Page 28 of The Price of a Promise

My mother’s eyes flashed wide for the briefest of moments before she swung her gaze toward my father.He shifted, the wood chair creaking.

“Geri, can you please give us a moment?”my father asked, his eyes lasered in on me.A forest sage tempest swirled there.

“Of course!I’ll pop these muffins in the oven when I get back,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel as she dutifully left the kitchen.My parents waited a few moments after Geri left before launching the assault.

“Who gave you that ring?”My father’s schooled voice couldn’t hide the quake of anger.

“Axel,” I whispered so quietly I almost couldn’t hear myself.

“Why are you even still seeing him?”my mother hissed, as though Geri lurked within hearing distance.

My mouth flopped open and closed a few times before I said, “He’s my boyfriend.My fiancé now.”

“What she means to say,” my father spit out, “is why would you throw away your future on a boy like him?”

“I’m not throwing my future away,” I replied, but my voice withered in the face of their outrage.

“There is no future with him,” my father said, his fingers curling into a tight fist.“If you are with him, you’ve thrown it all away.It’s as simple as that, Cora.”

“I don’t understand why you see it like that,” I whispered.The tears had returned, the emotion clamping my throat, and this time I wasn’t strong enough to will any trace away.“He’s a good man.He’s destined for greatness.He’s—”

“He’s nothing,” my father repeated.“He’s a joke.He’s a-a-a passing fancy.”

“Something you need to get out of your system,” my mother said in a low voice.“Which is what you’re doing, right?”

“I don’t want him out of my system,” I said faintly.I wasn’t sure I had the strength to weather this conversation after the torment of reading Chris’s letter.But this conversation had to happen.“I want to marry him.”

My father laughed bitterly, shaking his head as if I’d suggested I wanted to marry a lamp post.“You absolutely will not.”

“I will,” I said, though it was so quiet I wasn’t sure I had really said it.

My mother pressed two fingers to the center of her forehead.“You’ll get this out of your system.And then you will come to your senses.”

“No daughter of mine is marrying a…a hillbilly like that,” my father sputtered.“You were bred for better things than what he can offer you.We didn’t give you everything you needed on a silver fucking platter just for you to throw it all away on a piece of redneck trash like him.”

The tears had arrived, and they did not care about keeping quiet.A sob ratcheted my chest.“He’s not trash.If you’d get to know him—”

“I know enough,” my father hissed.“He’s got nothing.He can offer you nothing.How can you not see this, Cora?”

“Please.Come to your senses,” my mother said quietly, reaching out to squeeze my wrist.The motherly gesture felt like a rebuke.I snatched my hand away and tried to swallow another sob.Silence scraped by, eternal and coarse between the three of us.I covered my face with my hands, trying like hell to compose myself.

“Stop crying,” my mother said after a moment.“There’s no need to be so emotional.”

Her words were both a warning and a plea.In this family, there was never any need to be emotional.Not even when my parents were ripping my heart out of my chest and forcing me to watch myself bleed out.

My instinct was to apologize, to quiet myself, to return to stone as they wanted.And I tried.I tried so hard.I’d been practicing this my entire life.But the pain of what they’d voiced here was too great.I was still nursing the wounds Chris’s letter had reopened, and now they wanted me to stick a knife into my chest and act like it didn’t hurt.

“You need to do what’s best for your future,” my father went on.“You can’t let your emotions get in the way.How do you think we built this family to such great heights?Not by letting our hearts fuck everything up.”

“There is a time and a place for love,” my mother interjected.“And this is not it.”

“Frankly, I thought we taught you better than that,” my father sniffed.The disappointment in his voice prompted another pummeling wave of tears that I fought like hell to obscure.

“Maybe you should just go,” my mother finally said when my attempts to stop crying were unsuccessful.She checked her watch.“You might be late.Allan, let’s call the car.”

My father grunted and pulled out his phone.I drew a ragged breath, dabbing at my eyes with my napkin.

My mother tutted.“You’re getting mascara on the napkin.”

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