Once Upon A Half-Time 2(84)

She believed it.

Every word.

Mandy wanted nothing more than that life of romance and devotion, a life I never thought was possible until I fell for her.

She watched, captivated.

And I imagined it was us before the altar—her eyes wide, her smile perfect, declaring her true feelings to all who would listen.

Dad rested a hand over the bride and groom’s hands. “Marriage is a gift. Most times it will be hard. Sometimes it will be painful. But, given the chance, it will become your greatest joy. Just as you’ve grown together as childhood friends, you will now explore this new world of love and commitment as partners, with all of its surprises and challenges.”

I snorted. Rick frowned at me, but I didn’t care.

I just had the biggest surprise and challenge of my life thrown at me, but there was no one I’d rather handle it with than Mandy.

Hell, I didn’t think life could throw anything crazier at me. Even if it did, I’d do everything in my power to ensure she experienced only happiness, pleasure, and love.

If that was marriage, what did I need a ring for?

“You’ll find your relationship isn’t simply an agreement between two people to live in harmony,” Dad said. “As a wife, you will comfort, guide, and support your husband—even when it is hard to trust…and harder to imagine his commitment. And, as a husband…” Dad paused for just a moment. “You will have a great responsibility. You must become more than a man.”

I looked up. My father’s glance was quick, hardly enough for Bryce or Lindsey to notice.

But I did.

And I seized a breath for whatever was coming.

“You will become a husband to a wife. A lover to a woman. Eventually a father to a child. And while those things may sound like three separate duties, you’ll find they are one. These responsibilities are what define a man, and you must demonstrate this honor to the woman you love.”

How?

It didn’t surprise me that Dad answered. He loved the sound of his own voice, but goddamn, I was glad he talked.

“How do you do this?” Dad smiled, patting their hands. “You love her. Simple as that.”

Well, fuck. I already did that.

There had to be more, right?

“Now, I understand you’ve prepared your own vows…”

Wait.

Dad stopped preaching, but it couldn’t be that simple.

My feelings for Mandy were complicated, a tangled mess of ill-intentions that created life-changing consequences for both of us.

But maybe that’s what love was?

It wasn’t Lindsey’s wailing tears as she pledged undying, forever devotion to her snuggle-buddy bear. And it wasn’t Bryce awkwardly reading a speech Lindsey must have written for him.

Love was what I felt for Mandy.

Responsibility. Desire. Protectiveness.

And if she hadn’t figured it out yet, then it’d be up to me to show her exactly the type of life we’d make together.

Lindsey and Bryce finished their vows, prayed, and listened to Mandy offer a teary reading from that same damn verse in Corinthians everyone always cited.

I was supposed to give a second reading, but I knew a better passage. I walked to the lectern without a Bible. Years of my father’s tutelage and forced Bible studies at night ended with me memorizing most of the book. The passage hadn’t made sense until now.

The church silenced for me. I looked only at Mandy.

“1 John 4:18.” I said. “There is no fear in love.”





23





Mandy





There is no fear in love.

Nate’s words rang in my mind, beyond the final pronouncement of Lindsey and Bryce as husband and wife.

He spoke every word during the reading with that playboy confidence he used to chase me. It wasn’t his assigned passage, but he didn’t recite it for Lindsey and Bryce.

He read it to me.

For me.

Everything inside me turned from a jumble of confusion into a mooshed mess of panic, anxiety, and fear. My head hurt, I hadn’t slept, and every beat of my heart threatened to shatter it into a million jagged, lovesick pieces.

I wanted Nate, but I would not marry him because we were having a baby. I wasn’t going to risk everything on a man who would use marriage as an excuse for a mistake.

I could protect my own baby, and I didn’t need a ring on my finger to justify carrying the child.

I certainly didn’t need some bad boy swooping in to play baby daddy while he beat the shit out of our best friend ten minutes before the start of the wedding.

Rick bled through the ceremony, and we’d never get the deposit back on a blood-stained tux.

Stress cracked us all, and the only tape I had to piece us together was supposed to stripe my sister’s chest so her dress wouldn’t reveal the tips of her wedding bells for everyone to see.