His eyes land on me, and they narrow.
I swallow.
“We have an announcement to make,” he says, beaming at the crowd.
I turn and glance at Eva, but she’s still staring straight ahead. Still not looking at me, still white, her lips tight.
“At long last, a day we’d prayed to our Lord and Father for has finally come.”
Eva looks down, her eyes closed.
“At long last,” Leonard booms, grinning maniacally. “Our daughter is going into God's good light!”
Wait, what?
“Ladies and gentlemen, in three days, our lovely Evangeline is getting married!”
The bottom drops out.
The walls come crashing down, and this time, she does turn, and the look on her face shatters something inside of me.
What the fuck is happening.
Chapter Forty-Three
Evangeline
It’s like a weight, dragging me down. The whole rest of dinner, I don’t taste, I don’t eat, I just sit there.
Chained.
Trapped.
Knowing he’s looking and knowing if I look back to see those eyes, I’ll break right here.
Dinner turns into dessert — courtesy of Mrs. Wilshire’s bakery, and after that, the assembled families and volunteers begin to mingle. People hug me, and congratulate me, but I don't hear them.
I don’t feel them.
I don’t feel a thing, actually. I walk through the crowd in a daze until I find myself alone by the stairway that leads up to the main chapel. I glance back, seeing everyone still mulling around with coffee and their own conversations, and without thinking, I start to climb.
The conversations fall away as I climb the stairs, and by the time I find myself in the darkness of the chapel, it’s quiet.
I’m alone.
I step forward, my pulse beating deep and steady until I find myself in front of the pulpit, looking up at the cross up on the wall behind it. I smile and shake my head, thinking of what now seems like ages ago, and how I went to the next town over to “confess my sins”.
As if what I did was a sin.
What’s worse now about being chained to this new fate is knowing that what I did — what we did — was no sin.
Nothing that feels that good, and that real, and that true, could be a sin, I know that now.
Now that it’s too late.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
I smile sadly before I turn at the sound of Rowan’s voice.
“We shouldn’t be together.”
“You mean that like, right now, or in the broader sense.”
I look down, half-smiling ruefully. “Both.”
“That you talking or your dad?”
I glance up, my eyes stinging.
“Shit, I'm sorry, I- wait, Eva.” He steps forward as my face starts to crumple.
“Hey, c’mere,” he says quietly, and before I know it, I'm sinking into his arms and burying my face in his chest.
“I don’t want this,” I whisper.
“So don’t do it.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand, it’s not that easy.”
“It is that easy,” he growls, his arms tightening around me.
“I don’t have what you have okay? I don't have this perfect, wonderful, loving family, but the one I do have is all I have.” My voice rises in my chest, tightening. “I can't just run away from that.”
“So you're going to get married.”
“I'm- I don't know what I want.”
“Just that it isn't me.”
I freeze in his arms, swallowing. “I didn't say that.”
“Then what, angel.”
“I don't know, Rowan.”
“Yes, you do,” he growls into my ear, and I shiver against him.
And I'm pretty sure he knows what I can't say, even if he makes me want to say it anyways.
“You remember that book you were reading the night I knocked on your window?”
I glance up at him. “Abelard and Heloise.”
He nods. “They weren’t supposed to be together either, because of religion, and family, and the powers that told them they couldn’t? But they were.”
“Is that what we are?” I say softly. “Are we supposed to be together?”
“You tell me.”
“I thought we were just practicing,” I look up at him. “I thought this was all just-”
“Whatever this was,” he shakes his head. “I know I'm not the only one that knows we left that behind a long time ago.”
I drop my face into his chest, squeezing my eyes shut.
“Tell me what you want,” he croons into my ear.
“I can't,” I whisper.
“Yes you can, angel. Just tell me what-”
“I want you,” I husk against his chest.
He freezes. “Say it again.”
This time, I look up. This time, I drag my eyes up to meet his as the words tumble from my lips again. “I want you.”