“I was trying to figure out how to tell you?—”
“Figure out how to tell me?” She whirled to face me, and I could see the exact moment her composure cracked. “A month, Kelechi! A month of me falling deeper every single day while you sat there knowing exactly how this thing we have between us ends!”
“I didn’t know how to say it, Marley, please?—”
“Please, what? Please understand? Please forgive you for lying to my face every day for a month?” She was crying now, angry tears that made her eyes even greener. “I told you things I’ve never told anyone. I let you see me in ways no one else ever has. I trusted you!”
“I know?—”
“Do you? Do you know what you’ve done?” Her voice cracked. “I don’t let people in, ever. I keep things simple, keep people at arm’s length, keep my heart safe behind walls that took me years to build. But you…” She laughed bitterly. “You walked right through them as though they weren’t even there.”
“I never asked you to?—”
“No, you didn’t ask. You just smiled at me with those big beautiful eyes and made me want things I swore I’d never want. You made me believe in something I thought was impossible.” Her eyes burned into mine.
“What?”
“That love could be worth the risk.”
The words came out raw and broken, and it broke me.
“That maybe, for once in my life, I could have something real and lasting and good.”
I was sobbing now, but she wasn’t finished.
“I’ve been planning a future with you in my head,” she continued, her voice shaking with the effort of getting the words out. “Stupid, right? Planning trips, thinking about introducing you to my family, wondering if you’d want to move in together eventually. All while you were planning your wedding to someone else.”
“I never meant for this to happen?—”
“What? You never meant for me to fall for you?”
“No… I…”
“Well, congratulations. It happened anyway.” She took another drag, her hands still trembling. “Tell me about him.”
“What?”
“The groom. Tell me about this man you’re going to promise to love, honour, and have a happy ever after with.”
“I don’t want to talk about?—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you want right now.” Her voice was as hard as steel wrapped in velvet. “You owe me this much. Tell me about him.”
“His name is?—”
“I don’t want to fucking know what his name is,” she snapped. “All I want to know is, do you love him?”
The question was so quiet I almost missed it.
“I don’t?—”
“It’s a simple question, Princess. Do you love him?”
The endearment sliced through my skin.
“No.”
“Do you even know him?”
