In the life we were supposed to have, our wedding would have been a society affair, me in dress uniform, a thousand or more politically-connected guests present at The Grove in an extravaganza the media would cover.
In the life we were supposed to have, my parents wouldn’t be dead – likely killed by Nolan Corning’s machine, it turns out, for reasons Mark and I are still trying to discover – and my sister, brother-in-law, and toddler nephew would be there, cheering us on.
In the life we were supposed to have, Lindsay wouldn’t be recovering from a gunshot wound as we drive to Vegas to escape her self-centered, oppressive parents.
But we don’t get to choose what life does to us.
Only how we react to it.
As we drive across the desert, through the long stretch to Las Vegas, Lindsay stares out the window, sunlight playing on the shadow of scars that mark her cheekbone. I can’t remove those. Can’t even cover them up. All I can do is use them as a reminder of a time when I had no power.
A time now long in the past. I will never be in the same position again.
And neither will Lindsay.
I know she thinks I asked her to marry me for all the wrong reasons.
What she doesn’t understand is that four years ago, I had this ring in my pocket. It was in my coat, outside in my car that night of the party. I’d planned to propose then.
All I did today was to right a wrong.
The final wrong.
And now it’s all right. Everything’s right.
Everything is perfect.
She spins the diamond around and around on her finger, the wind pushing through the open windows, her body as relaxed as it can be with her arm in a sling.
Lindsay turns to me and gives me a pensive look. “There’s one thing you should know before we get married, Drew.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Ever?” I feel like someone just threw a brick at my balls.
“No. No, no, no – not ever! No. I mean, someday. Of course I do. Maybe want is the wrong word. How about can’t? Or...not yet? I just...” She blinks hard. Her throat tightens, then moves with effort. Whatever’s going on inside her over this, she’s trying to communicate – and it’s hard for her. I can’t do anything that makes her trust me less.
But this is not your typical road trip conversation when you’re on your way to get married, is it?
“Hey. Hey. It’s okay, Lindsay. I’ll wait. You’re worth it. We’re worth it.” That’s the best I can come up with on the fly.
It seems to calm her down.
“I guess I’m trying to manage expectations. I’m overanalyzing, aren’t I? I do that a lot these days.” She raises the window and re-positions the air conditioning vents. I raise my window and the sound difference is enormous. We’re suddenly in a cocoon. It feels intimate.
It is intimate.
This is life.
“Do you really want to talk about sex right now?”
Her pause makes it hard for me not to smile.
“Yes,” she admits.
“Then let’s do it – talk, I mean,” I add in a rush. “Talk. Not do.”
“Are you as awkward as I am?” she asks seriously. “I feel like I need to be open about this.”
“That’s what we’re doing, Lindsay. Being real. Being open.”
“Okay.” She takes in a resolved breath. “Then I’ll be open. I want to have sex. I loved having sex with you. Loved it.” She blushes, clearly remembering.
I’m about to go out of my mind with lust. Controlling my breathing and blood takes effort. I just want to be close to her. And naked. And sweaty and tender and --
“I’m angry I haven’t been having sex. I’m just so angry about everything! And then I imagine having sex and I want to die.”
I was with her right up to that last sentence.
“Sex makes you think about dying?”
“Not sex with you.”
“Thinking about sex with other men makes you want to die?” This conversation suddenly makes me irrationally angry.
“Thinking about what happened in your apartment does.”
“Got it.” I calm down instantly.
“I can see I’m upsetting you. I’ll stop talking about it.”
“No,” I say softly. “Yes, it upsets me. But it would upset me more if you felt like you couldn’t share parts of the true you with me. I’m here. I’m here to listen. I’m here to touch and heal with. Only when you’re ready, though.”
“That’s what makes this so hard!” she says, her body vibrating with frustration. “You’re patient and understanding and calm and rational and so damn perfect!”
“And that’s...bad?” Women. I really, really do not understand her.
“It is when I’m such a mess.”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. My fingertips are ice cold. “I’m a mess, too,” I admit.
“You are?”
I nod.
“How?”
“I think it would be easier to tell you all the ways I’m not a mess.”
Her eyes light up. “That’s how I feel, too.”
“But no one shot me. No one made me parade naked in a room full of people – and on streaming television, covered by every major cable news channel, replayed over and over, still in the newspapers even now. No one violated me publicly like that, Lindsay. Not the same way. I’m not trying to compare what I’m feeling to what you’re feeling -- ”
“That’s just it, Drew – you can!” Her breathing goes shallow, her chest rising and falling, the conversation stressing her out. I want to tell her to stop, but this feels pivotal. We have two more hours to get to Vegas and it feels like this topic is the answer to the meaning of life.
“I would never try to compare.”
“I am not some special tortured snowflake! Don’t do this to me, too. Everyone’s walking around on eggshells with me. Do you know how alone I feel? How lonely? How different and unique? Those words really, really isolate. They turn me into some freak again. Unreachable and misunderstood. I can’t have you do that, too, Drew. Not you.” She starts sobbing, her chin tucked into her chest at an awkward angle.
How did we get from the topic of sex to this?