I Do, Don't I?

Chapter Twenty-One

I didn't know why I agreed to have dinner with him in the first place. Everything was so complex inside my head even if the answers have been all laid out. But if there's anything I am sure of, that is I don't want to go back home.

I don't know why but this is the place where I feel home at most. I feel safe and free and welcome and just as simple as this, it made me happy. And somehow, John's presence seem to be a part of it.

I saw my luggage in the middle of the cottage's tiny living room and remembered that I haven't unpacked yet and due to the unexpected turn of events, I forgot what kind of clothes I have packed. I knelt down and unlocked the white hardcase. The clothes, even the knickers, were branded. The names all sounded extravagant that made me want to wear nothing of them but then, they all belong to me. I temporarily closed the hardcase and pulled it behind the Chinese divider, where the bed was. I laid out all my top. After being able to pick out one, I laid out my bottoms next. I placed everything else back inside my trunk. Before I closed it, I checked the pockets if I even brought make-up. Powder, mascara, and Maybelline beige lipstick that I remembered picking up from a drugstore on the way here.

I glanced at the wall clock on the opposite wall. It was four in the afternoon and it's just enough time for me to get ready. I know it still sounds a bit too early but hey, I don't know when he'd come back and pick me up. He never told me the time. He just asked me to have dinner with him and I just said yes. I don't even know why I said yes in the first place. Everything was just so fuzzy and crazy and I thought having dinner sounds nice.

Oh goodness. This doesn't mean I'm cheating on my Jude, does it? Oh, shut it. I already did it before. Why did I do it anyway in the first place? Why didn't I just tell Jude the truth in the first place? That way, I wouldn't have cheated, I wouldn't have an affair and I wouldn't have had the accident. But then, what? What would I tell Jude? That The Groove sucks? That whenever he says it I just want to go crazy? That just doesn't sound right and the way I'm married to him didn't sound right either. I didn't know what I saw in him. Did my father just forced me to marry him like "Here, this is my daughter, Rachel Scott. There you go, take her, just don't take the company." No. That's just crazy. My dad doesn't look like the kind of guy who would do that to his daughter. He's sweet and nice and truthfully, I just feel closer to him than to my mother. Now I wonder whether I told John all that. I finished my preparation and waited for the time to arrive.

Right now, there's no one I trust except John. I know it sounds all wrong but he was the only who gave me answers that I didn't really want to hear but at least I knew they were true. I wasn't sure how, but my heart tells me so.

**********

It was a couple of minutes before seven when he arrived. He'd knocked on the woven door. I sprung up from my bed and straightened up my yellow above-the-knee chiffon summer skirt and my white tank top. I caught an image of myself at the dressing table's mirror and combed my fingers through my hair. I flicked them back and forth and made it look effortless. I stopped for a moment and thought of what I was doing then reminded myself that this was just dinner. Nothing else. No strings attached.

I answered the door not too late and met his smile. He stared up at me, more like gaping, two steps below. I closed the dim light of the cottage and shut the door gently behind me. The scene had a fairytale-touch to it.

I, playing the princess, gradually stepped down from my throne--except that it was only two small steps and it was from a cottage--without peeling my eyes from the pauper--except that he's not a pauper 'cause he practically owns a land of billion's worth--and accepts his offer of marriage--except that this is only dinner and not marriage--underneath the silver glow of the moon from way up high.

"Hi," I said, almost breathless, then, I reminder myself to breathe.

"Hi," he said, as breathless as I was.

He looked handsome, almost prince-like, in his black suit over a plain white v-neck tee paired with faded blue jeans. The outfit that would perfectly match mine if we were to take a stroll along the shore but I don't see any shore so I don't think that's going to happen.

"You look beautiful tonight," he said.

I felt my cheeks burn despite the cold breeze. "Thank you. You don't look so bad yourself," I complimented back, to divert his attention if he'd noticed me blushing.

He chuckled underneath his breath. "That's good to know."

I smiled in return.

There was a pause, almost like a nervous kind of pause, when he finally spoke.

"Walk with me?"

I continued to read into his eyes, never once did our eyes take off of each other since I first opened the door tonight. I nodded.