AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Doubt fills my sister's eyes.
"She's the one who proposed," I say. "She got on one knee."
She doesn't say anything, but her expression stays apprehensive.
"See." I pull out my cell phone to show her the picture.
Cassie studies the screen carefully. "You look happy."
"I was."
"How much did you have to drink?" she asks with a careful voice. The practiced mix of caution and direct inquiry that comes with life tethered to a man in recovery.
I used to think he was an anchor around her neck. Even when I started to like him, to become friends.
That's too much chaos. It can undo her.
But the love she has for him holds her together in a way nothing else would.
I didn't understand that. I do now.
"Enough," I answer with the same caution. "But that wasn't it. It was something else." I felt a pull to be with her.
It wasn't the sort of pull people sing about or the kind of thing I see in the movies.
It was something deeper, truer.
A desire to tie myself to her. Not as an owner or as a belonging. As family.
Cassie will always be my sister. I'll always be her brother. My parents will always be my parents. But outside of my immediate family, I don't have any close connections.
I have friends. I have exes. I have coworkers. I have a job with a contract.
But I don't have a partner, an other half, a passion.
I don't have anyone who calls to say they missed me.
I don't have anyone who asks anything of me.
Only the bank, demanding a mortgage payment for thirty years.
I thought that was freedom. It is, in a certain way, but it's a cage too.
But then—
"If Daphne really doesn't remember, she was too inebriated to sign a contract. We can get an annulment." I click into lawyer mode. The facts. The logic. Of course, a quickie Vegas wedding, after a night of partying, is an easy annulment. Of course, that's the rational decision.
Cassie is a smart, logical person, but she's an artist too. She looks at me with concern. She looks at me like I'm a song she's struggling to write. She's not sure if it's a sad song or a happy one. If this is a tragedy or a fun memory. "Is that what you want?"
The answer should be obvious. I'm not an artist. I'm not a romantic.
I do what makes sense.
My entire life, I've done what makes sense.
Why would I want to continue a hasty elopement?
It feels right.
