Page 28 of Avenged

He nodded. “Do you have your birth certificate, Social Security card, and two forms of ID?”

“I’ll go grab them.”

I left him and Violet alone. I didn’t want to know what they said. I just wanted to get this over with so we could put it behind us and allow our lives to go back to normal. A life where I took care of Violet, she took her genius intelligence and became something brilliant, and I got to see her shine.

Once I’d collected the legal documents I needed, I joined them in the entryway in time to hear Violet ask, “Is Dawson coming?”

I groaned inwardly.

“Nah, he had to go to work.”

“Dawson got a job?” I asked, surprised.

Travis nodded. “At Stoker’s.”

“Well, that’s good, right?”

He nodded again.

“Stop procrastinating. Let’s go,” he said and opened the door for us. Violet and I walked past him, and the scent of him wafted over me again. Strong. Heady. Masculine. So exactly Travis. So everything I shouldn’t have in my life.

Once we got to the county clerk’s office, getting the marriage certificate was painless and quick. The real delay was in signing up for a time with a judge who could actually make the marriage legitimate that day. We sat on a bench, waiting, and my nerves returned. I felt like I was living in a dream world. Like I would wake up and find myself still asleep in my bed, two days prior, with the pain coursing through my stomach. To be honest, the pain hadn’t really left. It hadn’t gone away. There’d been more and more times like this recently. Where my period was over, but the pain lingered. Most days, I just shoved it at the back of my brain and moved forward. But there were times, like two nights ago, when I found it unmanageable. When I lost myself to it.

By the time the judge was finally ready for us, the waves of doubt were whirling through me again. Could I really do this? Travis seemed to sense it. He put a hand on my shoulder and turned me so I was facing him. I had tried not to look at him too much all morning, because he was so handsome it hurt. So beautiful I was afraid someday I’d want to keep him for real, just as he was walking away. I couldn’t afford that. I couldn’t afford any of this. My throat tightened, my chest tightened, and my body felt like it might keel to the floor at any moment.

“Jersey,” he said quietly.

“Hmm.”

“Look at me,” he said, and I did. Concern was in his eyes. Caring. Things I wasn’t used to seeing in anyone’s eyes except the three women I lived with. “You can do this. You should do this. This is the right thing.”

Violet was already in the judge’s chamber. She was chatting away with him. Something about how he’d become a judge and what it would take for her to become one. It made me smile. Violet wanted to be everything and nothing all at the same time. She talked to every single soul she met about their job and what it took to have that job. She was smart enough to do any of it. She had a future so bright ahead of her it was dazzling to look at sometimes. But the thing she gravitated to most was science. Biology. Animals.

I could do this. I had to do it. I needed to be there for her and her future, and if it meant signing documents with Travis today and getting the medical care I needed to make sure I was part of her future, then I would do it.

I nodded.

He squeezed my hand, rubbing the back of it with his thumb, causing my body to relax in a way it rarely did. In some ways, it would have been easier to do this with any man other than Travis, because my body liked him way too much for this platonic endeavor. But, then again, I wouldn’t have trusted any other man enough to enter into this kind of partnership with him. Right and wrong were all tangled up together like everything else in this situation.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I am,” he replied instantly, and our eyes met for a long moment, as if we were both assessing the level of honesty in each of our responses. As if we were both silently saying, “Last chance to back out.”

“You two coming in or what?” Violet called out.

Travis and I stared for a moment more, then he smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “We are,” he replied. And we did.

I got married on a Tuesday in June. To a man I barely knew. To a man I’d never dated or shared a kiss with. To a man I didn’t love. To a man who offered me a way out of a painful situation with grace.

When I said, “I do,” I could only wonder what my mom would make of all of this. My mom, who’d fallen in love with my dad as a teenager. Who’d married him and stayed at home raising his daughters while he worked long, manual hours in the shipyard, building giant ships. I could almost feel her presence with me as I wore her dress and said I do. I couldn’t tell if she was pushing me into it or trying to drag me away.

I said a silent prayer to her. “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t know what else to do.”

Then I couldn’t feel her anymore, and it made me sad because I wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or happy. How could I tell what some ghostly spirit was telling me when I wasn’t even sure how I felt about it myself? All I knew was, just as I’d been waiting for our life to get back to normal, I’d done something that would pretty much guarantee it would never be the same again.

Truck

FOR HER

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