Page 7 of Rejected
He
I
What on earth What in the How Of all the
All. This. Time?
five
Next thing she knew, he was on his knees on the grass in front of her.
“I have been wanting—needingto talk to you about this, Jo,” he said, and suddenly she was deathly afraid. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t—what are you doing?”
Has the boy taken leave of his senses?
“Please, Jo, I…” he tried to take her hand.
He has.
“Don’t!” she said impulsively.
“Surely you know. Surely, you must have guessed.” He lifted his eyes to her face, and they were full of tears.
Josephine froze. She had never seen him cry.
The night Beth died, he had held her so tightly she had worried he would break her ribs. He’d wet her hair with his tears, but with her head buried in his neck, she hadn’t seen him cry.
Suddenly, she longed to bury her nose in his neck again, to feel his warmth, his familiar scent. To feel safe and protected, like she had when they were both in their early adolescence. To feel the scratch of his shirt against her cheek.Hewas home for her. All that was left of home; all the home she had ever needed.
And all of a sudden, it looked like everything was crumbling around her. Suddenly, it felt as if he was about to take it all away.
“I love you,” Laurie–herLaurie, except no, it was a different, foreign, intense version of him—repeated.This is a nightmare, she thought.I will wake up any minute now.“I have loved you since the moment I saw you.”
“You were three years old.”
“I know.” He did not laugh. “It only got worse from then on. I have—” He kind of choked and stopped breathing for a second, then with visible effort he brought himself under control again. “I have been obsessed with you for years now. I could barely hide it, always following you around, sticking close to you. I am sure I annoyed the heck out of you when we were kids, but I couldn’t help myself. And my attachment grew as I grew, and… surely you know this, Jo, don’t you?”
She couldn’t speak. She could barely move.
“Suddenly, it turned into love,” he went on, a bit breathless. “Real, breath-stopping, heart-pounding love. All-consuming. Burning. These last two years have been pure torture Surely you have seen how I stop breathing every time you so much as look in my direction. I was about to pass out on the day of the wedding, when I saw you appear in the church, with that dress. And when you’re near me, dear God, I…”
“Stop,” she wrought out. “Stop it, Teddy, this minute.”
“Marry me,” he said instead. Still looking at her. Still on his knees, his hands upturned, as if in supplication. In prayer. “Marry me, Josephine St. Claire. I am insanely in love with you and I promiseyou here and now that I will go to my grave trying to make you happy.”
Josephine stared at him.
Licked her suddenly dry lips.
Time seemed to stop.
He called me ‘Josephine’, she thought.I wish he’d kept calling me ‘Jo’ as he always does.Why did he have to go and call me by that ugly name? I hate that name. It’s not me. I should be ‘Jo’ to everyone, not just him. I should be ‘Jo’ to myself.
Why haven’t I had the courage to do that already?
Wait. Did he just propose marriage to me?
