His jaw flexes as he goes to say something but stops himself, considers, and then says, “I would wait as long as it takes, but I’d still be a fool for putting myself through that kind of torture. I don’t enjoy waiting for something I want.”
“So, you’re just impatient,” I surmise flippantly, overtaking him across the floor.
“It’s not impatience. It’s practicality. If the opportunity arrives and you don’t take it, you could lose it. Gambling with that is risky.” He meets my eye. “Waiting for the stars to align perfectly could leave you with nothing.”
Leaning closer to him until our shoulders brush, I ask, “So you’ve experienced this sort of thing before?” I cock an eyebrow.
“Something like it.” He licks his bottom lip, eyes fixed on an iron statue of two naked bodies entwined. “It didn’t work out.”
Before I can ask a follow-up question the tour guide encourages us toward the next section of the gallery, which is filled with dramatic sculptures. We rejoin the group and collectively shuffle with them. I pretend to look enthusiastically at the pieces of stone, glass and metal.
“Is that what you had with your ex? A ‘grand love story?’” he asks, interrupting my processing of the weird, twisted shapes in front of us.
“I thought so, but then I was unceremoniously, post-ceremoniously dumped.” He crinkles his brow in question, so I translate, “He broke up with me at my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party.”
“Yeah, I heard... It was just before Christmas, right?”
The night at the Christmas party and the days that followed fill the space between us.
He clears his throat. “You never actually told me what happened.”
It’s not quite a question, more of a lingering statement of unfinished business between us. We’re playing conversational chicken, daring each other to pull back, to be the first to shy away from the oncoming trucks carrying our emotional loads. I take in his expression, the sharp curve of his tense jaw as he waits to see how much of myself I’m willing to reveal. I take a deep breath, and start speaking.
“He proposed in the middle of my parents’ party, in front of a hundred guests, got on the microphone and everything.”
The air around us shifts as Bancroft’s gaze grows more intense, as though he’s trying to make out the blurry memories as they replay in my mind.
“I had just finished the speech I’d been nervous about for days. About my parents, their love for each other and how true love is never really knocked off course.” I sigh. “I made people laugh in the right places, tear up a little bit, and I even had a whole slideshow packed with pictures of them from over the years. I was done andeveryone was clapping. I felt like I could finally relax and enjoy the party. Only, William caught my hand, taking the mic from me—”
The gallery falls away, and I’m back on the raised platform with everyone staring up at me, smiling, sobbing, clapping. My parents were in the center of the room, wrapped around each other with such happy grins. My dad’s expression was filled with pride; my mum was dabbing at her eyes.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, guys,” William said with a wide, cheesy grin. “I’m just so happy to be here with you all and celebrating this inspiring occasion. Diane and Emmett, you have what any person wants: a teammate, reliability, someone to come home to after long, hard days at work. I only hope in thirty years’ time that I have that with your daughter.”
A chorus of empathetic noises echoed around the room as he continues, “Which is why I can’t wait any longer.”
He sank to one knee and looked up at me with hope shining in his eyes.
“Gracie, will you marry me?”
Every eye in the place was on me, but now waiting with bated breath; the warm atmosphere dissipates. I stood completely still, beetroot-red and wide-eyed. A nervous laugh from somewhere in my throat escaped me, and I pressed a hand to my chest where my heart was thudding so hard it threatened to burst through my rib cage. Before I could even register it happening,William hugged me and turned my face away from the crowd as the clapping and whoops began, shouting that I said yes.
“Did you?” Bancroft’s voice beside me makes me jump; I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“Did I what?”
“Say yes?”
“No!” I say firmly. “There was no ring, no discussion, no planning. He made this huge decision for the both of us in the moment, then held a gun loaded with societal expectation to my head, ensuring I said yes.”
Fury wells inside me as I remember how I wanted to leave, to have time to process, to think about my answer. Instead, I got bombarded with more questions. When would we be getting married? Where? What kind of wedding did we want? Could they come to the wedding? I hadn’t had time to even think about planning a wedding and all of a sudden I was discussing which of my cousin’s children would be my flower girl and what our firstborn son’s middle name would be. I couldn’t wrap my head around why he had done it there without discussing it with me first, or warning me. He knew I hated surprises, let alone a surprise life-altering decision made in front of my friends and family. A decision that would’ve ruined my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party they’d spent ages planning and spent so much money throwing had I not agreed to it.
“When we got back to my parents’ house after the party I confronted him about why he’d done it in sucha public way, especially when we’d barely discussed the idea of getting married.” I chew my bottom lip. “He got annoyed, completely disregarded my questions and said I’d have time to figure out the wedding and plans for our future myself because now we were engaged I could quit my job and we could start a family.”
Bancroft’s brow scrunches in disbelief as his head whips to me. “What?”
“That’s what I said! He suddenly declared that me ‘running around the city playing career woman’ was a deal-breaker for him. I don’t know how he did it, but he turned the whole thing around on me. When I refused to bend he dumped me and told me to move out ofhisapartment.”
It was a flat he’d purchased when we moved to London together but he had always claimed it was mine too. His first job in the city earned him triple my intern salary, but I spent time, energy and the little money I had making it into our home. Then he kicked me out the moment I didn’t fit into his plans.
