by Leddy Harper
We had both lived separately for so long that we had certain rules and habits we’d grown accustomed to and now had to sort out. Ivy constantly left the cap off the tube of toothpaste and I never put the toilet seat down after I peed. I wasn’t a messy person by any means, but I was never the kind of guy that would put something away immediately. I’d leave an empty beer bottle on the counter for a few hours before throwing it away; that bothered her almost as much as the toilet seat. And she had this really bad habit of leaving her bras hanging in the laundry room to dry—apparently putting them in the dryer is a big no-no. Needless to say, it was taking us both time to adjust to the other person, but I wouldn’t have expected it any other way.
After we had been living together about three weeks, I came home to find my laundry had been done. She had, somehow, managed to dye all of my white work shirts light pink. She was devastated over this, but I muffled my laughter long enough to tell her I loved them. Now, every time I wore them, I would think of her. Especially because I made her wear them from time to time—unbuttoned with nothing else on. There was just something about that woman in my shirts that fucking drove me crazy, and I was slowly understanding why people chose this kind of life. Even though we had been through countless changes, I still would never opt to live with anyone but Ivy.
Don’t get me wrong. We still struggled with the demons that haunted us both. But we were there for each other when rough times rocked our foundation. I couldn’t remember the last time I had suffered from a panic attack. Ivy was doing just as well. Her newfound confidence was evident in everything she did. And the way she handled me on the nights the bedsprings got just a little too loud… I couldn’t have ever asked for anything more.
I hadn’t even realized the credits were rolling on the TV in front of me. I had been too occupied by watching her and too deep in my thoughts. It was still hard to imagine how much we had gone through to get where we were, holding each other on the couch with no demons in sight. This would have never been a possibility for either of us a month ago. It was truly amazing.
Ivy spun in my arms, locking her eyes with mine. “That movie made me think…”
I waited for her to continue, but she never did. I huffed a laugh and kissed her forehead. “And what did it make you think of?” I prodded her. That was one of the things her confidence still faltered. She would always hesitate a little at first when she wanted to share something with me, especially if it was important to her. But it was taking less and less prodding to get her to open up. We trusted each other.
She took in a deep breath, releasing it against my neck, and pulled herself closer. “Well, things were really weird there for a little while after I had my period. And we never really discussed it. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on it. You seemed really quiet for a few days.”
“Ivy, you just started birth control and as much as I’d love to have a family with you, I don’t think this is the right time to do that.”
“I know,” she interjected. “That’s not what I’m saying. I agree, it’s definitely not the right time. I’m finally finding out who I am as a person, but it still made me think, that’s all. I mean, we’ve talked about wanting a family at some point… but I have no idea what some point means to you. Is it in five years? Ten? Don’t you think that’s something we should talk about? Where we see ourselves in the near and distant future?”
“I haven’t really thought about it in terms of a time period. But that really depends a lot on when we get married. And to be honest, Ivy, I’m still working through that. I meant what I said when I told you I would marry you one day, but I still can’t even begin to think of when that will be. I can only promise that I won’t make you wait forever. I’m still enjoying getting used to you being here.” After telling Ivy my deepest secrets, I had made the decision to be honest with her no matter what. It was hardest when I thought I might hurt her feelings, but I learned the hard way that if I didn’t share my feelings, I usually hurt her worse. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I knew my words weren’t the ones she wanted to hear, but they were mine and the truth, that was all I could offer her at the moment.
She shook her head and sat up, pulling me up with her, holding me close. Her hands held mine as she searched for the words, looking at our joined hands. “What if I’ve changed my mind? Would that help you decide what kind of future you wanted?”
“What do you mean? Change your mind about what?” I began to get nervous of what she’d say. It was yet another new emotion to add to the list that I had discovered ever since life with Ivy. It was as if she was showing me how to be human, since life’s circumstances hadn’t allowed me to properly learn how to deal with certain emotions.
She hesitated, making my nerves skyrocket. “About marriage. What if I’ve changed my mind about it and no longer needed a certificate to feel that our relationship’s complete?”
“That would be a lie. And I would never ask you to give that up. It’s important to you. I know it is.”
“It wouldn’t be a lie if that’s truly how I felt. What if I no longer feel that I need that commitment from you? You’ve made me realize that I don’t need a piece of paper to be happy. I don’t need some stupid ceremony or to spend a bunch of money to feel like I belong to you. You do own me, Cade, and I don’t need to stand in front of the three people that we know in order to feel that way.”
“But what about the white dress and the rings and everything you’ve always dreamed of having since you were a little girl? You told me about that, you redream it every time you read your books. No, Ivy. I won’t let you give those dreams up because of my fears. I will marry you, but when it’s right for us. You’ve only been here a little over a month. Let’s just enjoy this time without any pressures or expectations. The only thing I know for certain about our future is that we’ll be together.”
Her hands reached behind my neck and she laced her fingers together, pulling my face to meet hers. She kissed me, hard and hungrily. It was as if she was telling me something with her lips but without the words.
“I don’t want any pressures or expectations, either,” she said as she pulled away from the kiss. “But I did mean what I said. I don’t need the fairytale ending, I am living the happily ever after now. Living it, breathing it. It doesn’t matter to me if I walk down an aisle, wearing a white gown, to you because I get to walk to you every single day.”
“I can’t let you give that up, though. I won’t allow it.”
“Okay. What if we agree that neither one of us wants to get married, and then if the day comes that you want to make it legal, then we’ll go down to the courthouse and make it legal?” Her words were so convincing, much like her eyes, and I had to question the change.
“Why? I mean, where did this come from? Why did you change your mind?”
“I haven’t changed my mind. I have always wanted to be loved. The one thing I’ve always wanted in life was to find the one person that would look at me, all of me, and love me, protect me, and make me feel comfortable in my own skin. I’ve never felt comfortable about myself until you. So, if you think about it, I’ve already gotten everything I’ve ever dreamed of. And more. I got my Prince Charming.”
I couldn’t let it drop. I had to argue her point. “You told me that you’ve always wanted the white dress, the aisle, the whole thing. You can’t just wake up one morning, change the course of direction to your thoughts, and decide you don’t want any of that anymore.”
“Another thing I’ve also dreamed of having a church full of hundreds of loved ones, wishing us the best in life. Throwing rice at me and giving me hugs on our way out of the church. Except, we don’t have enough loved ones to fill the church, not to mention, I’m not all that religious. So there would be no point in the church part. So it doesn’t matter what I’ve dreamed of in the past, because it’s my future—our future—that I dream of now.”
“You really mean that?” I couldn’t help but ask, needing her confirmatio
n to reassure my struggling mind.
Ivy nodded and smiled. “I really mean that, Cade. I mean all of it.”
“Are you doing this because you want a baby? Because, I have to be honest with you, Ivy, I am not ready for a baby right now. If it happens then I won’t regret it, but I won’t go trying to have one any time soon.”
She laughed and the skin around her eyes crinkled. “I’m on the same page as you are about babies. Trust me when I tell you that. I’m just now getting used to living with you, I have no desire to add a baby to the mix. Not to mention, I’m still struggling with the fact that I have a fifty percent chance of having a girl and I don’t know if I can handle that fact.”
I was relieved until she threw that last part in there. I had no idea she had any insecurities about having a girl. My relief quickly turned to concern. “What do you mean by that? Why couldn’t you handle having a girl?”
“Oh, you know… girls are trouble. They’re moody and hormonal.” She tried to laugh but I could see right through it.
“No. That’s not why. Just tell me, Ivy.” I started to get really worried. When there was a chance of Ivy being pregnant, there was a part of me that loved the idea of having a little Ivy someday. And ever since we realized she wasn’t, I held on to that dream of one day having a daughter that I could spoil as much as I spoiled her mother.
She huffed and looked down, but before I could raise her chin, she lifted her head and looked me right in the eyes. “I am scared I’ll turn out to be like my mother. Even just a little bit. And the last thing I ever want to do is make my daughter feel the way mine made me feel.”
I took her face in my hands and pulled her face closer to mine, touching the tip of her nose with mine. “You have nothing to worry about.” It wasn’t much of a consolation, but it was all I could give. I felt with every fiber of my being that she would never turn out to be her mother.
She pulled back and pulled a weak smile to her face. “Back to my original question… where do you see us in a year?”
“Here. I see my practice being successful. I see us being successful. Happy.”
She smiled. “What about in five years?”
I had to think about that. Five years. That would put me dangerously close to forty. “Again, I see us here, happy, successful. I see my practice being successful with possibly a partner or two. I see a ring on your finger and at least one toddler running around.”
Her eyes glistened like sparkling silver. “I agree. But I am serious, the ring doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“It does to me,” I answered. “It’s a symbol of owning you for eternity.”
“But that’s just it, Cade. It’s only a symbol. It’s something that can be taken off. And that’s always been your issue with marriage, right? That it’s not always permanent? So why would a ring mean anything to you?”
A thought entered my head and I couldn’t keep the smile from my face. “When the time is right to pledge ourselves to one another for all of eternity, I know just how we’ll do it. It won’t be in a church, it won’t matter how many people are there, you can even wear a white dress, and it won’t be something that can be easily removed.”
“What is it?” she asked with a smile.
“You’ll see… when the time is right.”
*****
“I, Caden Alan Morgan, choose you, Ivy Marie Jaymes, to be my wife in the only way that matters. To have and to hold in darkness and light, in sickness and health, for better or for worse, to own and cherish, from this day forward until the end of eternity. I vow to honor and respect you, protect and comfort you from here on out,” I vowed to Ivy as we sat in the front seat of my car in front of a tattoo parlor.
Eight months after living together, the time was right and I asked Ivy to promise herself to me forever. I didn’t have a ring and we had no intention of going to the courthouse. We didn’t plan to sign papers or have witnesses. We didn’t need them. All we needed were each other and the commitment we made to one another.
Ivy knew I loved her, and I knew she loved me, but neither of us focused on that. We had both loved deeply and lost more than our fair share in life, so marriage was tainted to each of us. We had both lost our parents at such young ages. We had both been through more pain as children, far more than anyone should have to endure.
She repeated her own vows to me. “I, Ivy Jaymes, take you, Caden Morgan, as my husband in every meaning of the word. I promise to trust you with my darkness and give you my light. I vow to give you all of me to own until the end of infinity.”
I gave her a kiss and then stepped out of the car, walking over to the passenger side to let her out. She was wearing a simple white dress that hung casually to her feet. The moment I told her my idea of our wedding, she jumped on it… and on me. She loved it and I loved her for it. There was nothing more perfect for us.
With her hand in mine, I walked into the tattoo parlor and told the receptionist that we were there for our appointment. She looked us up and down, checking out our attire, before taking us around back to a small room. Ivy and I grinned at each other the entire time we each had the word “owned” permanently set into the skin on our left fourth finger. It would never be able to come off, and it was better than any church wedding in any book either of us had read.
My impromptu admission of owning one another became our thing. She owned my heart, and that meant she had my love. But it went beyond that. If I owned her, that meant I’d take care of her, I would protect her, and do everything in my power to make her happy. My cousin thought it was strange that we used that term instead of the typical I love you… but that was just it. Ivy and I weren’t typical. Nothing about us or our relationship was typical or cliché. Our definition of “owned” was different than others. We didn’t see each other as an object to possess. We saw each other as our keepsakes, one that we each wanted to cherish forever, for all of eternity. But it didn’t matter what other people thought of our terminology; we knew what it meant. It was our own special language that only we alone could translate. We owned each other, mind, body, heart, and soul. This was even more important than love. Neither of us wavered about that. We had been through enough to know how lucky we were to have found one another. It was as if we were each other’s missing puzzle piece and now that we were together, everything was finally complete.
“You own me, Mrs. Morgan,” I said against her lips as the machine buzzed in the background.
“I’m yours, Mr. Morgan,” she whispered back, pressing her lips to mine one last time.
Two Years Later
I woke up in the middle of the night and the spot on the bed next to me was empty. Instead, all I found were a pile of pillows were her body usually was. I immediately began to panic. The bathroom light was off and the house seemed quiet. Normally, I heard when she got up to use the bathroom or head to the kitchen for a glass of water, but for some reason, I had slept right through her escape from the bed this time.
I got up and frantically started searching, not bothering to put clothes on.
She had been quiet lately—too quiet. And I had already taken her to the hospital twice this week. It was easy for my mind to go to the dark corners first, immediately thinking the worst. I scoured the house until I found her in the office. It should have been the first place I checked, but it was the furthest room from ours, so it was the last room I made it to.
She was sitting behind her computer screen with tears in her eyes and a scowl on her face. I didn’t waste another second before running to her and kneeling on the floor next to her chair. “Ivy, are you okay? Is everything okay?”
She nodded and winced, not taking her eyes from her computer screen.
I spun the chair around, forcing her to look at me. “You’re in pain. How long has this been going on for? This looks worse than the last time.”
“It started about three hours ago, but I didn’t want to wake you up only for them to send us home again. I thought I’d come in here, work on a
few things, and wait it out before I did anything. You’ve barely gotten any sleep and I just wanted to wait to see if it got worse before I woke you up again.”
“How far apart are they?”
“Twenty-three words.”
I looked at her with confusion all over my face. I didn’t understand. But then again, if Ivy was in front of her computer, that meant she was working. And when she was working, she had no sense of time. It was impossible to ask her to time something when she was in that frame of mine. Once, she burnt noodles because she decided to work while waiting for it to finish boiling.
“Okay, and that means…”
“It means I think it’s time.”
I froze. It’s time means get off your ass and hustle. But hearing the very pregnant love of my life say it as she grabbed her stomach and groaned… I froze. Fear consumed me. This was different than the other times, I could tell. I just knew that I’d take her to the hospital and they wouldn’t send us home without our baby. That meant, the next time I was here, there would be a crying baby with us. And I froze.
“Cade!” Ivy’s cries shook me out of my panic enough to get up and start getting things together to leave. She actually had to remind me to put clothes on, otherwise I would have shown up to the hospital with my dick swinging.
We made it to the hospital in record time, but it helped that the car was already packed from the first visit six days earlier. This time, they admitted us immediately and started hooking straps up to her stomach. The sweet swooshing sounds came through a monitor and it finally put me at ease. That was my baby’s heart I was hearing and it calmed me enough to take in what was going on around me.
