Chapter 7
It was very much like his voice was when the first time he confessed to me years ago.
Back then, he had said, in that same quivering tone, “Leslie, my greatest wish in life is to marry you. You don’t need to feel pressured by your confession though. I’ll do everything I can to show you my heart. No matter how long it takes, I don’t mind waiting for you.”
However, after all these years, we still never truly understood each other.
Bruce, his younger brother, was more straightforward than him.
“Leslie, quit the act! There’s no way you‘ re actually marrying someone else!” He sneered, “Look at yourself. You are a sickly girl from a broken family. Why would the Lambert Family want you? You‘ re just playing another trick to get our attention, but I’m not falling for it.”
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Even though he said that his eyes reddened.
A memory suddenly resurfaced in
my
mind. When we were children and playing house together, I wore Auntie Xander’s white dress pretending to be the bride, while the brothers fought over who got to be the groom. In the end, Bruce, who lost to his brother, was crying. His red eyes. were brimming with tears and his mouth was spewing protest, just like he did right
now.
It seemed everything had not changed, and yet, everything was different.
I looked down to adjust the hem of my dress to avoid looking into their eyes.
“You two should leave. For Auntie Xander’s sake, I won’t let my guards throw you out.”
James stared at me in shock as if he was hurt by my statement.
“Leslie, stop this nonsense. Marriage isn’t a game. Have you really thought this
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through?” His voice softened, almost pleading. “We have been together for twenty years but you’ve never agreed to marry me. So, why are you suddenly marrying a complete stranger?”
Without changing the calmness in my voice, I said, “I didn’t do this out of impulse. Every choice I made, I had thought it through and through.”
“I’m also getting older. If I don’t marry soon, I might never have children.”
They thought they were the ones who had been waiting for twenty years. However, had not I been waiting for them for the same amount of time?
For years, I had really believed that the three of us were inseparable, that I would, one day, marry one of the Xander brothers and our family would become one.
However, I finally understood that not all childhood promises would withstand the arrival of someone new. First love might
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fade, as brief as a blooming flower. If love had gone there was nothing to hold on to.
Bruce looked at me with wounded eyes. “Why …why does it have to be him? If you wanted to get married, you could’ve come to me….”
When I looked up. I met with my own gaze in the mirror. The wedding dress was adorned with radiant diamonds. It looked exactly as I had once imagined as a child.
I turned my gaze to the Xander brothers and gave them a small smile. “Why not? He is the only one who chose me without
hesitation.”
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