𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐓 • Love Quinn

sixteen 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲

So he had prayed the raid away, and for the sixth year it was dry; the grass turned yellow and it did not grow. That line, over and over again, Marge couldn't move on from it. Perhaps it spoke to something much deeper in her psyche, or perhaps she was entirely brain dead, but she couldn't keep going. She held "Ceremony" in her hands, a book by Leslie Marmon Silko, and let her eyes run over the words again and again until they stuck.

Even as her husband laid on his front and stared up at her in their bed, she kept reading. "I see why you like Natalie so much," he said. "She's cool."

Marge let her eyes flicker to his dark eyes, forcing a smile. "Mm."

So he had prayed the raid away, and for the sixth year it was dry; the grass turned yellow and it did not grow.

So he had prayed the raid away, and for the sixth year it was dry; the grass turned yellow and it did not grow.

So he had prayed the raid away, and for the sixth year it was dry; the grass turned yellow and it did not grow.

So he had prayed the raid away, and

"Hey," Gael said, "put down the book."

and for the sixth year it was dry;

"Let's talk for a second."

the grass turned yellow and it did not grow. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Did it not occur to you that I might have something to say?"

Marge sat the book down onto her lap, the duvet covering her legs crossed pretzel-style underneath. She looked up to her husband, unimpressed by his persistence. He leant on his elbows to prop himself up, and his dark features stood out to her. His scruff framing his mouth and jaw, his glossy bedhead, and his eyes—you truly couldn't tell where the pupils ended and the irises begun. But she didn't care to figure it out. She wanted him to say whatever he needed to get off his chest so she could read the next line.

"Okay, what is going on with you? Hm?"

Marge looked to the ceiling, clearly not wanting to deal with his evident agitation.

"What did I do?"

She let out a long and expelling sigh before meeting his eyes again. "Nothing. I've just had a lot on my mind."

"Like?" his full eyebrows furrowed.

"Nothing."

"Well, it's obviously something if it's bothering you so much."

"It's nothing. What did you want to talk to me about?"

His lips curled a little at one corner.

"What?" she asked irritatedly. 

He wasn't looking at her eyes, then, but instead a little higher up above them. "You've got that stress line, right there," he rose his thumb to her forehead, rubbing into the dent between her brows. 

She hit it away with one swift moment, glaring at her husband jocularly. Then, she deepened her voice into a poor Darth Vader imitation, "Speak now." 

A silence.

"I think we should start trying."

She smirked, "Trying? What were we doing before? Failing?"

"No—"

"Did saying 'I do' mean nothing to you?"

"I mean trying for a baby," he articulated himself slowly and concisely to ensure his words didn't get lost in translation. And by the faltering smile and the jerking back of his wife's head, he knew he got through to her that time just fine. "I want a family with you. Why wait?"