The Vow

Chapter 14

Mo

Of course Annie doesn’t call me back. It’s fine, whatever, I don’t care. Why would I want my fiancée checking up on me during my bachelor party, anyway?

Bachelor party. Ha.

I’m not sure what I would call my evening, but it’s not a party. I don’t get drunk. I don’t get a tattoo or a lap dance or anything significant to celebrate my exit from bachelordom, which is fitting since I’m not really leaving it anyway.

Here’s a breakdown of the night’s lameness. Guest list: me and Sarina. Festivities: helping pack Sarina’s china doll collection in bubble wrap, while listening to her try to convince herself she’s happy for me. Menu: Tropical Skittles and teriyaki beef jerky (the latter of which Sarina refused to eat even though we’ve never kept Halal.) Playlist: every song Taylor Swift ever sang.

Definitely not a bachelor party. If Bryce wasn’t off riding ponies in Argentina, the two of us could at least try to sneak into a strip club. Not that I could tell him about getting married, but he’d probably go along without a reason, and it would at least be something. Maybe I’d be too distracted to feel like a traitor.

It’s not like Dad doesn’t deserve a backstabbing. He did it to me first. I shouldn’t be feeling guilty for going behind his back when he’s the one screwing us all over like it’s nothing. Like we’re nothing. At Mom’s insistence, I’m faking it well, acting just as shell-shocked and dejected as before so he doesn’t think something’s up. What a joke. He wouldn’t notice if I was high as a kite.

Mom should be more worried about her own acting skills. She’s stopped crying and gazing off into nothing and is actually packing. She almost seems happy, which is crazy because at some point we’re going to have to tell him what we’ve done. I can’t even imagine what he’s going to do. He doesn’t have much of a temper, but as far as I know, Mom’s never done anything so deceptive or brave in her entire life. But she’s clearly not thinking about what he’s going to do or say when we tell him. Or maybe she is and that’s what’s making her happy. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.

After the so-called bachelor party, I lie in bed and wonder if I’ll be able to do it. Not get married—though that’ll be weird enough—but watch Sarina get on a plane in a week wearing her feeble, optimistic smile. Why does she have to be so irrationally hopeful?

She cried when she found out I’m not going back too. I rub my eyes, trying to force the memory back down, but I don’t think it will ever be very deep. She couldn’t have just thrown a tantrum like a normal teenage girl, or even pulled a Mom and sobbed inconsolably. No, she had to sit there with her hands over her mouth and cry without making a single sound.

“I’ll visit,” I said. Lame, but the only thing I could come up with in that moment of unadulterated self-loathing. How could I be so happy about abandoning her?

She took her hands away from her mouth. “When?”

I had no clue. Still have no clue. “I won’t be able to leave the country while they’re processing my documents, and that can take a little while,” I said.

She nodded, believing me, not because I had any idea what I was talking about but because she always believes me. And as soon as I could, I slunk out to go shoot hoops. Shoot hoops. Because I’m heartless and I’m staying and basketball matters again.

By evening, when Sarina came out with china dolls and packing boxes, the tears were gone, replaced by the eerily positive glow.

Now, lying in bed, I realize it’s not that I can’t handle the crying or the hopeful glazed-over look. It’s that both are the wrong things to be feeling. Sadness—that’s for victims, and I don’t want her to be one. And optimism—in this case, that’s for idiots.

She should be severely pissed off. I need her to recognize the injustice of what’s happening to her, because I did nothing to earn redemption and she definitely did nothing to deserve what she’s getting. I’d feel so much better if she was raging like a lunatic, ripping pillows open or flailing around or kicking her evil little cat.

I roll onto my side, stare out my window into the Dubrowski backyard. Now that Mom’s stopped crying, our house is silent. So weird.

My stomach hurts. Puking is a very real possibility tonight. I blame Sarina for providing the Skittles—everyone knows beef jerky is a stand-alone.

I swing my legs out of bed and reach for my phone, on the off chance I missed Annie’s call. Nope. Whatever. I lie back down. She’s probably with that Reed guy from work, or whoever she’s been so giddy and secretive about lately. Like I’d care that she’s having a summer fling with custard boy.

I lie back down. If I wasn’t such a coward I’d be having a summer fling of my own. Why aren’t I at least trying with Maya? I’ve been given time. A chance. She might not flat-out reject me. She can’t possibly be happy with Chase, and what’s the worst thing that could happen? I mull the idea over as I glide closer to sleep, my thoughts becoming weirder and weirder until I’m not lying in bed. I’m with Maya, and we’re standing at the airport security line, and it doesn’t matter that I know I’m dreaming, because I’m holding her hand, trying to convince her to come back to Jordan with me, but I’m distracted because her entire face and body are hidden beneath a burqa, which even in my dream, is a tragedy, and then it’s all a dense, dreamless nothing.

Until the world explodes.

I sit up, gasping for breath, squirming under assaulting sunlight. The curtain. Why is it open? The explosion happens again. But it’s not an explosion; it’s a fist pounding on my brain. No, my desk.

“Mo. Wake up.” Dad’s voice is incredibly loud, but otherwise the usual audio equivalent of gravy—heavy, humorless. He rips open the other curtain.

“I’m awake,” I mutter, jamming my palms into my eye sockets.

“We’ve got work to do.”

“Uh, work?” I force my eyes open again, just long enough for sunshine to burn my retinas. In that second, his figure registers. He’s at the foot of my bed, already dressed in the usual Don’t screw with me, I’m smarter than you outfit he’s chosen as his life’s uniform: short-sleeved dress shirt, navy pants, and pocket protector. Never without the pocket protector.

Arms folded and every muscle in his body pulled tauter than a guitar string, he’s bigger than the sum of his parts. He’s not a tank like Annie’s dad, and I’m two inches taller than him, but he’s got something inside him that trumps height and heft. Intensity, I guess. It’s scary, and kind of awesome.

“It’s seven thirty,” he says.

“I’m up.”

“You’re lying in bed with your eyes closed.”

I pull myself out and force myself to look through the streaming light, directly at him. He looks off. Yellowish bags have formed under his eyes, and the pocket protector is suspiciously crooked. And he’s not, I realize now, talking all that loudly. It just felt that way at first. “Sorry, what am I supposed to be doing?”

“Helping me take the extra furniture in the guest room out to the shed before the real-estate agent gets here. Packed boxes have to go out too.”

I rub my eyes.

“For the showing.”

“Right,” I say, like this isn’t the first I’ve heard of a showing. I didn’t even realize they had a real-estate agent, though I guess that makes sense. The only thing on my radar for the morning was sneaking off to get married. “How long will it take? I thought you were going into Louisville.”

“I am, assuming you can make time in your busy schedule to help with the furniture. Or do you have something more important happening this morning you’d like to tell me about?”

My head snaps up. The grogginess is gone, and I’m more awake than I’ve been in days. “No, sir.”

He waits. He knows. Mom broke. She chickened out and told him, and now all hell’s about to break loose.

“Get up and help me then.” He leaves without another word.

I throw on shorts and a T-shirt, slightly encouraged. Maybe I’m not screwed after all. Except there was an emotional current beneath the words, and that’s not normal. He’s too logical to get emotional. Maybe he doesn’t know, but he’s obviously bugged.

It only takes an hour to haul a couch, a desk, and fourteen boxes down the stairs and through the backyard, and we spend most of that time cramming them into the shed. When we’re done he gives a satisfied nod and lets me go with instructions to make my room spotless.

Once it’s clean I call Annie. She picks up on the fourth ring.

“Hey,” she says.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. Oh wait, I think I’m getting married this morning. But besides that, nothing.”

“You sound oddly with-it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. You just sounded less with-it last night when I talked to you. You do remember us talking, right? And the part where you said you’d call me back, you remember that too?”

“Oh, sorry. I fell asleep.”

“Whatever.”

“Hey, what am I supposed to wear?” she asks.

“What?”

“What should I wear today?”

“Why . . . I don’t understand. Why would I care what you’re wearing?”

“I don’t know. I just thought—”

“Wait,” I say. “You’ve never cared what I thought about your clothes before.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I generally know what to wear, and you have no sense of style.”

“Thank you.”

“But to the courthouse, I mean.”

“Are you asking me if you’re supposed to wear a white dress?” It comes out a little more incredulous, more mocking, than I intended. But seriously.

“No, I just . . . maybe. I mean, is it supposed to look like we’re really getting married? I’ve never been to a courthouse wedding before.”

“The people who work at the courthouse don’t give a crap what you’re wearing. You don’t have to convince them of anything. I’m wearing cargo shorts and that Cap’n Crunch T-shirt.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I can tell she wants to say more, so I wait, but she doesn’t. Her weirdness is starting to freak me out, and I’m almost convinced the next words out of her mouth will be weepy apologies for not being able to do it, followed by guilty whimpering.

“My car or your mom’s?” she asks calmly.

And this is why I love her.

“I don’t mind driving,” she continues, “but I’ll need to stop for gas.”

I picture my mom as I last saw her: still in her pajamas, clutching her teacup, giving Dad the death glare as the two of us traipsed back and forth with boxes. “Yours. My mom’s a little keyed up this morning.”

“But she’s still on board?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“I’ll swing by in a half hour.”

I glance out the window and see my dad’s car backing out. “Perfect. Wait, is that enough time for you to squeeze into your Barbie Princess gown?”

“Shut up.”

“Bye.”

The knock at my door comes almost immediately. I open it to find Mom, fully dressed and made-up, gripping her purse in one hand and her keys in the other. The death glare from earlier has been replaced with something scarier, something frantic. It might be glee.

I step back so she can come in, but she stays in the hall.

“Ready?” she asks.

“Annie’s picking us up in a half hour.”

“Oh. Okay.” Her eyes travel from my freshly made bed to the desk. “Your room looks good.”

“Dad told me it had to be spotless for the showing.”

She narrows her eyes and presses her fingertips to her lips like she can hide what she’s thinking if the words don’t come out. Like it’s not obvious. She’s on the cusp of a tirade against Dad, and I should want to hear it—I should want to go on my own crazy rant—but already this us-against-him doesn’t feel right. Dad and I have always been on the same team.

She’s watching me. She knows what I’m thinking. “I’ll be downstairs,” she says finally, leaving me to wonder what the hell I’m doing to my family.

Our drive to Taylorsville is disconcertingly pleasant. Or it is for Mom and Annie. They chitchat about Annie’s mom’s garden, the humidity, Annie’s sundress, their favorite Mr. Twister flavors—like they’re friends (which they’re not), and like we’re doing lunch and not a secret teenage wedding. Like we aren’t lying to Dad and Annie’s parents and the whole world.

The conversation is too mind-numbing, so I devote my attention to fiddling with the fancy backseat temperature controls instead. There’s only so much I can do with those, though, so I move on to messing with the windows, which are much more entertaining. I’m trying to get both right and left sides to stop exactly halfway at exactly the same time, the right coming from the top and the left coming from the bottom, when Annie tells me to knock it off and presses the child lock button.

I spend the rest of the drive staring out the window. This does nothing for the anxiety vibrating from my bones outward, and by the time we roll into Taylorsville I’m about to explode. Maybe it’s stupid to be so nervous for something that isn’t even real, but the lies will be real. They already are. There’s a hint of a smile on Mom’s face even though Annie isn’t saying anything funny, and I see now I was wrong about her seeming happy. She seems satisfied. Like she’s gloating. Because of me.

Taylorsville is an armpit—significantly smaller than E-town and smellier too, thanks to the slaughterhouse. It isn’t hard to find the courthouse.

“Mom, do you mind if I just talk with Annie for a minute?” I ask as Annie pulls into a parking spot.

“Not at all.” She turns and stares hard at me, her eyes saying unequivocally that I am not to screw this up by talking Annie out of it. Accidentally or on purpose. “I’ll be inside.”

We watch her walk up the sidewalk and disappear into the orange brick building before either of us says a word.

“You okay?” she asks.

“I think so. You?”

“Yeah.”

The courthouse looks like it’s burning under the morning sun. The flame-orange shimmer of hot brick forces me to look away. “Why are you still going through with this?”

She’s silent, and I contemplate punching myself in the face. If she backs out now I’m going to…I don’t even know what. Slash Chase Dunkirk’s tires. Set fire to the school. Kick a hole in every wall in my house on my way out.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says, opens her door, and climbs out.

“Seriously. Why?”

“Because I can’t let bad things happen to you, Mo. Now quit being such a pantywaist and marry me.”

She opens my door, and I look down in time to see her rolling her eyes. I’m so relieved. She isn’t cowering. She won’t break.

“Pantywaist?” I ask. “What are you, seventy?”

“Stop stalling.”

“I feel like I might throw up,” I say as I get out.

“Would this be a good time to tell you I’m not a virgin?”

“Would this be a good time to tell you I’m in love with Maya?”

“Finally!” she says, and grabs my arm, pulling me toward the building. “Only took you four years to admit it. So prewedding confessions are out of the way. Let’s do this.”

“I really think I might be getting the stomach flu.”

She ignores me. “This is weird, but right at this second, I feel . . .” She pauses, squinting at me through the blinding sun. “I feel like this is right. You know?”

“No. Not at all. I’m about to piss my pants. I believe you remember the last time that happened, and they may or may not have black sweatpants in my size at the lost and found here.”

We’re almost there. Mom’s holding the door open for us, and Annie still has her arm linked through mine. At the last second I feel her fingers tighten around my biceps, like she’s finally afraid of whatever we’re getting ourselves into. Or maybe she’s just excited. Maybe both.