This is love

EIGHT

“That one is beautiful, Han.” 

“Yeah for the nineteen-sixties!” She shrieks, licking her finger and swiping it across the thickly printed page. Her eyes sparkled at the next gown. A wide, puffy skirt with a beaded bodice and a sweetheart neckline in a gorgeous shade of ivory. I almost rolled my eyes. “Now this, this is what I’m talking about!” 

“Yeah if you’re going to arrive in a pumpkin transformed carriage with mice for drivers.” I joke, rolling my eyes. Reaching for the cup of tea from the coffee table, I cradle it between my hands and take a sip as Hannah folds the corner of the magazine down, marking the page to return to at a later date. “What happened to the whole, barefoot beach wedding in Ibiza?” 

Ibiza was a party island that Hannah had escaped to during her year off from college. She fell in love with the island, the people and the beaches after watching a couple marry there at sunset. Her hippy-dippy ego fell in love with the idea of being barefoot and marrying the love of her life at such a serene place. Plus, the fact that the nightclubs were within touching distance didn’t hurt either. 

“Ah, well, I think that having the whole venue and big dress thing is more… grown up?” 

I frown, a crease forming between my brows. “Grown up? This is coming from the girl who has a literal tattoo quoting Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up?” I referred to her rebellious illegal scripture she had permanently scribbled across her ribcage at the age of seventeen quoting ‘Don’t grow up, it’s a trap.’ I notice her lowering gaze. “Han?” 

“I’m fine.” She perks up, rolling her shoulders. “I just - I’m twenty-six. I should be planning this big, marvelous wedding and tstart actually acting my age!"

This wasn't Hannah. 

Hannah was the loveable free-spirited child we all had within us. She wasn't naive, her parents had drilled into her from a young age that she could be whatever she wished, and she was allowed to express herself in bold hair colours and bright clothes from as far as I can remember. Even going as far as getting a detention in middle school from chalking her hair blue and purple for photo day. 

"Hannah, I'm going to ask you something and you need to be so honest with me. Okay?" 

Her wobbling lip indicated what I already knew. 

"Do you want to marry Tommy?" 

And just like that, she was a sobbing mess curling into a ball. After my operation over a week ago, I wasn't able to move as quickly and I had to carefully plan on what way I moved without tearing stitches. I grab her, hauling her into my chest and allowing the freeflow of tears to soak into my hoodie. This wasn’t the Hannah I knew. This wasn’t the Hannah everyone knew. 

“I love him so much.” She cried. “But Frankie, he’s so much more than me. He’s so… so strict, mature. He’s an actual adult. Then there’s me. He would rather discuss stock markets and politics, watch documentaries - and I’m not talking about the unsolved mysteries. No, I’m talking about documentaries that literally put me to sleep. He was so different in college, we went to parties and he drunk most guys under the table. We had fun, now, everything has changed.” 

“Why do you think that is though? Surely there’s some reasonable explanation, no?” 

“His parents.” She mutters. “His dad is a financial advisor and his mom is a secretary in the City Hall.” 

“You think that they’re behind his change of demeanor?” 

She rolls her reddened eyes and wipes her sticky cheeks. “They weren’t exactly thrilled when they met their shiny son’s new girlfriend. They were even less thrilled to find out we were engaged. They asked about when the wedding was going to be, what it was going to be like and I told them. I wanted a long engagement so we could travel, then when we did get married, it would be a private beach ceremony with only a limited number of people invited. Twenty max, that’s both families and certain friends. To say that they both almost had a stroke, would be an understatement.”