I waited until my hands stopped trembling before I called Carter again.<\/p>\n
I did not want to speak to him while every sentence felt like a defense. I wanted to listen, and I wanted to be able to explain myself without apologizing for having feelings.<\/p>\n
When he answered, his voice was quieter than it had been earlier.<\/p>\n
"Are you ready to talk?"<\/p>\n
"I think so."<\/p>\n
"Do you want me to come over?"<\/p>\n
I glanced toward the closed wardrobe.<\/p>\n
"Not yet. I want us to talk on the phone first."<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
I sat at the desk, keeping the grandfather's photograph within sight.<\/p>\n
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
Then Carter said, "I've been thinking about what you told me."<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
"I shouldn't have started talking about the wedding before asking how you were."<\/p>\n
The admission caught me off guard.<\/p>\n
I had expected to explain that point again. I had prepared myself to defend it, and now I had to adjust to the fact that he had acknowledged it.<\/p>\n
"Thank you for saying that," I replied.<\/p>\n
"I was worried about everything falling apart. I was thinking about the guests and the arrangements, and I didn't stop to think about what you were going through."<\/p>\n
"I understand that you were worried."<\/p>\n
"But I still handled it badly."<\/p>\n
I looked down at my hands.<\/p>\n
"Yes," I said. "You did."<\/p>\n
The words were difficult to speak without softening them.<\/p>\n
I had spent so long trying to make other people comfortable that direct honesty felt almost rude.<\/p>\n
But Carter did not argue with me.<\/p>\n
That mattered.<\/p>\n
It did not erase the morning, but it allowed the conversation to continue.<\/p>\n
"I want to understand what happened to you," he said. "Are you sure you don't know who did it?"<\/p>\n
"No. I woke up that way. I haven't figured out who was responsible."<\/p>\n
"Did you see anyone?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
"Did anyone say anything to you?"<\/p>\n
"No, Carter. I don't have an answer yet."<\/p>\n
"Okay."<\/p>\n
I waited for him to suggest a theory or ask whether I suspected someone.<\/p>\n
He did neither.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I felt the relief I had wanted earlier.<\/p>\n
Then I reminded myself that one better conversation could not answer every question about our relationship.<\/p>\n
There was still something I needed to say.<\/p>\n
"I also need you to understand that the wedding isn't the only thing I'm thinking about."<\/p>\n
"What else?"<\/p>\n
"Us."<\/p>\n
The word hung between us.<\/p>\n
I heard him shift, then settle again.<\/p>\n
"Are you saying you don't love me?"<\/p>\n
"No. I'm saying that loving you doesn't automatically mean I'm ready to get married today."<\/p>\n
He did not respond immediately.<\/p>\n
I continued.<\/p>\n
"I have spent a lot of time trying to make sure everything between us stays calm. Sometimes I've agreed with you when I wasn't sure I agreed. Sometimes I've let things go because I didn't want us to argue."<\/p>\n
"Like what?"<\/p>\n
"I don't want to turn this into a list of every disagreement we've ever had."<\/p>\n
"Then how am I supposed to understand?"<\/p>\n
The question was fair, and I took a moment to consider it.<\/p>\n
"I think we need to be able to disagree without either of us feeling that the relationship is in danger."<\/p>\n
He was quiet.<\/p>\n
"I don't want that either," he said.<\/p>\n
"I know. But wanting it isn't the same as doing it."<\/p>\n
I could hear my own heartbeat.<\/p>\n
I had never said those words to him so plainly.<\/p>\n
Part of me wanted to take them back and replace them with something gentler. I wanted to assure him that I still loved him, that we could fix everything, that the morning had simply been a terrible mistake.<\/p>\n
But I did not know whether we could fix everything.<\/p>\n
I would not promise that just to make the conversation easier.<\/p>\n
Carter spoke again.<\/p>\n
"I thought we were happy."<\/p>\n
"We have been happy."<\/p>\n
"Then why does it feel like you're questioning our whole relationship?"<\/p>\n
"Because I am questioning whether we're ready for marriage. That doesn't mean every good thing between us was false."<\/p>\n
I stopped and took a breath.<\/p>\n
"I don't want to punish you for something I can't prove. I don't want to accuse you of doing this to my hair. But I also don't want to ignore how I've been feeling just because today was supposed to be perfect."<\/p>\n
"I understand."<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe he did.<\/p>\n
For now, I accepted that he was trying to hear me.<\/p>\n
"What do you want from me?" he asked.<\/p>\n
The question made me pause.<\/p>\n
I had imagined him asking it, but I had not prepared a simple answer.<\/p>\n
"I want honesty. I want to be able to say no without feeling that I'm destroying something. I want us to talk about difficult things without rushing to make them disappear."<\/p>\n
"That sounds reasonable."<\/p>\n
"And I need time to decide whether I'm ready to marry you."<\/p>\n
He let out a slow breath.<\/p>\n
"How much time?"<\/p>\n
"I can't give you an exact answer."<\/p>\n
"Rachel, we can't leave everything uncertain forever."<\/p>\n
"I'm not asking you to wait forever. I'm asking you not to pressure me into a decision today."<\/p>\n
The silence that followed was uncomfortable, but I did not fill it.<\/p>\n
Finally, Carter said, "I can give you time."<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes briefly.<\/p>\n
"Thank you."<\/p>\n
"I still want to marry you."<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
"And I hope you still want to marry me."<\/p>\n
I looked toward the wardrobe.<\/p>\n
"I want to believe that we can have the kind of marriage I thought we were building. I need to understand whether we really can."<\/p>\n
He did not answer right away.<\/p>\n
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded tired.<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
We ended the call a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
I remained at the desk, listening to the quiet after his voice disappeared.<\/p>\n
Nothing had been solved.<\/p>\n
But we had managed to speak without turning every sentence into a fight. Carter had acknowledged that he had handled the earlier conversation badly, and I had told him what I needed without pretending I had already made a final decision.<\/p>\n
That was a beginning.<\/p>\n
It was not proof that we would succeed.<\/p>\n
I picked up my grandfather's photograph and held it for a moment.<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe that love could survive honesty.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to understand that if it could not, the wedding would not have saved it.<\/p>\n
I waited until my hands stopped trembling before I called Carter again. I did not want to speak to him while every sentence felt like a defense. I wanted to … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40286,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40266\/revisions\/40286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}