“Since you brought up the wedding...” He turns to me briefly, throwing me his cockiest smile and grabs my hand that is resting on the table. Then, turning his attention back to my mom, continues. “Wyn and I were talking on the way here and she is really hoping you two could get started on the wedding plans. Right away.”
This time, Mom’s head did explode from happiness. And the whole time it was happening, I was staring at Shay with my mouth hanging open. Does he even understand the viper pit he just threw me into? A normal mother planning a wedding could be stressful, but a gypsy mother planning the wedding of her only daughter would be nothing but a lace and crystal covered hell!
After Mom pulls herself back together from her happiness explosion, she precedes to pull out every wedding magazine she’s ever seen in the super market checkout lines that she has collected in preparation for this very day.
At the end of the night, my head is so full of cakes, dresses, colors, and favors that I think it’s going to explode. Heck, I hope it does so I can get rid of all the wedding thoughts floating around up there. The way it is at the moment, I’m certain I’ll be dreaming of big, fluffy dresses and cake toppers till I turn eighty.
By the time I’m able to make my escape from the wedding planning, I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep before I can text Linc to let him know I’m alright.
Chapter 15 – Linc
~In A Perfect World~
“I’m not afraid of him!” I’d spent most of the night and this morning waiting to hear from Wyn, anything to let me know she’s alright. I knew how bad we’d messed up yesterday. And after hours of no response, I’d convinced myself they’d taken off with her and I was never going to lay eyes on her again. She’d be like a dream haunting me the rest of my life.
Then she showed up to school this morning, riding in that asshole’s truck and I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk to her until lunch. Those were the longest four hours of my life. And they lead us up to now.
“You may not be, but I am. I’ve seen what guys like Shay are capable of and I don’t want that to happen to me. And I definitely don’t want that to happen to you.” Tears are streaming down her face. Normally I’d be pulling her into my arms to soothe her, but right now, I’m so upset that I can’t calm down enough to touch her.
She’s pushing me away. Trying to end what we have, to protect me. I’m trying to make her see that I’m not the one who needs the protection, but she’s dead set on playing the martyr.
“NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME!” I scream and slam my hands down on the library table. We’re hiding in the corner where we normally meet for lunch. But with the noise I’m making, it won’t be long before we have an audience.
“Please, try to understand.” Wyn pleads through her tears. She’s looking at me with those bright green eyes that are now shinning brighter because of the tears staining them. Normally I can’t tell her no, but this isn’t something I can willingly give in to.
“There’s nothing to understand. I will not give you up without a fight.” Like I predicted, a group of people start trickling in to the little area we’re hiding in to watch the show I’m creating.
Wiping at her eyes and taking in our audience, Wyn whispers. “Maybe we should go somewhere else.” Reasonable Linc knows she said this because she’s not comfortable being the center of attention, but pissed off Linc is in charge and he has other thoughts.
“Are you that ashamed of being in love with me, a non-gypsy, that you can’t be seen with me?”
Her face softens and she sighs. “You know that’s not true.” She surveys the crowd again and then hesitantly gets up and comes closer, placing her palm against my cheek. “You know I love you.”
“But it’s not enough. Is it?” I ask, grabbing onto the wrist of her hand that’s touching my face.
“Linc.”
“You could choose me, Wyn. You could leave that life and him behind.” I pull her closer to me, placing my free hand in her hair.
“But my family.”
“You mean the family that’s forcing you to marry a guy you don’t love? Fuck them!” Surprisingly, our audience has stayed extremely quiet during our show. Hell, even the librarian is watching without disrupting us. This is probably better than her favorite romance novel.
New tears start streaming down Wyn’s face and I release her wrist so I can wipe them away. Then, placing my forehead to hers, I whisper my plea again. “Choose me.”
“I love you, Linc. And in a perfect world, I would choose you. God knows I want to choose you, but this world isn’t perfect and I can’t. I’d have no one. Nothing. Nowhere to go. I’m not strong enough for that.” She pulls herself out of my hands and grabs her bags off the table, then turns and pushes through the crowd, leaving me alone with my shattered heart.
I pick up the lamp from the center of the table and with a scream worthy of a Scottish warrior, I throw it against the wall. Once I get started, I can’t stop. I grab everything in my reach and throw them at the wall. The books off the table, the bottle of juice I’d been drinking, my cell phone. I’m on the verge of throwing a chair when arms slip around me from behind, caging me in. I’m trying to fight the person off when he speaks and I relax back into his arms.
“Calm down, Cuz. I’m here.” Nate. I’ve never been more relieved to hear his voice. He’s one of the few people who could’ve reached me in my angry haze.
As the anger leaves my body, it leaves me drained and I have to drop to the ground, taking Nate down with me. The tears come not long after I hit the ground and through my heartbreak, I hear Nate promise. “We’ll get you through this.” Then I hear him shouting at the crowd. “The show’s over. Get the hell out of here.”
Through my tears, I see the librarian crouch down in front of me. She stretches out her hand, offering me a tissue. I shake it off and use the back of my hand to scrub my eyes dry instead.
“I’m sorry, Lincoln, but you have to go to the principal’s office. I hate doing this after what you just went through, but you destroyed some school items.”
*****************************
“Suspended for a week and I have to replace a lamp and several books. Was she worth this?” Mom asks as she turns to me after setting her purse on the kitchen island. The principal called her in after my library meltdown and handed down his sentence. Mom ripped me up one side and down the other in the school parking lot, then told me to drive straight home and she’d meet me there. I knew the ripping would continue when we got home, but I didn’t care. I’m numb. The moment Wyn walked out and left me in that library, it started. And by the time I was wiping the tears from my eyes, I couldn’t feel a thing. I’m numb to everything around me, so getting ripped by my mom isn’t going to hurt me. Nothing will ever hurt me again. You have to have a heart to be hurt. And since mine got torn from my chest today, there’s no fear of me ever being hurt again.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I tell her from my seat at the kitchen table. I’m staring out the kitchen window, wondering how the sun can be shinning on a day when my world has crumbled. I can’t discuss Wyn with my mom, not today, maybe never. I may be numb to everything around me, but the pain inside from losing her is too much for me to bear. And discussing it will be like throwing salt in my still open wound. I can’t do that yet. I fucked up big time. I love her, but I knew she wasn’t ready to choose and I forced it on her, causing her to run from me. From us.
I hear my mom suck in a deep breath and then release it. She’s gearing up for a big motherly lecture. “Lincoln, I know you really liked this girl…”
“Love.” I correct, turning my gaze from the window to her.
“You haven’t known her long enough to love her.” I can see in her face that she’s trying to soften her words because she sees that I’m hurting, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve been through too much today for anything to calm me.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s only been two weeks, two months, or two damn years. I love that
girl and I told you I don’t want to talk about this shit. I’m done for today, Mom. D. O. N. E. DONE!” I get up and storm out of the kitchen, bound for my room. I faintly catch her giving me hell for cussing, but I’m so far gone that I ignore her as I shut myself in my room and lock the door.
I throw myself on to my bed, pull out my cell, and send a text to Wyn. She doesn’t reply back.
Chapter 16 – Wyn
~It Got Serious~
“You need to back away from the oven. You have baked enough cupcakes.” Dani teases, trying to lighten the mood. I called her after the blow up with Linc and she picked me up from school early. She brought me to her trailer to hide out after we made a quick stop at the supermarket to buy cupcake making supplies.
I scan the counter that’s now covered with no less than four dozen cupcakes. Not only my favorite sprinkle kind, but seeing as the situation was so awful, I made some chocolate too. Chocolate fixes everything, right? Lord, I wish it could be as simple as that, but I know it’s not. I grab the bowl of chocolate batter and take a seat beside Dani.
“He asked me to choose.” I tell her. Using the spoon, I take a big bite of the batter.
“Choose?” She asks, watching me closely. I can tell she’s worried. I never leave school early and definitely not over a guy.
I swallow the batter then answer. “Him.”
She’s so shocked that her eyes grow to the size of saucers. “As in him over Shay and the family?”
I nod my head and stuff another spoon full in my mouth.
“Oh. My. Gosh.”
“Yeah.” I agree around the spoon still stuck in my mouth.
“Enough.” Dani jerks the spoon out of my mouth, tosses it in the bowl and removes it from my lap, placing it out of my reach. “Seriously, you can’t use a sugar coma to get rid of this.”
“Hey! It’s my problems! I should know what will help.” I whine as I cross my arms, but I don’t make a grab for the bowl because somewhere deep down, I know she’s stopping me for my own good.
“I’m saving you from yourself. Now what did you tell him?” She asks, turning to face me.
“If I gave him good news, do you think I’d be here hiding and gorging on cupcake batter?” I grumble, standing up and grabbing one of the finished cupcakes.
Standing up, taking the cupcake from me and setting it back on the counter, Dani asks. “Are you okay?”
“I have to be.” I answer, picking the cupcake back up and stripping it of its wrapper and taking a huge bite before Dani can take it again.
“It’s ok to be upset about this. You cared for him.” Her voice is so soft, but her eyes are laughing at me, probably more over the cupcake than the issue at hand.
“I love him.” I correct around a mouthful of cupcake.
She falls back on the couch in shock. “You never told me it got this serious.”
I swallow the bite in my mouth and then sit down beside her. “It got serious.”
“Did you, you know?” She turns to me with her eyebrows raised.
It takes me a moment to realize what she means. Then shaking my head like my life depends on it, I answer her. “I don’t have a death wish.”
“That’s good.” She lets out the breath she’d been holding. “Shay, your brothers, and your dad would kill him, and you, if you had.”
“That’s why I ended it. Shay found out I was hanging around a Gorger boy. He doesn’t know for sure who he is, but he saw the Challenger so it won’t be hard for him to find out if he wants.”
“Oh, Hades! When did this happen? You’ve been holding out on me.” I tell her about everything, starting with Christmas when Linc and I exchanged gifts and ending with what happened in the library today. To Dani’s credit, she stayed quiet through my retelling. I could tell by her face that it was hard on her. She’s always been the one to tell me how it is and I knew she was itching to lay some truth on me.
“Necklaces, first kisses, blow-ups. Darn it! You’ve so been holding out on me. Where do I even start with this one?” She stands up and starts pacing in the small living room/kitchen area of her travel trailer.
“I didn’t want to drag you into my problems any more than I already had.” I explain, waiting on the advice I know my friend is preparing to lay on me. At least I’m hoping she is; I need some good advice.
“Do you want me to be honest with you or take it easy on you?” She asks as she stops pacing to look me square in the eye.
“Honest.” I answer, taking a deep breath, preparing for what she’ll tell me.
“On one hand, I think you were selfish.”
“I…” I start.
She holds up her hand to stop me. “Let me finish. You were selfish. You knew you couldn’t offer Linc more than a few months, yet you still let him get his hopes up that you could be more. The gift, the dates, the kissing and declarations of love. What were you thinking?” Apparently that’s a rhetorical question because she holds her hand up to stop me from answering. “Then, on the other hand, I know what you were thinking. You found your first love, maybe even your only real love. Because you and I both know you’ll never be able to be the real you with a gypsy boy. They won’t understand all that is you, but Linc does. And how can you turn from that, even when you know you’re going to be engaged to Shay.”
“What do I do?”
“I think the right question would be, is Linc worth you leaving your whole family behind? You have to choose, Wyn. And I know you gave him an answer in that library, but you need to take your time and really think about what you want before you give your real answer.” She sits back down beside me and takes my hand in hers. “I don’t want to lose you, but I also don’t want you to be unhappy the rest of your life. Take some time. Spend some time with Shay. Maybe you’ll find out that you care for him too. If not, I think you’ll have your real answer.”
“If I can’t care for him, what will I do? Where will I go?” I ask, scared of what my future might hold if I choose to turn from my family.
“You’re the smartest person I know. So I have faith that if that’s the route you choose to take, you’ll figure something out.” She gives my hand a reassuring squeeze and then releases it.
The trailer door opens right then, causing me to jump because I’ve been so caught up in our conversation that I didn’t hear a vehicle pull up. Adam and Shay walk in, taking in Dani’s and my faces, then the cupcakes on the counters. “What’s wrong?” Adam asks, looking back at us.
Darn it!
If there was ever a time I wished Adam didn’t know me so well, now would be it. I look at Shay as I answer. “I had a bad day at school. Failed a test, so Dani’s trying to cheer me up.” The boys stare at me for five full heart beats. They know I’m lying. I’ve never failed a test, but thankfully, Adam doesn’t push me for the truth. And by Shay’s face, I think he has an idea of what’s really wrong.
“So…are you guys ready for our double date?” Dani asks as she changes the subject.
“I think the better question would be, are you two ready?” Adam asks, helping Dani to her feet so he can give her a kiss.
“Yeah, I only need to slip on some shoes. Then we can go.” She returns his kiss and moves to pick out a pair of high heeled boots. She may be pregnant, but she refuses to sacrifice her fashion sense. Swollen feet, be damned.
Standing up and grabbing my coat and purse. “I’m going to wait outside. Shay, you want to join me?”
He nods his head and follows me out the door.
I set my purse on the hood of his truck as I button up my coat. I know he’s standing behind me, waiting for the truth about what happened today. As much as I hate it, Dani’s right. I need to give Shay a chance if I’m going to make the right choice, so I need to be honest with him. Well, mostly honest with him. He doesn’t need to know everything that’s been going on with Linc and me. And he definitely isn’t getting Linc’s name from me.
“What happened?” He asks my back. He’s so close that I can feel
the heat coming off his body.
“I ended it with him.”
Shay circles his arms around my middle, pulling my back against his chest and putting his face close to my ear. “You made the right choice.” I’m not going to correct him and tell him the choice hasn’t been made yet.
Instead, I turn in his arms so I’m facing him. “I want to take things slow. Can you give me that?”
“How slow?” He asks suspiciously. I can’t blame him. He did catch me with another guy when I’m wearing his ring.
“Not the wedding plans. I mean us. We need to get to know each other.”
“We’ve known each other since we were kids.” He chuckles.
“I know, but we don’t know each other as a couple. That’s what I want to take slow.” I explain.
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