Page 8 of The Awakening
To my surprise, he didn’t ask about my reaction. Instead, he turned and walked into the kitchen.
“We should head out as soon as we can. I don’t want you to stay here any longer than you have to. Your family knows where you are, so we can assume Ray does, too. It’s time to go.” He grabbed our bags and carried them to the truck without another word.
The drive to town was silent. I wondered what he was thinking. Did he want to get out of this? Was Gavin making the mistake of his life?
Was I?
But when Gavin pulled to a stop in front of the courthouse and looked over at me, his smile was warm and eased the fear inside me. “Ready?”.
Was I ready? How ready could I be? We’d only just met. But I was ready to get out of Montana and I could think of far worse ways to accomplish that than marrying Gavin. I still didn’t see how he stood to benefit from it, but I wasn’t about to talk him out of it either. “Yes. Let’s go.”
The clerk was nice, and while we waited for her to find the paperwork we needed, Gavin wrapped his arm around my waist, just like he’d done last night with my father. Gavin knew how to charm people. Especially women from what I could tell. Just the sight of him had every woman in the office fluttering her lashes and tittering.
“Congratulations, you two.” The cheery woman behind the counter said, double-checking the forms we’d filled out. Once Gavin paid, she slid the through the hole in her ticket window.
I clutched the paperwork to my chest, and we walked hand-in-hand and sat down where the clerk had told us to. I bounced my knee a few times before I caught myself and forced it to stop. My heart was racing and the marriage license in my hand shook. Gavin gently pulled it from my clutches.
He was so calm and collected. I wanted to match his energy, so I did my best to hide the nerves I was feeling from him. I took a deep breath in and held it before slowly letting it out. I straightened out my fingers, which had been clenched tightly since Gavin had taken the marriage application from me.
An old man appeared at the door across from us, holding it open for a newlywed couple to exit. He congratulated them, shaking hands with first the young man, then the woman, then they said their thanks and goodbyes, before he turned in our direction. Gavin took my hand and stood. My legs felt like theywere made of lead as we crossed the hall and followed the justice of the peace into his room. If anyone had told me that I’d one day be married outside of a church, I’d have called them crazy. But there I was, about to do exactly that.
Music played softly throughout the small room. A few pews lined either side of the aisle, and the justice of the peace was flanked on either side by understated silk flowers. The relaxed atmosphere inside the room settled my doubt nominally.
“Okay, you two, let’s start. Gavin come with me and Elyse, my wife, Janet will take you from here and get you all set up.” The old man pointed to a woman sitting at a desk nearby, then he escorted Gavin through a set of double doors.#
The small, slender woman with perfectly coiffed gray hair and a gentle smile handed me a bouquet of silk flowers that looked like they had been around since the beginning of time. It seemed impossible for silk flowers to wilt—that was the point of using them rather than real flowers, wasn’t it?—but the ones in my hand looked like they were about ready to give up on that promise. She flung the door open, revealing an altar where her husband and Gavin stood.
My hands trembled as I held the bouquet. If someone had checked my pulse, I’m sure I would have been hospitalized because I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. Chewing on the corner of my mouth I hoped the justice of the peace didn’t pick up on how nervous I was.
More importantly, I didn’t want Gavin to sense my hesitation.
I moved slowly down the aisle toward Gavin while he stared back at me, a kind smile on his face. This man was handsome, tall, and strong, and I was going to marry him. I could do worse, far worse. In fact, I almost had, but this didn’t feel right. He needed to know the truth.
The whole truth.
“A marriage isn’t to be entered into lightly. The two of you have decided to join your lives together. Through happy times, difficult times and through whatever else life decides to throw at you.” The man droned on, and I stared at Gavin, my clammy hands draped in his open palms. I was a fraud. The justice of the peace was speaking of the challenges of marriage, the importance of the bond, and how we’d have to stick together through it all. But our marriage wasn’t one that would be built on that kind of foundation. We weren’t marrying for love.
“Elyse, do you take Gavin as your husband?”
I studied Gavin, looking intently into his eyes. And all I could think about was how kind he was, how ready he was to take on my troubles. Only he didn’t know all the details or what, in about eight months, my life—our lives—would be like if we went through with this marriage. Fake or not, I couldn’t put him through it. He gave my hands a little squeeze of encouragement, but I pulled them away.
“No, I—I can’t. I can’t do this to you, Gavin.” I ran down the aisle and pushed my way through the double doors. I didn’t stop running until I found the women’s bathroom.
I turned on the tap and splashed my face with cool water. I gripped the sides of the sink and leaned over it, sucking in a few deep breaths to calm myself.
The bathroom door squeaked open. “Are you going to tell me what’s happening?” Gavin’s low voice called out to me.
I shut my eyes and swallowed hard. That was the problem. I didn’t want to tell him. “I can’t marry you. It was nice of you to offer, and I appreciate it, but I can’t get you mixed up in this.” I turned to look at him, shaking the water from my hands, pleading with him to agree without asking more questions.
He stepped inside the restroom, letting the door fall closed behind him. “Ellie, I’m already mixed up in it. I don’t understand what you’re so worried about. We’ve got a flight to catch, so let’sjust get this over with, okay?” He reached his hand out for me to take.
“Gavin, I’m pregnant.”
If he was panicked, his face didn’t show it. His expression didn’t even change. I expected shock, outrage, a stern ‘how could you’ even. But instead, he regarded me with a gentle look, calm and silent. The judgment I’d been conditioned to expect absent.
But maybe his silence was speaking volumes.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded. “Okay. We’ll have to work on our story. Come on, let’s get married. We can deal with this later.”
