Five Years

10

"Can we talk?" James asked.

"I- Am tired." I tried.

"What? Okay I'm really confused Mari."

"It's not confusing, I'm just tired." I started to close my door.

"Mari no. It was starting to feel like old times. Was I the only one feeling that?" He carefully pushed the door open more.

"Exactly." I said quietly.

"I don't get it. It's good, is it not?"

"Maybe it's not." I tried closing the door but James pushed it open enough to come in.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't want to go back. James, why would you think I would want to?"

"Because it's good." Good? Is James for real? I scoffed. "Oh great. I'm so glad that you enjoyed life without me. Well I didn't. I didn't enjoy you just disappearing on me. Leaving me with no explanation!"

"That's not what I meant. I meant before that, before everyone else. I mean us."

"We aren't going to go back to 'us', James. I can't go back to that. I can barely even be around you now!" James was quiet. I was still fuming and all the emotions I pushed down were coming up. "James, you broke me! You were my whole life, for crying out loud, you were my sun and when you left you changed everything. You changed me, the way I live, my friends, people I surrounded myself with, you even changed the way I react to things to the point of panic attacks!" I was yelling and I couldn't help it.

"Panic attacks? You had panic attacks? I did that?" James sounded crushed.

"What happened when you decided that you just wanna leave for fun? What happened to me? What happened to my family? Why should they have to go through that again?"

"Wait- I didn't just leave for fun Mari. You think I would do that? 17 years and you think that just like that I would leave? That I wanted to see- know you were in so much pain?!"

"Well it sure seemed like it! You didn't answer, you didn't give any acknowledgement, you did nothing! You did it all without a thought of me in mind!" I started to walk closer. I pushed my pointer finger into his chest a few times to the point where he took a few steps back.

"Maribelle, the whole reason I left was for you! With you in mind! It was never about the fact that I couldn't do it but it was for you! All for you!"

"Oh that's rich. For me?! How was it for me?! How was the good of me in any part of the decision to leave me?!"

"Mari I- I-. It was for you." James said calmly before he left the room.

For me?! For me? How could it be for me? I already was tearing up but now tears were just falling down my face. I couldn't hold them in. I didn't even take my clothes off, I just got into bed and cried myself to sleep. It took everyone only three seconds to see the difference. I had almost everyone ask about it. I tried to let them all know politely that nothing happened but I was getting more and more annoyed the more people asked. I was so close to snapping and I would have if Aunt K and Abby did not interfor. Josh got everyone into the hotel's restaurant to eat while they kept me in the hallway.

"Mari are you okay? What on earth happened?" Abby asked.

"You know I would really appreciate it if people stopped asking. It's simple, we got into a fight." I clearly sounded annoyed with the snarky comment so I took a breath. "We will get over it and everything will be perfect for your wedding day. Including James and me. Now go in there and attend to the family." I tried to reassure Abby.

Abby nodded and slowly walked into the hotel restaurant. Aunt K just stared at me with pity.

"It was a fight. A big fight but we will be civil before her wedding. We talked- yelled about him leaving. He said it was 'for me'. For me?! How could that be for me? Ugg no, I am not talking about this. Let's go get some breakfast."

Everyone was so weird with me and drove me crazy. It also drove me crazy that James was avoiding even looking at me. After breakfast we enjoyed some more tourist places and the pretty cities. We drove around to other cities instead of walking around in the same one. I slowly let the anger drift off and I started to really enjoy the day. People at least seemed to pretend like they forgot this morning which I greatly appreciated. Before dinner I pulled James aside.

"Look I cannot be the one to ruin this wedding or cause more stress on the bride and groom nor am I going to let you. We need to pretend like we are okay, friends, healing and make up after our fight. Do we have a deal?" I asked as I extended my hand.

"Deal." He took my hand and we shook on it. He seemed sad, of course he wouldn't be mad, I didn't do anything. "Mari, I-..."

Part of me wanted to know what he was going to say but more of me didn't. We walked in the restaurant together. We were fine, not fighting, friends and I think everyone was believing it. By the end of the day I was able to be around him without thinking about the fight. We weren't good but we weren't bad either. When we got back to the hotel everyone started walking toward the elevators to go to our rooms. It was getting late and we had already got dinner. Everyone was tired from the amount of walking we did.

"James!" A girl yelled from behind us.

I watched as James turned around and the girl jumped into his arms.

"Wha- what are you doing here?" James asked.

"I wanted to come to the wedding with you." She answered.