The Bride

by S Doyle

  Finally he put a plate in front of me with eggs over easy, burnt bacon, and toast that was more butter than bread. My total favorite!

  I dug in and after a few bites looked up at him and smiled.

  “Birthday breakfast rocks,” I said.

  “Happy Birthday, kiddo.”

  Okay, that meant no gift. And let’s face it, I was seventeen. Not really a big deal year. Last year had been Petunia. Still, a part of me was a teensy bit disappointed. I was the guy’s wife after all. And since my dad wasn’t here, that meant no one was going to give me a present.

  Well, I suppose Riley was. The gift of sex. I tried to hide my smile.

  “One more year to go,” I said, shrugging off the no-gift thing. “We should find a place in the house and make those lines like they do in prison movies, counting off the days. Three hundred and sixty-five left.”

  “Absolutely. Because living here with you is almost as bad as prison.”

  Jake left the kitchen then, and came back with a wrapped package in his hands.

  I clapped and squealed, because really it was my birthday and who didn’t want a gift on your birthday?

  I took it. It was square and fairly heavy. When I opened it, it was a framed picture of my mom and dad that I had never seen before. It looked like Christmas, because there were lights up on the porch. My dad was standing behind my mom with his hands over her stomach, her hands on top of his.

  They were both beaming into the camera. Oh my God I missed them.

  “Turn it over.”

  I did and I could see the frame in the back was clear. So I could read my dad’s handwriting scrawled on the back of the photo.

  We’re pregnant!

  I put the picture down on the counter and walked over to Jake. He had his arms open and I stood in them for five solid minutes crying on his chest. Finally the crying turned to sniffles.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “It was stuck in the back of the top dresser drawer. It was pretty creased, but I found a good frame person who made it look nice again. I thought you would like it.”

  “I love it.”

  He stroked my hair and rocked me in his arms because I wasn’t ready to let go yet. I guess we didn’t hear the front door open, but Janet walked into the kitchen and made this little gasping sound.

  I’ll never know why I did it. I mean it wasn’t like Jake and I were doing anything wrong. He gave me this awesome and kind of sad picture of my mom and dad, and was comforting me through that sadness.

  Totally legit.

  Still, as soon as I heard that gasping sound, I pushed him away. So hard he stumbled back a step. We stood next to each other looking at Janet and it was officially weird.

  “Hey Janet,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  “Janet, look at this awesome picture Jake gave me for my birthday.” See the reason why I was hugging him. Why he was holding me. I picked it up and showed it to her. She was looking at it, making this humming sound in the back of her throat.

  “I brought cupcakes,” she said. “For your birthday.”

  That was super nice. I wondered if there was arsenic in them.

  “I’m making eggs,” Jake said. “Want some?”

  “Sure.”

  Jake went back to the stove. Janet sat next to me. I tried to eat my eggs, bacon and toast as fast as I possibly could, but I wasn’t leaving a crumb behind, because it was my birthday breakfast. Eight minutes later I was done.

  “Okay, I’m out. You remember it’s prom tonight, right?”

  The deal was Chrissy, Karen, and Lisa were coming over and we were all going to get ready here. Then we were going to take Chrissy’s Jeep, because she had the coolest car, into town and meet the guys at the dance. Then Riley was going to drive me home, by way of my dad’s hunting cabin where I was going to have sex for the first time.

  The cabin was prepared with five stolen beers, to get in the mood. Sorry, Javier and Gomez. A strip of five condoms—thank you, Karen’s boyfriend—and a really soft blanket. And a bag of Combos in case we got hungry after.

  “Yes,” he said as if I hadn’t been reminding him all week, which I had. “Midnight, Cinderella. Not a minute later or I come looking for you with my shotgun.”

  The plan was to leave the dance at ten. By the time we got back to the cabin, that left a solid hour and fifteen minutes for sex.

  “Yep. It’s a deal.”

  I grabbed my picture and hugged it to my chest as I scrambled out of the kitchen.

  Totally the best night ever.

  Jake

  Guilt. I was feeling guilt. I was looking at the eggs frying in the grease, trying to understand this emotion, and finally I had to call it what it was.

  Guilt.

  There was absolutely nothing to be guilty about. I gave Ellie the picture, I knew she would love it, but I knew it would hurt in a weird way, too. She cried, I consoled her. That was it.

  “I think the eggs are burning,” Janet said from her seat at the kitchen island.

  I was on top of them and I didn’t see it. The edges were burning. I slipped them onto a plate. Added less burnt bacon and turned around to serve her. Slowly I set the plate in front of her.

  Like she was this unpredictable animal and I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

  She said nothing. Just took the fork I offered and started eating.

  “That was nice. The cupcakes and all,” I said.

  “Hmm,” she nodded.

  “Ellie was shook up about the picture but I think she really liked it.”

  “Yeah.”

  I didn’t do this. I didn’t play games. I was a man who on any given day had about a hundred tasks that needed to be completed. Otherwise animal lives could be lost, human lives could be lost, money could be lost. Which meant I always had to cut to the chase to get the work done.

  “Why don’t you say what you’re upset about and have at it,” I snapped. “Yes, I was holding Ellie, who was crying because of a picture I gave her of her dead parents.”

  Janet put the fork down on the plate as if it was sterling silver. “You know what, Jake? I think you’re mad because I told you this might happen. I think you thought it couldn’t happen to you. No, not the honorable Jackson Talley. Never him. You were so above it.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about, Janet?”

  You know how you do that thing. When you ask someone a question like they are crazy, but really you know exactly what they are talking about. Yes, I knew exactly what she meant, but she was wrong.

  Me holding Ellie meant nothing. I didn’t feel anything other than deep affection for the person who I counted as family.

  It was guilt that made this awkward.

  “I don’t know, you two looked awfully guilty when I walked in. Hell, she nearly toppled you over. And you, you can’t even look at me.”

  She was right. I had evaded all eye contact.

  “You’re falling for her.”

  I shook my head. “You are so ridiculous right now, I can’t have this conversation.”

  Because the conversation wasn’t going to end well and I had too much shit to do today. This wasn’t about me falling for Ellie. The truth, the real truth was I liked her more than Janet. That was where the guilt came from.

  There. It was out. At least in my mind.

  At some point in these last few months of our on-again, off-again relationship, I had stopped liking Janet. If there was someone I wanted to spend time with, it was Ellie.

  Only I couldn’t have sex with Ellie, so I needed Janet. Which was wrong on so many levels.

  And wait, did I just think about sex and Ellie in the same thought in my head?

  Oh shit, I wasn’t…

  No. Ellie was Ellie. This wasn’t about her. This was about Janet. I felt guilty that Janet caught me liking someone way more than her.

  Janet opened the bakery box she had brought and took out a cupcake. She peeled the paper away from the cake
and bit into it.

  “Chocolate with vanilla frosting. I knew that was her favorite because you told me.”

  “Janet, for real, I have to get to work. We can talk about this later.”

  “No, I think we’re done talking.” She threw the cupcake at me and it hit me squarely in the face. “You fucking wasted two years of my fucking life.”

  Fuck the drama.

  I was wiping icing out of my eyes as she breezed by me. I was pissed enough and small enough to shout at her as she left.

  “FYI, you suck at sucking dick.”

  The front door slammed and the house rattled. I was toweling the frosting off my face when Ellie reappeared, dressed in clothes to feed the chickens.

  “Don’t say a damn word,” I snapped.

  “Okay. But I super hope you’re okay being broken up for good with her, because trust me when I tell you no girl is getting over that.”

  I didn’t care. Because I was super over her.

  It was eleven thirty that night when the front door was slammed shut hard for the second time that day.

  I looked up, surprised to see Ellie. I checked my watch to be sure but yes, it was a full thirty minutes prior to midnight. I didn’t think she would be home a minute sooner. It had been tough to watch her leave tonight.

  In some ways she looked all grown up in her pretty blue long dress with the thin sleeves. Her hair all blown out and hanging down her back. In other ways she looked like a girl trying to be a woman. Except she wasn’t a woman. Not yet.

  That’s what seventeen was all about.

  Seeing her as dressed up and as sexy as she could make herself put the whole morning into perspective. I didn’t have to worry about myself or my feelings for her. Not when she was still a girl.

  I was about to comment on the thirty minutes when I looked at her face. It was red and blotched. Her lipstick was smeared around her mouth and her mascara, which she’d applied too much of, was smudged around her eyes.

  She looked pissed and I thought someone was going to die that night.

  That someone being Riley.

  I stood up slowly, and calmly, again because I was dealing with an unpredictable animal. A teenage girl/woman.

  “Ellie,” I said as I moved toward her.

  “I don’t want to talk about it!” she screeched and bolted up the stairs before I could catch her. But this was something she didn’t get to not talk about. Not when she’d been on a date with an eighteen-year-old guy and came home looking like that.

  She’d shut the bedroom door, but hadn’t bothered to lock it. Maybe because she didn’t think I would ever dare to come in. I had lived in this house for four months and I had not once seen the inside of this room.

  For that matter, it had probably been four months since she’d stepped in what had been her father’s room.

  She was lying facedown on the bed. When I came closer, she turned her head so she wasn’t looking at me.

  “Ellie, talk to me. What happened tonight?”

  My gut clenched. What the hell was I going to do if that prick actually hurt her?

  “I mean it, Ellie. You don’t start talking, I’m going to find that boy and make him tell me.”

  “Nothing,” she said and scrambled up until she was sitting on her knees. Yep, she was all sorts of pissed off. “Okay. Are you happy? Nothing happened.”

  “Was something supposed to happen?”

  She put her face in her hands. “Yes, I was supposed to have sex. There, I said it. I didn’t want to be a virgin anymore and I really liked Riley. So I told him we should go to the hunting cabin, and I had beer and condoms, and we could do it. And he said no. He said I was married and that it would be adultery and it was against his fucking religion! He said he liked me but he could never do that with me ever while I was still married. Which is so ridiculous. He can kiss me and make out with me even though I’m married, but not have sex with me?”

  I didn’t catch much beyond beer and condoms. And it was so horribly sexist. I had sex when I was seventeen with Dinah. There had been beer and condoms. But the thought of Ellie in the hunting cabin…

  I took a breath. Raised my eyes to heaven, asking Sam for inspiration, and then sat on the bed next to her and tried to get a grip on my feelings.

  “Okay, let’s break down what you said. You didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. Why?”

  “Because everyone has done it except me.”

  “And that’s the reason to have sex with someone?”

  “Oh please, don’t give me the if everyone jumps off a bridge am I going to jump off a bridge speech. Yes, everyone is having this huge life experience and I wanted to try it too. I mean, it’s supposed to feel good and be fun. As long as it’s safe and no one gets hurt or pregnant, what’s the big deal?”

  “Wow. You are a virgin.”

  “Uh, hello. What I’m telling you.”

  “Ellie, yes sex can be fun and feel good, but man, it’s way more than that. Especially the first time. That first time there has to be huge amounts of trust. Have you ever gotten naked with a guy?”

  “No.”

  “It’s scary. The first time. For the guy and the girl both, it’s like oh shit… we’re both naked and you can see and touch everything.”

  That made her huff out a laugh.

  “And the other part. When a woman lets a guy inside her body for the first time, obviously I’m not a woman and I can’t imagine how that feels, but for me it’s like this huge gift from the woman. Like she opened herself up completely to me and my body. Every time it happens I think wow, she is the bravest person for letting me do this. For trusting me with this. Then all that goes out the window because it does feel pretty good.”

  She leaned against me as if all the adrenaline had left her. Which let’s face it, the adrenaline must have been pumping through her all day if she thought this was how the night was going to end. Because no one went into that first time without a lot of nerves.

  Dinah and I had both been trembling. Before, during and after.

  “I thought it was going to be the best night ever.”

  “I can’t say I’m sorry it didn’t go as planned. But trust me, Ellie, it’s the person who you’re with that will tell you when it’s the right time to have sex. Not a day on a calendar, but a man who you can trust implicitly with something so important.”

  She lifted her head off my shoulder and looked at me. “You were surprisingly good at that. That was a legit sex talk.”

  I was. Because I cared about her and I was honest.

  “Go wash your face before you fall asleep. You’ve got gunk everywhere.”

  I got off the bed and made my way to the door.

  “Thanks again for the birthday gift, Jake. And thanks for being cool about tonight.”

  “No problem.”

  I shut the door behind me and thought that went about as well as it could have, and then I didn’t think of it again. Because Ellie having sex in the hunting cabin… holy shit.

  Right now it was my job to protect her. For better or worse, richer for poorer, for the next three hundred and sixty five days.

  That was it.

  Eight

  Ellie

  It was the next Tuesday after the prom. I was no longer hanging out with Riley. Obviously. In a lot of ways Jake was right. I wanted to have sex. Riley was the guy I was hanging out with, but I didn’t know how much I wanted to have sex with Riley. I liked him. I liked kissing him. But all that stuff Jake said about Riley penetrating my body and was I cool with that?

  Truthfully, I think I probably would have freaked out.

  Fine. I didn’t yet know which guy was the one. I would wait. It wasn’t like sex was going anywhere. There would be all kinds of chances in the next forty or fifty years. I wasn’t sure at what age people stopped having sex. My dad was still going strong at fifty-seven, so that had to mean something.

  I sat down at our normal lunch table in the high school cafeteria. Karen, Lisa, and Chri
ssy where there. They all knew what didn’t happen. They all knew about how cool Jake had been about the whole thing. They were all supportive.

  They were my friends.

  Now it was behind me. We had all vowed to never speak of what became known as the Great Prom Debacle again.

  Except in that moment Bobby MacPherson showed up at our table. Sitting down next to me on the bench, facing away from the table.

  “So Mason, hear you are looking for some action?”

  My face flushed as I realized what he meant. Seriously, that’s how you know you’re a virgin, because it takes you that long to realize what he’s asking you.

  Bobby MacPherson was the best athlete in the school, which really didn’t mean much as team sports weren’t that big of a thing in Riverbend. Mostly because we were too far away from other schools to have regular weekly games, but also because non-traditional sports like rodeo were bigger in Montana.

  Still, we had a football team that mostly scrimmaged amongst themselves and played the team from Jefferson twice a season. Bobby was QB One and like some bad cliché in a high school TV drama, QB One thought his shit didn’t stink. He made everyone in class call him Mac, which was stupid because his name was Bobby. So I called him Bobby.

  “Screw you, Bobby.”

  And screw Riley for blabbing. I mean really? He rejects me then has to tell everyone about it. What kind of douchebag move is that?

  “No, screw you. That’s what I’m offering,” he snickered at Chrissy’s horrified gasp.

  As I previously mentioned, I was mostly liked by people but let’s face it, it was high school and the weird kid was always separated from the herd. Weird enough I had no mom going in to high school. Now no father. Weirder still I had a husband and everyone knew it. I suppose they had been giving me an obligatory amount grieving time before dismissing any considerations for my feelings. Now the gloves were off and I, the weird married high school student, was fair game.

  “Although I don’t get it, is Jake not doing a good job of plowing you every night? Or is that even legal? I mean you’re his wife, but you’re also still jail bait. What’s a guy to do?”