“My parents are still married and in love. Just because your parents didn’t make it doesn’t mean that we can’t.”
I heard what she was saying but the doubt still had hold of my mind.
“I can’t,” I managed to say around the lump in my throat. “I can’t marry ye, Noah. We’re still kids, we have years to get married. Can’t we just stay as we are right now?”
She stepped back from me as tears fell down her cheeks. I reached for her but she recoiled from me, so I let my arm drop numbly back to my side. I didn’t know what to do. In the seven years we’d been together we had never encountered anything like this. We fought, and I’d had to sleep on the sofa a few times, but she’d never packed a bag to get away from me.
“Why isn’t it enough to just be with me?” I asked, clenching my hands into fists. “Why do we hav’te get married?”
“Because I want to be your wife,” she screamed, her voice suddenly a little hoarse. “I wanted to stand in front of our friends and family and choose you before God as my one. It’s important to me . . . I’ve dreamed of marrying you for years, Elliot. You know I have!”
I rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands when they began to sting with tears.
“I can’t give ye that right now, Noah. Maybe in the future I can.”
“Can you say that for certain?”
“I . . . I . . . No.” I swallowed. “I can’t say for certain that me feelings about it will change.”
Her lower lip wobbled, her tears coming fast and furious.
“Then that’s it,” she said on a choked sob. “That’s it. There’s nothing more to say.”
I wanted to go to her, to comfort her and make her tears stop, but I couldn’t. I had to make her understand that I couldn’t relent on this issue; she didn’t understand that I was terrified of getting married. The practice felt jinxed to me now.
“I love you,” I stressed to her. “I love ye with everythin’ in me, Noah. Why isn’t that enough for ye?”
“Everything about you is enough for me, it always has been and it always will be, but you’re only saying all of this because you’re scared.”
“Yeah,” I snapped. “I’m fuckin’ scared. Me parents have been together for thirty years and married for twenty. I told ye when we got together that I wanted a love like theirs, and now that love is dead. Me da said everythin’ went wrong when they got married. I don’t want anythin’ to go wrong for us . . . why can’t we just stay as we are?”
“Because I want all of you. Your heart, your last name, your kids. All of it, and I won’t settle for less. I love you, God knows I do, but I’ll not settle for less.”
She grabbed her packed bag and hung the strap over her shoulder.
“We’re done, Elliot.”
“Done?” I said as the ground fell away beneath my feet. “Just like that, Noah? Seven years together and we’re fuckin’ done?”
She lifted her chin. “I won’t settle for less . . . we’re done.”
I stared in disbelief as she walked right by me.
“Fine,” I shouted after her, suddenly furious with her for not even trying to see things from my point of view. “Leave, Noah. See if I give a fuck!”
The only thing that answered me was the slam of the front door. The silence that followed was almost deafening. I stumbled, the backs of my knees hitting the bed, and I dropped into a seated position and stared at the floor. My head fell into my hands, and I tried to breathe normally. I heard the kitchen door opening, then footsteps followed by a long sigh.
“Eli, I’m sor—”
“She’ll be back.” I cut him off with a shake of my head before he could say anything further. “She didn’t mean what she said, she’s just upset with me.”
I looked up at him. AJ stared at me – then, as if on autopilot, he crossed the room and held out a hand that gripped an unopened can of cider. I took it, opened it and drained it in seconds. My friend sat next to me and watched me, concern marring his features. With a wave of my hand I said, “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a drowned puppy or somethin’,” I grunted as I crushed the empty can in my hand. “I’m fine . . . she’s just upset. She loves me, mate. She’s not gonna leave me over this. She wouldn’t do that to me.”
AJ didn’t agree or disagree with me, but he still looked at me like I was the saddest thing he had ever seen, and suddenly I felt like a weight was sitting on my chest as the realisation of the situation dawned on me. Noah had broken up with me; she’d said the words though I could tell it was the last thing she’d wanted to do.