Tethered

by L. D. Davis

  I gathered my dress and turned my back on him. He followed close behind me, calling my name.

  “I know you hate me right now but -”

  I spun around and shouted “You have no idea how much I hate you right now!”

  “I am sorry,” Emmet said pleadingly. “You are the only woman I’ve ever wanted to have kids with.”

  “That’s even worse, Emmet,” I admonished. “The fact that you would be so careless with something you wanted to reserve just for me only makes matters worse.”

  “I know, I know,” he said and tried to grab my hand, but I snatched it away. “I am so damn sorry, baby.” His voice cracked with emotion. “I know this is a shock – trust me I only just found out, but we can get through this, Donya. We can get over this and still have a life together.”

  “There is no getting ‘over’ this, Emmet,” I said sadly. “This isn’t something I can just sleep on and feel better about it in the morning. I can’t be with you while your baby is growing in some other woman’s womb. I can’t sit in a waiting room months for now while you’re in the delivery room with Casey watching your child’s birth. This is too much. This is too far Emmet, and I can’t do this with you.”

  “Then take the time you need,” he said quickly as tears began to spring from his eyes. “Take all of the time you need and when you’re ready I’ll be waiting for you and hopefully I’ll have my shit together.”

  “You will be waiting a very long time,” I said just above a whisper. “It was a mistake for me to allow myself to get sidetracked by you and my feelings for you.”

  “Donya, please,” Emmet said desperately.

  “I’m going back to the house and I’m going to marry Jerry,” I said with finality.

  “Don’t marry him just to hurt me,” Emmet pleaded. Tears rolled freely down his cheeks and I had to look away. I couldn’t take seeing him cry. I could barely stand on my own two feet, feeling the desperation and despair inside of him.

  “I have to go,” I whispered and took a tentative step back.

  “No! Donya, don’t do this.” Emmet dropped to his knees in front of me and grabbed a hold of my hands. “Please don’t do this. We can work through this. Baby, please, please, please don’t marry him.”

  I struggled to pull my hands away from his, shaking my head adamantly.

  “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t do this with you.”

  I managed to untangle my hands from his, but then he grabbed onto my dress, taking in big handfuls of silk and lace and holding on tightly as he looked up at me, sobbing.

  “Please,” he begged. “Please, baby, don’t do this. Please don’t do this. I’ll do anything. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. Please don’t marry him. Donya, don’t do this.”

  “Emmet,” I said his name softly. “Let go.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, I will not let you go until you promise me you will not marry him.”

  “Let go,” I said again and worked to untangle his hands from my dress.

  “I’m not fucking letting go!” he screamed. His face was a mess with tears and snot. I had the natural instinct to wipe it all away and kiss his tear stained cheeks, but wiping his face would not wipe away what he’s done, and kissing his cheeks would not make the situation any better.

  “Let me go,” I said harshly now as I tried to remove his hands.

  “I will rip your fucking dress off of you if I have to,” Emmet snapped tearfully. “I am not letting you go so that you can fucking marry Jerry and forget about everything we’ve ever had. I’m not letting you go.”

  “Everything we had is gone,” I announced crisply. “It’s all gone, Emmet. It’s been gone for a long time and it’s time we both face that. Now let me fucking go!” At risk of tearing my dress, I yanked it as I took a step backward. The fabric began to tear as I struggled to pull my dress out of Emmet’s grasp.

  “I can’t lose you like this,” he roared, scrambling to hold on to me.

  “You’ve already lost me,” I said icily and then gave one final yank. The sound of the silk and lace tearing was surprisingly loud and was the only other sound I could hear besides Emmet’s pleas.

  “Please,” Emmet whispered, clutching pieces of my dress in his hands.

  I picked up the hem of my dress and turned my back on Emmet one last time. I walked away from his weeping that made my knees weak and left ice in the pit of my stomach. He sobbed my name repeatedly and I struggled not to turn around and run back to him every time he said it. By the time I cleared the woods, I was running for the limo. The driver was waiting outside the car and when he saw me coming he hurriedly opened the door for me. Emmet’s voice carried through the trees and over the green field as he cried my name. The driver looked back toward the woods curiously.

  “Please, just go,” I said and slammed the door shut, and just barely missed crushing his fingers.

  I don’t remember the drive back to the house. The cognitive part of me was still back in the woods in front of the pond on its knees with Emmet. I could still clearly hear him calling my name and see his tears. I don’t remember getting out of the car or going into the house past Emmy and Sam just before climbing up the stairs. I just remember closing the bedroom door, because that was when my cracked façade shattered.

  I grabbed the closest piece of clothing, a shirt I had worn earlier, and buried my face in it and screamed. Tears poured out of my eyes, my fingers dug into the soft material of the shirt, and I screamed and screamed like a woman being murdered. In a way, I was being murdered. My heart was being torn from my body against my will.

  When the screaming subsided, my body jerked violently as I sobbed. I pulled my face away from the shirt so I could attempt to breathe, but even though I was sucking in big gulps of air, I felt like I was being strangled and no air could move through my windpipe. I became vaguely aware of the fact that I was sitting on the floor with my dress billowed out around me. I bent myself over, in half and clawed at the hardwood floor with my nails as I cried. Several of them broke and one even tore away and began to bleed, but I didn’t feel that pain. I only felt the pain of losing and giving up Emmet.

  “Where the hell have...” I heard Sam say behind me, but she didn’t finish her thought.

  I didn’t even bother trying to hide the fact that I was having an emotional breakdown. I couldn’t hide my broken pieces lying all over the floor.

  There was a knock at the door and I heard Emmy’s voice as the door began to open, but then she objected loudly when Sam stopped her.

  “You can’t come in here right now,” Sam said to Emmy. I had enough sense to put the shirt back to my mouth to help muffle the sounds of my sobbing.

  “What do you mean I can’t come in right now? It’s fifteen minutes until go time and I am the maid of honor!” It sounded as if she was speaking through a very small crack in the door.

  “If you don’t mind, I would like a little mother-daughter time with Donya,” Sam said impatiently.

  Emmy seemed to consider this silently for a moment. “Okay. I get it. I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Thank you, honey,” Sam said sincerely and then the door closed and I heard the distinct sound of it locking. A second later, Sam was stepping around my dress. She stretched out her hands to me. “Come on, sweetie. Get up off of that hard floor.”

  I stared at her hand for a moment, and then reluctantly put my hands into hers. She helped me up effortlessly and eased me into the chair in front of a vanity. I saw my face and knew I had destroyed the makeup job Ginny had done. Mascara and eyeliner ran down my cheeks and my lipstick was smeared. Sam went into the on suite bathroom and got a wet cloth. Like the true mother she was, she cleaned my face even as I continued to sob softly. In many circumstances, I didn’t like having Sam and her big mouth involved in my personal problems, but I trusted her implicitly this time. I knew she would put aside her big personality to take care of me.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said
softly but with conviction as she peered at me in the mirror. “If you want to call this off, all you have to do is say it.”

  I reached into my purse sitting on the vanity and produced my cigarettes. Sam didn’t object or make any comments as I lit up the cigarette and inhaled deeply a few times. It took me a good minute before I was able to speak.

  “Casey’s pregnant,” I said in a dead voice.

  Sam’s eyes widened first with surprise, and then narrowed with anger.

  “He told me they were only friends,” she said, putting a hand on her hip.

  “Well, apparently they’re the kind of friends that fuck without any form of birth control,” I said quietly and took another drag.

  “Did he know about Casey’s pregnancy last night when he came to the rehearsal dinner to try to stop you from marrying Jerry?” Sam asked dryly.

  I looked at her reflection. “You knew about that?”

  “Honey, I know you all think that I’m a little dim, but I know my son. I knew when he walked in what he was up to.”

  “What else do you know?” I asked.

  “More than you think I do. Now tell me, did that little jackass know about Casey last night?”

  “No,” I said, looking down at the makeshift ash tray on the vanity table. “He had just found out when I saw him.”

  “If she wasn’t pregnant, I guess we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I’d be outside making excuses to three hundred guests.”

  “Yes, you would,” I said unapologetically as I snuffed out the cigarette.

  “What are you going to do?” Sam asked quietly.

  “I’m going to fix my makeup, fix my dress, and go marry Jerry,” I said, squaring my shoulders.

  Sam looked at me with sympathy.

  “You do whatever you need to do, but don’t marry him just to spite Emmet, honey. Marry him because you know he will be good for you.”

  “He will be,” I said, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about that.

  “Donya,” Sam started and I knew she was about to give me a lecture.

  “I am marrying Jerry,” I snapped at her. “I let myself get sidetracked, that’s all. Now we’re getting back on track, okay?”

  “I’ll get your makeup bag,” Sam sighed.

  We made quick work of fixing my makeup, clipping my nails until they were all even and cleaning away the blood. We pinned my dress so that the tear was not noticeable, and I thought about those pieces I had left behind with Emmet. I had thrown one last glance at him just before clearing the trees. He was exactly where I had left him, clutching the fabric and watching me go. I wondered why he didn’t stop me from getting into the car, but maybe he knew it wouldn’t have made a difference. There wasn’t anything that could keep me there with him after his revelation.

  I shook the image of Emmet crying on his knees from my head as Sam let Emmy in the room and the pair made finishing touches on adjusting my dress, my hair, or makeup. Emmy chattered on happily, completely unsuspecting of the hell that I had just gone through. We went downstairs and outside and took our places with Fred and the others. Sam kissed my cheek once and dabbed at her eyes. She wasn’t crying because it was a happy occasion, she was crying because she knew it was one of the worse days of my life.

  The wedding planner went over a few things with us, and then it was time to start. As the procession began, Emmy turned to me, beaming broadly and trying to blink back her tears.

  “You look like a princess, D,” she said emotionally. “And Jerry is definitely a prince. You have a beautiful fairytale wedding and you’ll have a beautiful fairytale life. I know it.”

  I no longer believed in fairytales, wasn’t sure if I ever did, but I didn’t want to be the one to burst Emmy’s happy little storybook bubble.

  “Thank you, Emmy,” I said softly.

  It was her turn to walk inside. I linked my arm into Fred’s and clutched at my flowers.

  “Are you ready, Kiddo?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling as a father of the bride should be smiling. Picking up on the negativity that was surrounding me, Fred looked at me as if he was waiting for me to say the right word before whisking me away from that tent and the life that I was setting myself up for.

  Marrying Jerry wasn’t the worse thing in the world. In fact, before I saw Emmet the night before, marrying Jerry seemed like a very fine idea. He was a good man and he loved and adored me, and that was something to be happy about. Life had not turned out the way I expected, but this…this couldn’t be so bad.

  “Yes,” I said and gave him a genuine, reassuring, but small smile.

  He didn’t immediately smile back. He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, but then nodded and gave me a small smile of his own.

  The Wedding March began and Fred lead me down the aisle to the man I was going to marry, and away from the life and the man I had to leave behind.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Two months after I married Jerry, Emmet married Casey. I wasn’t at all surprised. Emmet had his faults, but I knew he wouldn’t abandon her, and without me to hold him back, he was able to do the honorable thing to make sure his child was born in wedlock.

  Casey sent me an invitation to the wedding, stating that when she didn’t see my name on the guest list that I must have been overlooked because Emmet probably assumed that since I was family that I had an automatic invite. She expressed her excitement at finally meeting me, which led me to wonder how much she knew about me and Emmet, but it didn’t matter. I graciously declined the invitation and fortunately with my busy schedule I had a real reason not to go, but I sent a congratulatory card signed as Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Vasquez.

  Four months later I received another invitation, this time for Casey’s baby shower. This time one of Casey’s friends did the inviting. I again declined, but sent a gift card for the baby and a gift card for Casey to have a spa day whenever she wanted. Though I was skeptical about her lack of birth control when she got pregnant, it wasn’t my problem, and according to Sam and Emmy and Fred, she was a very sweet girl. Besides, all of the fight had left me on my wedding day. I didn’t have the energy to be unkind.

  While Emmet was having a baby with someone that wasn’t me, I was struggling with Jerry’s decision about children, as in he didn’t want any. I wasn’t clueless, of course we had that conversation about kids before we got married, and he had wanted them then. By the time we were six months into our marriage Jerry had changed his mind.

  “I will always love you more than anyone else, even a baby, princess,” Jerry had said one night.

  That was a very romantic notion, yet also a very disturbing notion. I couldn’t imagine loving anyone more than my own child, but I had to give him credit because not many people would admit that out loud. I convinced Jerry to think about it for a while, because I eventually wanted children. He said he would think about it, but I couldn’t help feeling like he just said that to appease me. When Emmy asked me about kids, I told her we were waiting. I didn’t want to admit that I may not have any if Jerry had it his way.

  Technically, I had become a New Jersey resident once again after we married, but for the first six or seven months of marriage, I spent a lot of time in New York, and abroad. When I was finally able to settle down in the same apartment Jerry had before we got married, I picked up a full schedule at the local college and became a student and housewife. Though I was busy with school and supporting Jerry’s career, I felt idle. I had been working a heavy schedule since I was sixteen years old. I wasn’t used to being home every night and living like a normal person.

  Fortunately, we lived close to Emmy and she helped me get acclimated as much as her schedule allowed. She worked long hours, sometimes six days a week and the love life that had been nonexistent for her for a few years had sprung to life – a little too much life if you ask me, as my best friend was juggling two men at once. Luke was her actual boyfriend and Kyle was her boss and her lover. It was a very complicated and dangerous love triangle. It was wrin
ging the life out of my poor friend and it was impossible for her to be happy in that situation. While I didn’t judge Emmy for her actions, I wondered how she even found herself in that situation, why she let it go so far. I loved Emmet more than anyone else in the world, my husband included, but I didn’t think I would ever be capable of cheating with him, especially on a guy like Luke, who seemed to love her more than what she deserved.

  In an effort to get Emmy away from her men for a little while, I invited her to join me in Tampa for Jerry’s double header one weekend. I was looking forward to spending the time with her and having some fun, and she needed some time away from her situation to clear her head.

  Jerry called as I was finishing up my packing for the trip. We still had several hours before Emmy and I had to be at the airport, but I had some errands to run for Jerry before we left.

  “Princess,” Jerry said in greeting.

  “Hi,” I said as I struggled to zip my suitcase.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to close my suitcase.”

  “Why do you bring so much for one weekend?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “I’m a supermodel, only recently retired. I can’t look a hot mess.”

  “Of course. My bad. Wouldn’t want you looking a hot mess.”

  I managed to get the suitcase zippered all of the way and breathed a sigh of relief. I was glad I wouldn’t have to pack a third piece of luggage.

  “I can’t even imagine what the other wives go through when they’re packing up their kids, too,” I said as I settled down on the edge of the bed.

  “Well, you don’t have to ever imagine it since we’re not having any kids,” Jerry said easily, as if this had been decided and carved in stone from the beginning.

  “You don’t really mean that,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. “You’re just teasing me now.”

  “Donya, we talked about this last year,” he said patiently.

  “You said you would think about it.”

  “I thought about it and I don’t want any children, but we don’t have to talk about this right now. We can talk later.”