Chapter 29
That evening, Andrew sets us up a picnic on his boat with no help from his crew. Neither has he ordered from the base mess or so I assume from the overcooked, sticky pasta and lack of vegetables, but this just makes it all the sweeter. I thank him sincerely.
“Really? Because I wanted tonight to be special, but then I realized I don’t cook. In the army everything just comes prepackaged and…”
“It’s beautiful. Really.” He smiles in relief and I hate myself. I hate that I put him on edge like that.
“Andrew…”
“Wait, I have something to say.”
“You know you don’t-” he cuts me off with an upheld palm.
“Let me go first.”
I catch myself. I sit back and nod.
“Crusa. I grew up hearing about you. What your mother was like and what you would be like. I heard about how you were chosen for an academy and how you were at the top of your class. I even subscribed to your newsfeed tag so I could get all of your publications, just so I could feel you close to me, hear your words, your voice.
“I heard you were beautiful and that you were sweet, quiet, and kind. There were many other girls, but I always told myself that I had you waiting for me. You were everything that I could ever want in a bride. In a wife.” This is a very long speech. I’m quite sure he’s rehearsed it as well, because there are no pauses for me to jump in and spare us both. He’s continuing still.
“And when I came to this island and stepped off my boat, I found it all to be true.” I can’t help the puckering that twists my mouth, or the yelp in my head that begs him to let that be enough.
“I’m officially relocated. I was offered a transfer to the c-b center here, and I know you wish to stay near your family, so I took it. That’s one of the things I like about you. You’re so loyal to your family. So, Crusa, I’m saying to you…” he takes a big breath. “I am so pleased you will become my wife in a few days,” and he kisses the back of my hand.
I seem to be frozen. He notices, so he adds, “And we’ll be married.”
Oh, Sweet Mother of God, this is just so far off from where I wanted us to go.
“Andrew…” I have the strangest compulsion to add a “sir,” to the end of that. I try again.
“Andrew. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean?” His expression becomes faintly curious.
“I mean, I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you on Saturday.”
“Why not?” Now he’s got a spark in him. “What’s on Saturday? Nobody told me anything. Let’s just do it on Friday, then.” Imagining the wedding even sooner, albeit completely in theory, makes my heart flutter.
“Andrew, not Friday either. I mean to say, I’m not going through with it. I’m, I’m backing out.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“No!” We haven’t even had sex. How would I be pregnant. He must think I’m a slut, I realize, and it hurts. And he still wanted to marry me?
I’ve been sitting with my legs folded to the side on the yellow picnic blanket he’d set on deck. Now, I push back towards the railing.
I find I’m not at all afraid to look him directly in the eye, and when I speak my voice is very even.
“I just can’t do it. Because…I can’t. It’s too much. I can’t. I can’t be everything that you want me to be. I know it. I’m not any of those things you said I was and I’ve never been them. I can’t be your wife. I can’t be a wife.” And that’s it, that’s the truth.
“What the hell are you talking about?” His voice is too high pitched, and I stifle a cringe.
“I’m so sorry…”
“So what’s all this been, then! Why did you make me waste all my time with you?”
My chest sinks, “Andrew, I didn’t mean for it to end up like this. I thought it would be perfect, just like you did. I’m sorry!” I don’t know what else to say. He stares at me as if he cannot comprehend my existence.
“Listen,” he says. He puts his hands on his hips. I settle down, because he seems to have regrouped.
“Maybe you’re just scared. Go talk to your aunt, and she’ll calm you down, I know she will. That’s part of why we need to live by her. See, it’s working out already.”
Tears swell in my eyes.
“No, I will not do that!”
“Why not, dear?”
“Don’t call me dear! And I’m not scared and I don’t want to be calmed down!”
“I understand. You can go home now, I need some space. I have to stick around at the base for a few days to work out the transfer so I’ll be around. You just come find me when you get over your jitters.”
I sit there, dumb. Then I stand, wanting to say something horrible but my teeth are clenched too tight so I can’t. Also, I can’t think of anything scathing enough. I do wrench off all the bracelets I have on and chuck them at his feet.
He rolls his eyes just as I turn, with military precision, thank you academy education, and stomp across the deck. Noticing the stairs aren’t down, I throw my leg over the edge of the boat with something less than grace but more than enough gung-ho attitude to make my physical education instructor proud. Which incidentally wasn’t hard to do, considering that most scholars proved athleticism and intelligence are definitely not genetically linked traits.
Clinging to the other side of the rail, I see he’s still standing there, right where he was.
“I won’t ever marry you, Andrew.”
“Babe…” he rolls his eyes.
“I won’t. I swear to God, I won’t do it!” I point fiercely at him.
“Crusa,” he says my name, but the taste of it in his mouth, he can’t take it. His mouth curls.
He shouts, “Just shut up!” and my stomach tenses sickly. His cool smoothness has disappeared. There are flat grey shadows raked across him.
“Just shut up!” he screams again. Spit comes off his lips. His eyes strain from wide open to squinted. “Why do you have to do this? I don’t understand!” he stalks towards me.
“Andrew…it’s fine, please…”
He glides the last two steps to me, as I throttle the railing. This is a horrible, horrible position. The boy hovers over me, so close I can feel his heaving, feel his trembling. See the purples, reds, and whites in his knotted fists.
I need to get out of here.
“Damn you, I don’t understand it!” He doesn’t touch me, his arms are by his sides, yet I shudder. I close my eyes, gone in a lukewarm daze.
He screams a torn up scream, spins, and punches the wheelhouse wall.
I’m done. This isn’t my fault anymore. He isn’t even aware that I’m here, in this rage. I’m gone.
With just whispers accompanying my movements, I drop into the water, swim a few meters to the dock, haul myself up, and sprint all the way to the meetinghouse. Simple as that.
I go straight to my zizi in the kitchen. She sits me down and pulls it all from me, slobbery and broken as my words are. She holds me to her breast and tells me we’ll fix it. That he was just upset, and he’ll still marry me. Just let her talk to him. I’m horrified. I tell her no, I’m not marrying him! She says yes, I just need to calm down. I scream at her to leave me alone.
I go to the old graveyard and sob by a thin shale marker that’s tilted.
After the tears roll off, I lay there for a while. And think. Hard. I go to the base early, sometime around when the bells toll three forty-five, so there’s nobody around but the security guards. Purposefully enough that none stop me, I go up to one of the kiosks in the Personnel Offices. I check a few boxes, type a paragraph about serving my country, give them my PSID, and promise them yes, this is really me. It’s easy, really.
Later that night, I sit out on the back porch while everyone has dinner. I stare off into the woods where the graveyard is. It’s comforting, knowing the dead people are over there. I feel like we have a lot in common. I wonder if I’ll be one of them soon.
Even though I’m a certified AIS, colonial units are often sent to the worst places. It’s not very fair, but if I’m going to deploy then I want to be in an area of significance. So it’s perfect, really.
I wander down to Lium and Hale’s boat to wish them farewell. Before I can even knock, though, Lium’s crashed through the door. He throws his arms around me and picks me up, and kisses me hard.
“What are you doing?!” I squeak once he finally stops.
“Celebrating,” he grins.
“I shouldn’t celebrate.”
“Fine. Then I will for the both of us.”
I hear myself whimper. “Lium, I’ve got to tell you, I ruined everything.”
“I know and I love you for it.” Forefathers, he can’t stop smiling. I meant for this to be a serious and cordial goodbye. How this one can turn anything so completely opposite from what I mean is mindboggling.
“Would you put me down, please?”
He swings me back and forth, thinking about it.
“Lium.”
He kisses me again.
He’s just so purely happy, I just can’t push him off a second time. And his lips, it does feel good, something tickling and fluid that pours through me. I find myself enjoying it. I think about nothing but what’s around me, just warmth and movement and him.
I’m baffled by a rough yank. Lium holds me back and looks at me. We share one short moment, starting it in confusion but ending it with dread. I’m whipped back, and I stumble to the deck.
“Crusa. Go.”
Her speech is thin and cold.
“Zizi,” I start. I feel like I’ve just stepped out of the waves, so heavy and out of breath. I raise my face to my aunt.
She slaps me. Hard.
“Go home, before people see you.” I don’t get up. My legs don’t want to walk. There’s angry yelling behind her. Male. I hear Lium.
My zizi leans down and tries to lift me. “If you have any respect for me at all, you’ll do what I say,” her hiss rises ever so slightly, a clear warning. I scramble up. I don’t know, I think maybe something is wrong. Maybe a storm is coming and we have to get inside right away.
I catch sight of Lium, straining against a twisted arm, his brother set firmly at his back.
Sharper, my zizi yells at me to go once again. Lium shifts but Hale does something that makes him jerk to a silent, withering stop. Hale barks at me over my zizi’s constant snare. She tells me I’m not listening but that’s not it. I don’t leave yet because I’m waiting.
I’m waiting for Lium to tell me to go. Then I’ll know it’s alright.
Until then…not yet.
My expression feels still and warm and full. I’m not yelling like them. Lium’s face is soft, too. That’s why I like to look at it now when everything’s so harsh. Red, set with eyes big and wide and full of a clear darkness and something else. He doesn’t speak. He looks scared.
I scream when thick arms swing me off my feet.