C. Brown - Compromising

“What, Cassie? Talk to me, baby.”

“I can’t marry you, Alex. Not right now.”

My words seemed to knock the air out of Alex as they hit me like a ton of bricks. I was in shock by what had left my mouth, and now afraid of what was to come. I had done irrevocable damage to us, but even more so, I knew that I had destroyed Alex. As I looked at him, eyes bulging with tears streaking down his face, I couldn’t stop the floodgates from opening and allowing the tears to race down my own. The hurt filling Alex’s truck was too much to bear, so I jumped out and threw up, watching the splatter hit the ground through my tear streaked eyes.

What the fuck had Cassie just said?

I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly because my ear drums instantaneously burst with the sound of her words. My heart sank, and vomit seemed to be racing to the top, ready to explode in a violent manner, mirroring Cassie on the other side of the truck. Heat flared up in my chest, and the pain accompanying her words was worse than anything that I’d ever felt before. A savage beast, ripping away at my flesh would have felt better than what I was feeling at the moment. I couldn’t breathe, and my vision went blurry, making me feel sick with disgust and worry.

My grandmother shocked the hell out of me with how vile she had been to Cassie. I didn’t go into that situation thinking she would be okay with what was happening, and I knew she would have some words to say, but never in a million years, no matter how angry she got, did I think she’d lay out an ultimatum for me. Here I was, forced to choose between my family and the girl I loved, and the shit was slowly, tortuously ripping me in half, leaving me bare, naked, and vulnerable.

I forcefully pushed open the truck door and stepped out, propping myself up against the side while my hands hid my face from the sun. Agony soared through me, filling me with combustible pain. I turned around, momentarily losing the ability to control my body, and my fist met the side of the truck, sending throbbing jolts through my hand as I yelled out in menacing frustration, “Fuck!”

This shit felt like a nightmare that just wouldn’t end, and I was struggling to break away from it.

When I finally got my bearings back, I walked around to the other side of the truck to find Cassie hunched over, breathing hard as if she struggled to find air. I couldn’t care that she had just poured the salt into the wounds that felt as if they would be the end of me. She was hurting, and when she hurt, I hurt even more. The sight of her in that state was enough to put the nail in my coffin, and I wasn’t ready for that to happen.

Not yet.

“Cassie,” I mumbled, feeling weak and finding it hard muster up the energy to get the words out.

She cried as she turned her head and looked at me, almost like she was ashamed.

“Cassie, come here,” I said, slowly making my way over to her. I didn’t care what it took. I was going to make things better for her. I needed to see her in any other way than what I was seeing right now because this sight was frightening. The last time I had seen her this broken down was when Allen had attacked her, and I needed to erase that horrifying visual from my mind.

I stooped down and took her face in my hands, staring into a pair of sad, dejected emerald green eyes. Tears streamed down her face as she stared back at me, slowly sucking the life out of me. Cassie’s tears had a way of destroying me, and if they weren’t tears of joy, they didn’t belong on her face.

“Cassie, talk to me. I need you to tell me what is going on with you.”

She just continued to shake her head, so I picked her up, taking her to a cement bench that sat on the edge of where the sand and sidewalk met. I sat her down, then turned her to the left so that we were staring at each other, face to face, blocking out everyone and everything that could serve as a source of distraction.

“Cassie…I thought I just heard you say the words that I hoped would never come out of your mouth.”

She looked at me. Her bloodshot eyes looking painful as she grimaced with the sound of my words. “Alex, how can we possibly get married tomorrow? Look at everything happening around us.”

“Fuck everything happening around us.” I took her chin in my hand and made her stare into my eyes. “We are all that matters.”

“I wish I could agree with you, but that just isn’t true. We are not all that matters. Our jobs matter, our friends matter.” She paused for a minute, turning to look at the waves crash against the shore, then finally turned and looked back at me. “Your family matters.”

I blew out a deep breath, feeling mounds of frustration leave my body with it. I knew this was going to be a problem, but I didn’t think it would drive a wedge between us, and now that it had, I was ready to lay everything out on the line for her.

“Cassiee, when I met you at that bar, I knew there was something special about you. When I saw you in my formation, I knew I would have a hard time staying away from you. When I started my forbidden relationship with you, I knew you were worth the risk. When I marry you, it is going to be for better or for worse, and no one, and I fucking mean no one, is going to come between that. You are all I want, and damn sure all I need. Don’t let anyone take anything we have away from us.”

I’d gotten her attention. The tears slowed as recognition went off in her eyes. I needed her to see that the love I felt for her burned deeply, and walking away from me wasn’t a viable option.

She spoke softly, “Alex, I love you so much. You’re everything that I’ve ever wanted, but what has happened in the last couple of weeks is everything that I never wanted to happen, and now that it has, I harbor a lot of guilt for it.”

“Like what, Cassie? Because I’m pretty sure that I am just as guilty as you are, if not more so.”

“Look at you. You were the stud Marine that everyone looked up to and wanted to emulate. Now you’re the black sheep.” Her eyes wandered a little, no longer making eye contact with me as she laid a very hurtful truth. “You’ve lost friends, whipped up your enemies, and split your family in half. This is weighing heavily on me, and I can’t just sit by and watch all of this happen, knowing that I’m responsible.”

“You are not solely fucking responsible though. I’m a grown fucking man, and I made these choices right along with you—knowing that they wouldn’t be popular and not well liked, but I made them just the same. I can’t own other people’s reaction to us. I can’t worry about how they feel because I only have enough energy to worry about you and I feel.”

“Your grandmother…that had no effect on you seeing her that way? If looks could kill, she would have murdered me and put me six feet under. Your mom would rather you chose a career over me if it came down to it. How in the hell can I marry into that?”

“Because you love me and we are all that should matter to one another!” I yelled. The questions she had were like tiny daggers slowly invading my heart, cutting off blood supply with each one asked.

She shook her head, seemingly at odds with my statement.

“I had such a shitty childhood Alex, remember? I had a drunken pill popping mom, and a dad who walked out on me. I swore to myself that when I finally got away from that shit, things would only get better for me. Your grandmother is the matriarch of your family and is well respected. Your mom is loyal to her, so she is naturally on her side. I’d be marrying into a family where the two most important women in your life want nothing to do with me. One of them unable to even look at me. How is that any better than what I had escaped?”

“They would come around, Cassie.”

“And what if they don’t? I have a sick feeling that your grandmother will never accept me. Ever.”

As much as I didn’t give any credence to what she was saying, she was right, but I couldn’t understand why she was allowing it tear us apart. My grandmother would have to make a choice, and I was sure she would put her differences aside and support the fact that I was happy.

“You are allowing outside forces to dictate our relationship. When the fuck did you start caring about that?”

“When you allowed the biggest outside obstacle to take away our fucking bond!” she shouted. Her words seemed to unleash with pent-up fury and frustration. This was something that she had been holding for a while, and her facial expression gave all of that away.

“What are you talking about?”

“Really, Alex? You’re playing dumb now?”

“I don’t fucking know what you’re talking about, Cassie. I’m not a fucking mind reader. Tell me what you want me to know.”

“Allen!” she spit out with enough venom to make me sick. “Allen has destroyed you. He’s destroyed us. You can’t even fucking touch me without thinking about him. You’ve pulled away from me, and I feel it, Alex. I feel it in my bones. It hurts like a bitter cold, paralyzing me every time you turn away from me because you can’t bear to go to the level that we used to have—because you think that asshole took it away from you. Well, fucking bravo because he has, and you let it happen.”

Her gaze pinned me, struck me in the heart, and left me breathless. There was such malice in her eyes, a look that I had never seen before, and quite honestly, never wanted to see again.

“I don’t know where you’ve gotten that from Cassie, but that shit couldn’t be further from the truth, and you know it,” I forced out through gritted teeth. It was taking everything I had not to explode in the worst way, and regardless of how angry I was, I didn’t want to get to that level with her.