Married To Freddie Highmore

Chapter Three

I STAYED AT Aunt Linda’s house after Dad’s funeral. She tried bribing me with new books if I will eat thrice a day, but I just don’t have the appetite, right now.

   I’m turning eighteen, tomorrow, but all I can think about was my father’s last words to me.

   “Promise me, that you will marry the man that I know. A kind, responsible, young man that you would be happy with. His name is Alfred Highmore. Go to Linda’s house. She will tell you everything you need to know.”

   My father wants me to marry someone I don’t even know. And you promised you will, a voice in the back of my head said.

   Four years ago, he told me I would go to United Kingdom to study. I personally wanted to stay here in America, take a Chemistry course and live with him, but I did not protest. He always know what’s best for me, and I trust his decisions.

   I was so preoccupied with my thoughts I didn’t hear Aunt Linda enter the room. I was sitting in front of the dresser, staring down at the book Dad gave me for my seventeenth birthday. It was one of the Spanish translations of “Noli Me Tangere.” I can’t even understand Spanish. Why did he give me this book?

   I jumped slightly when someone touched my shoulder. I looked up at the mirror in front of me to see my Aunt smiling gently at me, her blonde hair unnaturally straight, cascading her shoulders. She was holding a stack of books. She walked behind me and picked up the hair brush, then started brushing my still damp, unruly hair.

   “Happy birthday, Margo,” said Aunt Linda, now fixing my dark hair in a neat ponytail.

   Wait, what? But my birthday’s not until tomorrow—oh. Oh.

   “Thank you,” I said, straining my voice of surprise but immediately failing. By noticing this, she raised her eyebrow playfully at me in the mirror.

   “I thought today’s the fifteenth.”

   “I’m surprised you even managed to know it was August.”

   I smiled at her.

   “We have visitors, Margo.”

   “Who might they be?” I asked curiously.

   She gave me a sympathetic look before smiling, a smile that didn’t quite reached her eyes.

   “Margo, before your father died—”

   “I know.”

   She seemed to look very confused.

   “They’re here, aren’t they?” I asked before looking away.

   She pursed her thinning lips, looking determined. She held my shoulders and sat in front of me.

   “Do you know who is he?”

   “Alfred Highmo—” I froze. Alfred Highmore. I know one Alfred Highmore. Can he be. . .

   An unpleasant word cane out of my mouth.

   “Freddie Highmore!?” I yelled, standing up abruptly, making the armchair fall backwards in my wake.

   “Yes. . .” Aunt Linda said slowly, looking slightly shocked and amused. “I thought you knew?”

   “I did! I didn’t know he was some—” I described him doing something I wouldn’t dare say in a normal conversation. But this wasn’t normal in the least. “—epitome of a twenty-six-year old, British actor!”

   I was hyperventilating. I was slightly surprised when I heard her laugh.

   But then, Dad said I was going to marry him; trash the dream life I have planned; go to England and live off of him. A bubble inside me exploded, leaving me frightened and angry at the same time. My little fangirl self dissipated—forever.

   I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I have to think maturely, rationally, realistically.

   I pressed my lips into a thin line, glaring at the floor. The atmosphere is challenging around me, my pride was surfacing.

   I was going to marry Freddie Highmore.

   And I’m not happy about it.