“I’m getting sheets for the guest room.”
“Why?”
“You fucking know why!” I slammed the linen closet open and jerked out a neatly folded set of sheets. “I don’t want to have this fight right now! We’re under a lot of stress and we’re going to hurt each other’s feelings. You just dropped a bomb on me, and I don’t even want to look at you.”
“This isn’t…” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “I meant to address this with you, just not at this time. But this isn’t as much about you as it is about Emma. I chose my words carelessly. If you’d like to see Ashley on Monday, that would be fine. But don’t lets ruin our weekend with all of this.”
“You just told me you think we shouldn’t get married.” My throat clos
ed up a little saying it.
His shoulders sagged. “I love you, Sophie. Of course I want to be with you. But there are things we need to… I shouldn’t have brought it up now. I’m sorry. This is an extraordinarily stressful time, and I spoke without thinking. Please…”
I hugged the bundle of linens to my chest. “Please what?”
“I don’t know.” His expression was so sad and helpless. “Just…please.”
“Where is this coming from?” I was afraid to put down the sheets, because then I might fall into his arms and take reassurance from his physical presence, rather than addressing the issue at hand. “I know this isn’t just about Emma’s wedding. What’s happening here?”
He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Pre-wedding jitters, I suppose. Pre-pre-wedding jitters?”
“Look, I’m tired. And stressed. I’m going to go eat a pint of ice cream and go to bed.” I couldn’t believe how hurt I was over this. “I’m going to chalk all of this up to heightened emotions on both of our parts, and we’ll talk about it again when we’re sane.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” He came forward tentatively, as though rejection were a viper coiled between us and he didn’t know if it would strike. When he got close enough, I tilted my face up to him, and when he kissed me, I felt the tension behind it. “I love you. If you need to sleep in the guest bedroom, I won’t be angry.”
“I wouldn’t really care if you were.”
“I know. I didn’t say it to reassure you. I was reassuring myself.”
He went away then, and I turned to the closet. Neil and I had fought before—it was an inevitability of being with the same person every day—but it had never felt so final. Even when he’d broken up with me in the hospital, when I’d just been fired and he’d been sick with cancer he’d never told me about. Even when I’d told him I was pregnant. Or when I’d found out he’d put me in his will against my wishes. This felt anticlimactic and stagnant.
This felt like a real problem.
* * * *
Emma’s wedding rehearsal was nothing short of torture. The bridesmaids didn’t pay attention. The groomsmen—and the groom—were either severely hung over or still drunk from the bachelor party the night before. Since I wasn’t absolutely necessary to the proceedings, I entertained myself walking around the outdoor terrace and snapping a few pictures with my phone, in case they found the whole evening memorable in hindsight. By the time we left for the rehearsal dinner, Emma and Michael both seemed utterly defeated.
“That bad, huh?” I asked Neil as our car pulled away.
“No, not that bad. I’ve been to worse.” He leaned his elbow on the door and ran his knuckles back and forth over his bottom lip. “Everything will be fine. They’re both quite anxious is all.”
“Yikes.”
“No, that’s a good thing,” he assured me. “Elizabeth and I weren’t nervous at all at our rehearsal. We were confident and everything went smoothly, right down to the last detail. Never a single doubt in my mind. And look at what happened to the marriage.”
“That’s a good point.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I really wished we’d be sleeping in our own bed tonight. Our fight from the day before still hung between us, like the final drop of an overturned cup that might spill out or might not. And I had very little indication of the outcome. It seemed like if we were back at the house, we’d be able to return to the contented bliss of the last few weeks.
I tried to make a joke. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re having so many reservations about our wedding.”
“Oh, I’m making a list,” he assured me, and though our words mimicked the companionable banter we were used to, it all rang hollow.
I couldn’t understand why a simple piece of paper worried him so much. Buying a multi-million-dollar house and putting my name on the title? No big commitment. Standing up in front of our family and friends and admitting we loved each other and wanted to spend our lives together? Unthinkable.
The fact that he thought I was too young, that the age gap I’d thought we’d overcome had resurfaced just when it seemed our relationship was in the clear, made no sense to me. It had come from out of the blue. The fact that we couldn’t fight about it at the moment—no matter how angry I was, I was more concerned about Emma’s big day going smoothly—only made everything worse. I tried to read into his every word and gesture, like I could predict the outcome of whatever argument we’d end up having.
I didn’t think Neil would actually break up with me, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t hurt or betrayed enough to dump him. I didn’t need to be married. I’d never planned to. It really was an outmoded institution; one that had more to do—in my mind—with tax filing statuses than anything else. But I worried that if we called off our engagement, that would be the beginning of a long, torturous slide to the end.
What was strange about the whole thing was that, until he’d proposed to me, I would have been perfectly happy to keep going along the way we had been. But his doubt now seemed like a rejection. Or yet another case of him thinking he knew what was best for me, and not including me in decisions about our life.