And that’s true.
My ugly cry continues, my face a mask of red streaks and tears in a mirror that’s meant to reflect back cultivated beauty, in a city designed to make people feel special as a direct result of their possession of money.
Mom means well.
But that doesn’t mean she’s right.
Leaving my own wedding was my idea. I own it. Declan made it happen, but I asked for it. I did.
Me.
I’m a different person now, and that choice to subvert my mother’s will has consequences.
Consequences that are leaking out of my body at an alarming rate, through tears and spasms and visceral sensations that remind me, yet again, that I am human. So much of my life involves thought and analysis, process and procedure. The body, though, demands space. Time. Attention.
And it remembers everything.
Tap tap tap.
“Shannon? Honey? Dad’s gone. You can come out now. No one’s here. We’re alone again.”
I open my mouth to speak but all the words are trapped in an airlock between my heart and my throat. My skin crawls with heat, the steam from the tub filling the room, brushing against my flushed, naked body like butterflies landing in staccato beats.
Bang bang bang.
“Shannon?” Declan’s louder voice is tinged with worry. “Are you okay? Say something.”
I can’t.
But the body knows what it needs.
Shaking, I stand and walk three steps to the door, unlocking it. Before I can twist the doorknob, Declan’s pushing against the door, opening it gently, his concerned eyes meeting mine.
“Oh,” he says, one syllable that carries the weight of our entire relationship in it. I’m in his arms, Declan bending one knee to reach down and turn off the bathtub water, the layer of joyful, relaxing foam so close to the edge it’s about to erupt in a massive spillover that will cause unremitting chaos and mess.
Just like me.
“Shhhhhh,” he whispers into my hair, his hands following the well-worn paths across my back, down to my hips, his fingers like a brush in the hands of an artist who uses love, not paint, to make a picture of how the world should be. In his embrace I can let it go, sob and keen, seethe and quiver, invoking my own ire and outrage at a world I can disrupt, but can’t steer.
I did this.
I did all of this.
My power turns out to be so much more than anyone ever let me know.
Except for Declan.
He knew.
He knows.
“She—she—thinks I’m supposed to feel s-s-s-orry?” I finally choke out, the words garbled as my lips press against his shoulder, my tears viscous against his skin. “Like this was my fault?”
“She’s wrong.”
The room is so warm, like a soft cloud inside a cocoon. The only sound is my sniffles.
“I know that! But she thinks it’s okay to tell me I’m expected to apologize to her!”
“You can’t control what she thinks or says. Only how you respond to her.”
“Maybe you can be that way, Declan, but I can’t! She shouldn’t be this way.”
He stays silent.
We just breathe.
“Did I—was I—did we—are we in the wrong? We left all those people in the lurch. Your dad’s happy because we’re a trending story on all the major news outlets and getting all this free, positive press for Anterdec,” I say, laughing in spite of myself, giggling against Declan’s bare chest, my arms tightening around his waist. “And my dad didn’t say anything bad, but that’s Daddy. He just goes along with whatever Mom says. He’s her lapdog.”
A decidedly male sound emerges from Declan’s throat. “I wouldn’t quite say that. Jason has more backbone than you think.”
“Hmmm.” I’m not sure what he means by that.
“Shannon, don’t second-guess yourself,” he mumbles into my temple, giving it a little kiss that makes me cling harder. “What you did back there in Massachusetts was brave.”
“Brave?”
“Yes. You stood up to her. You stopped her. You—and only you—gave Marie the first hard ‘no’ that woman has heard in a very long time.”
“I didn’t do it alone! You got the helicopter and the jet and called Grace and—”
“I was your operations manager. You were the decision maker. You decided. I just made the logistics line up.”
The first hard ‘no.’
I take three, four, five deep breaths, the humid air making it hard to breathe, the lavender bubble bath aroma soothing and stifling at the same time. Tender and deferential, Declan guides me to the tub, urging me to slip in. I do. He joins me.
Miraculously, the water doesn’t overflow.
“Ahhhhhh,” we say at the same time, catching each other’s gaze and smiling. My eyes sting, so I rub them, hard, the skin around them so raw it feels like wet tissue paper.
“You did it,” he repeats. “You. And I’m proud of you.”
“Proud? For making us a media spectacle and leaving the Boston Wedding of the Year in shambles?”
“Yes.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Your mother is nuts. I am unorthodox.”
I sniffle-laugh, but his words resonate.
“Shannon, do you remember that very first date we had?”
“Which one? The business dinner date or the picnic date where I nearly pierced your penis with my EpiPen?”
His thighs close in, sloshing a little water over the edge. “Christ. Please don’t bring that up.”
I throw a handful of bubbles at him. He dunks his head under, then pops back up, a tuft of white foam on the tip of his slicked-back dark hair.