Whats Love Got to do With it?: An Arranged Marriage to a Stranger

Arranged Marriage to a Stranger (4)

Chapter 4

When I got upstairs, I quickly called my friends and canceled our plans for the weekend. I didn't tell them the real reason why since I didn't want them to think I was a freak for having an arranged marriage, because, I don't care what my mother says, it is not normal! I plopped down on my bed, exhausted, and thought about what tomorrow would bring, quickly coming to the realization that yes, I was terrified of being married, but even more so I was truly terrified that for the first time in my life I really wouldn't have control of my future.

With no distractions, no third parties commenting or expectations being thrown at me, I actually had a chance to process what was really happening; before, I was just angry that my parents were trying to force me into something, to arrange my life. Now that I got to think about it, I am terrified about what it means to be married, to a complete stranger at that. To live with someone, sleep with someone (in both senses of the word), and I don't even want to think about kids. How could this be happening to me? Things like this don't happen to people like me.

I mean, I'm not totally inexperienced, I have had a few boyfriends before, of course my parents don't know that, but the farthest I've ever gone is kissing, none of my relationships were ever serious. And this.. this arranged marriage thing is very serious! My breath started to hitch as I started to panic, I am not ready to be a wife. My god, wife! That sounds so old! I quickly pressed play on my ipod and forced my body to relax into my bed as the rhythm of the music pulsed into my room. My brain was too scrambled to register what song was playing but it didn't really matter, as long as I had something else to focus on other than my screwed up life.

"I will deal with this tomorrow, I wont let it bother me today" I chanted my new mantra, willing myself to believe though deep down knowing that wouldn't happen.

Slowly, I stopped hyperventilating and eventually fell into sleep, a very restless, crappy sleep from which I awoke several times sweating during the course of the night. And, as I lay awake at 2:37am staring at the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling that I put there when I was five, for the first time in my life, I actually wished that I had school on Saturdays.

When I woke up the sun was blazing into my room, blinding me since I wasn't fully awake yet. As I blinked back my morning grogginess, I thought that maybe last night was just a bad dream, and that nothing in my life had changed, but as I walked to my window to fully pull back my curtains, I knew that everything that happened last night was real.

Both sidewalks of my street were lined with cars; big, expensive, shiny cars, almost all of them SUV's. Except for one, I noticed, which was a shiny blue sports car. Huh, it must be the neighbor's. As I retreated from the window my stomach started to gurgle. I looked at my phone, it said it was friggin one o clock in the afternoon, damn, I slept for like eleven hours! No wonder I'm hungry. I made my way to the kitchen with every intention of getting a bowl of froot loops, my perfect pick me up, when my mother (sigh) stepped right in front of me with a horrified look on her face.

"Carmella, look at you, your a mess! Why aren't you dressed and ready yet? All the guests have arrived."

"Jeez, mom, I just woke up, what do you want from me?"

"Just woke up?!? Carmella, I woke you up three hours ago!!!" Three hours ago, hmm.... nope, don't remember that. "Carmella, you go upstairs and get ready right this instant, because I swear, if you think that an arranged marriage is the worst I can do you are horribly mistaken. Three words, 'Military Boarding School!' Now, you have fifteen minutes to be dressed and ready, then I want you outside mingling with our guests, now go!"

With that she grabbed the froot loops from my hands and shoved me towards the stairs before I could even a "you bitch!". She was seriously getting on my last nerves, especially with the whole grabbing my food from me thing, doesn't she know never to try and take food away from a hungry teenager! Little did she know, though, that two can play at this game.