Page 11 of Hidden Vows
Which, I guess, is where Jude and my story officially starts.
“Jude and I met when I was five, shortly after my parents bought a house here in town,” I tell Ava. “They hadn’t intended to live here full-time, but Mom loved Ashford Falls, and DC isn’t that far away, so we stayed while Dad commuted back and forth.”
“You say there isn’t much to tell, yet you’re starting the story thirty years ago. How is there not a lot to tell?”
I chuckle lightly. “I’m just giving you a bit of backstory.”
“All right. Sorry. I’ll be quiet.” Ava smiles, lifting her hands slightly in apology.
“Jude and I became the best of friends. We did everything together, and shortly after I turned fourteen, we started dating. I know it’s ridiculous to say, but I knew I was going to marry him.”
I remember the day Jude and I met like it was yesterday.
We’d only moved to town a few days earlier, but Dad had been called back to the city before we could finish unpacking. Mom hadgotten a little frustrated with me and needed a break, so she took me to the park, hoping other kids would be there to play with.
Unfortunately, the park was empty when we got there, but I was used to playing by myself. Mom was always around and tried her best, but she couldn’t entertain me twenty-four seven.
Shortly after we got to the park, Walt showed up with Jude, and without even giving him a chance to do anything, I ran right up to him and introduced myself. From that moment on, he was my best friend—and I was his.
“There’s something about falling in love with your best friend. They understand you in a way most people never will, and that’s what I felt with Jude. He truly was my other half.” We were each other’s first everything. There was a comfort in knowing Jude knew all of my secrets—or at least most of them. When it came to him, I never felt self-conscious or afraid. He was my safe place, and I thought I was his. “I thought I knew him better than I knew myself.”
“You didn’t?” Ava probes when I don’t continue.
“I honestly don’t know anymore.” I stand from the couch, unable to sit still. I move back to the kitchen, where I was packing up the s’mores bars and lemon cookies I made last night before Ava knocked on my door. “We got married, but we kept it secret.”
“What?” Ava shouts, standing from her seat and marching into the kitchen. “Married in secret?”
“Yeah, my dadreallydidn’t like the idea of Jude and me being together, but we didn’t care. We loved each other, and that was all that mattered.”
The love I felt for Jude on our wedding day was like nothing I’d ever felt before—like nothing I’ve ever experienced since. And I thought Jude felt the same. The way his voice wavered as he said his vows, the love that showed in his eyes, the gentle caressof his hands against mine, all of it spoke of the love we shared.
It may not have been the wedding I’d always imagined growing up, but it was perfectly us, and that was all I wanted in the end—a wedding solely about us.
“That’s all that should matter,” Ava whispers in the silence. “Why didn’t your dad like you with Jude?”
“I honestly don’t know.” And that’s the truth. I have some suspicions, but I was never able to get an answer from my mother, and my father refused to talk about it at all. “There was always this perception that the Murphys came from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“What?” Ava asks in disbelief. “Why the hell would people go to Murphy’s if they thought that?”
“It wasn’t everybody in town who thought it, but it was enough.” I snap the lids closed on the containers before I continue. “Of course, Murphy’s is the only bar in town, so people didn’t let their opinions of the owner stop them from spending their money there.”
“Right,” Ava scoffs. “So, your dad just went along with parts of the town and assumed the Murphys were bad news? Without actually knowing them?”
“My mom was from Ashford Falls. She and Walt grew up together. They were best friends.”
“Was it more than that?”
“I don’t know.” I spin away from her and move to the sink to wash my hands.
Ava doesn’t need me to say the word to understand I truly have no idea why my father feels the way he does about Walt and Jude, but that doesn’t stop her from returning us back to the original conversation.
“What happened with you and Jude? After you got married?”
I keep my back turned to her, not wanting to see her face when she hears my next words. “We were married in June, shortly after I graduated high school, and three months later I filed for divorce.”
“I’m sorry. Did I hear you correctly?”
“You did.” I turn back to face Ava, leaning back against the sink.
