled up inside me for weeks, months even if I’m being honest with myself.
His eyes soften and his hold tightens. “Baby girl-“
“No. Let me get this out.” I take a deep breath prepping myself. “I don’t know how to be a wife. I mean, I guess it’s like what we’ve been doing for the last year but after tomorrow it will be official. You won’t be able to get away from me easily after that. And I know I’ve been crazy these last few weeks with planning and why would you want to be around a crazy person and then that only made me more insecure that you will leave me and that if I can’t handle a little pressure for a couple weeks then how can I handle the big stuff?” I cry out and with every word that falls from my mouth, my heart racesan extra beat.
“What big stuff? What do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know! That’s the problem! I mean, what if you get a job offer and want to move from here? What about when we have kids?” My eyes widen realizing it’s not something we’ve ever talked about. “Oh my God, Jackson, you do want kids, right? Why have we never talked about all this little stuff that adds up and could evolve into big stuff that has a chance to break us?” I cry out in one breath, again, spiraling into the dark place that I’ve been sitting in for weeks.
“Che—“
“I even went and talked to my mom because I felt like I was screwing up before we even got to say the words.”
“And what did she say?” he asks quietly, rubbing my back, trying to soothe me.
