I hope you all scream at least once in this chapter. -Mol
Chapter 31
He pulls at my shoulder as I try to walk away, but I recover and continue walking.
"Why won't you listen to me?!" He yells after me.
"Because, Josh. The truth is inevitable at this point." I yell back.
I hear his footsteps as he runs after me. "Maybe, at this point," He says through gritted teeth, "you could be thinking of someone other than yourself."
I resist the urge to smack him, but then I remember.
He doesn't remember.
He doesn't remember hardly anything that has to do with me.
Not living with me, not our first real date, not proposing, not our first time, not loving me enough to want to marry me.
And I can't hold him back if he doesn't want it.
"I can't do this," I tell him.
His eyes immediately soften. Moving from anger to hurt.
"What do you mean?" He asks with a shaky voice.
"You know what I mean," I say, only because I can't bring myself to say it out loud.
He shakes his head and his bottom lip quivers, which brings a laugh that catches in my throat.
"No." He says. "No. No, Molly."
"What am I supposed to do?" I ask.
"You're supposed to wait." He says through gritted teeth again.
I realize it's not that he's angry at me. He's gritting his teeth to try not to cry.
I'm tired of seeing him cry.
I'm tired of being the reason he cries.
Like a story book moment, it starts to rain.
"Wait for what?" I ask.
"For me. You even said last night. Why are you doing this?"
He's right.
I don't want to leave him.
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I do." I say. "But only if you're sure you do, too."
He puts either of his hands on my biceps and lifts me up like a rag doll. "I do, Molly. Don't you see that?"
I have to shake my head. "I used to. But ever since the crash, I don't see it the same way anymore." I admit.
He sets me down gently as the rain begins to soak our clothes. "Molly. I got you that ring with the intention of proposing to you with it."
"No you didn't. We'd only been dating for a few months by the time you ordered it. I saw the bill for it."
"I've told every magazine that's ever asked me about girls that I fall fast, and I fall hard. This was no exception."
I look down at his hands, that are outstretched now. Palms facing upward as he pleads with me. I notice a bandage wrapped around his forearm that, now that it's soaked, I can see the different colored oils on the bandage from whatever is underneath it. The bandage needs changed.
I grab his wrist. "What happened?"
"A log fell."
"Get in the tent." I say firmly.
He doesn't protest. I get the first aid kit out of the trunk of my car.
"I thought that stuff was for your eyes." He says as I spray saline solution on a clean bandage. He winces as I press it to his burn.
