Jessica Martinez - The Vow

We watch her walk up the sidewalk and disappear into the orange brick building before either of us says a word.

“You okay?” she asks.

“I think so. You?”

“Yeah.”

The courthouse looks like it’s burning under the morning sun. The flame-orange shimmer of hot brick forces me to look away. “Why are you still going through with this?”

She’s silent, and I contemplate punching myself in the face. If she backs out now I’m going to…I don’t even know what. Slash Chase Dunkirk’s tires. Set fire to the school. Kick a hole in every wall in my house on my way out.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says, opens her door, and climbs out.

“Seriously. Why?”

“Because I can’t let bad things happen to you, Mo. Now quit being such a pantywaist and marry me.”

She opens my door, and I look down in time to see her rolling her eyes. I’m so relieved. She isn’t cowering. She won’t break.

“Pantywaist?” I ask. “What are you, seventy?”

“Stop stalling.”

“I feel like I might throw up,” I say as I get out.

“Would this be a good time to tell you I’m not a virgin?”

“Would this be a good time to tell you I’m in love with Maya?”

“Finally!” she says, and grabs my arm, pulling me toward the building. “Only took you four years to admit it. So prewedding confessions are out of the way. Let’s do this.”

“I really think I might be getting the stomach flu.”

She ignores me. “This is weird, but right at this second, I feel . . .” She pauses, squinting at me through the blinding sun. “I feel like this is right. You know?”

“No. Not at all. I’m about to piss my pants. I believe you remember the last time that happened, and they may or may not have black sweatpants in my size at the lost and found here.”

We’re almost there. Mom’s holding the door open for us, and Annie still has her arm linked through mine. At the last second I feel her fingers tighten around my biceps, like she’s finally afraid of whatever we’re getting ourselves into. Or maybe she’s just excited. Maybe both.

Annie

Neither,” I say.

The registrar gives me a pained look, probably the seventh since we walked in the door. “Sugar, are you sure? You don’t want your mother or your father here?”

“We’re not close,” I say. “And I’m eighteen.”

“So I see.” She pulls my birth certificate toward her and inspects the date again.

I take advantage of the moment to turn to Mo and mutter, “Stop fidgeting.”

It takes him a second to respond. His legs are bouncing up and down the same way they do before a math test, and he’s staring at the dust-ball-filled crack where the linoleum meets the wall like it might hold the secret to the meaning of life. “I’m not fidgeting,” he says finally, blinking a few too many times to look normal.

“Here,” I say, passing him my phone. Games calm him down, but his phone is old school.

I turn to where Mrs. Hussein is standing staring out the window. She won’t know. She’s already signed the consent forms for Mo and the witness line on our wedding certificate.

I turn back to the registrar.

She’s staring at me, concern wrinkling her face. “But are you sure?” she whispers. She reaches a freckled hand across the counter and puts it over mine. Her eyes trace a line back and forth between Mrs. Hussein and Mo. I glance at Mo. He’s engrossed in the game and looks far less queasy, but then out of the blue he growls, “Aaaccck,” shakes the phone, swears, then keeps on playing.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m sure.”

I hold her gaze through the awkwardness. And there is awkwardness. Her eyes are so watery they’re one tear from spilling murky eye-fluid down her cheeks. Her hand is still pressing down on mine.

“All right, then,” she says with a somber nod and leans back in her chair. She goes back to filling out her forms, while I ignore the whole-body sighs of her disapproval. I pull my hands into my lap and stare at them.

“We’re pretty much done,” she says.

“Really?” Mo puts my phone down and looks around, dazed, like he just walked out of a movie theater into bright sunlight. “That only took, like, twenty minutes.”

“Do you have rings to exchange?” the registrar asks.

Rings. It didn’t even occur to me. I look at Mo. He furrows his brow, and the scar that cuts his left one in half dips down crookedly.

“Is it a problem if we don’t?” I ask.

She blinks, but the milky eye-juice doesn’t clear. “Well, no.” Another soul-searching look is flung at me, and I look away. She has to think I’m pregnant or brainwashed or on drugs or maybe all of the above, and that if she can just look at me like that enough times she’ll be able to save me from these bad bad people.

“I’m not much for jewelry, ma’am,” I try. But then I realize I’m wearing the silver bangles. “I mean rings. They bug me.”

She clicks her mouse a few times. Maybe I’ve convinced her I’m an idiot, and that’s good enough to absolve her of whatever guilt she’s feeling for having performed this marriage. “Well. I guess by the power invested in me by the state of Kentucky, I now pronounce you man and wife. Sit tight while I go grab that last form out of the printer.”

She wanders off, and I turn to Mo. The phone is balanced on his leg, and he’s staring at me. I guess her words brought him back out. Man and wife. For one second, all the smirk and sass that hold Mo together are gone. His eyes are wide with naked gratitude. Nobody else looks at me that way.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Here we go,” the registrar says, taking her seat across from us again and handing me the paperwork. I give it to Mo so I don’t lose it. “You’re legally married,” she says in the same kind of voice you might say The eggplant is on sale, then adds, “Congratulations,” and rubs her nose. She doesn’t add Good riddance to Mo, or I’ll pray for you, child to me, but it’s there anyway. She gives me one last woeful glance and refuses to look at Mo at all.

He doesn’t seem to notice. He’s staring at the stack of papers, gripping it in two tense hands like he’s afraid someone will rip it away if he relaxes a single cell. Together we follow Mrs. Hussein out the door.

“The sun,” I say as we walk into the blinding light. Twenty minutes inside the courthouse, the morning has thickened from warm to blazing.

“Brace for the sneeze,” Mo says.

“I’m—” A wave of color pulses through me and I sneeze.

“Bless you. I think it’s a good omen.”

“If I didn’t do it every time I walk outside, then yeah, I’d agree with you.”

Mrs. Hussein gets in the car, but Mo and I hesitate outside our doors.

“We did it,” Mo says softly. He’s not quite smiling, but staring at me with this dazed-but-hopeful look on his face. Whatever nervous tizzy he was in is over.

“We did do it.” I grin and punch him in the shoulder as hard as I can.

He doesn’t flinch. “Is that seriously the best you can do?”

“That killed my hand.”

“We’ve got to work on that, Annie. An eighty-year-old woman could punch harder.”

“You insult your bride like that?”

“Only when she physically abuses me. Hey, what was your deal last night, anyway?”

Last night. Reed. My spine tingles at just the thought of his name, and I can suddenly almost feel his lips on mine and the pressure and warmth of his hands on my hips. “Nothing.”

Mo snorts. “You’re such a liar. You were totally—”

He’s interrupted by the window rolling down, followed by Mrs. Hussein’s voice. “Mo, I have a hair appointment, and Annie has to work, right?”

Mo smirks at me and gets into the car.

I breathe a sigh of relief and climb in too.

I’m going to be late. I get home exactly sixteen minutes before my shift starts, which only gives me six minutes to get it together and get out the door. By get it together I mean calm the freak down, because I’m jittery and spastic and acting, as Mo would say, like a squirrel on crack.

No time for food, but I’m suddenly so famished I feel like I might faint before I even get to work, so I grab a few random lunch-type items from the kitchen—a pear, a bag of walnuts, a sourdough roll—throw them all in a plastic bag, then run to the laundry room, strip out of my sundress, and dig through the warm clothes in the dryer for something to wear.

A weird, sour excitement gnaws at my insides and makes me nervous and happy and almost sick. I’m afraid to really think about it. I pull a white T-shirt over my head, inhaling that artificial wildflower scent of fabric softener. No. I’m not thinking about how I feel, or about why I’m smiling like an idiot. I pull on a denim skirt. Because if I think about it, if I let my mind wade through the euphoria that feels like the color gold and smells like oranges and rainwater, I’ll have to admit to myself that I don’t know who the thrill is for. If it’s what I’m coming from or what I’m going to.

Mo and I just got married. Mo. Me. Matrimony. Of course it means nothing, but still. Legally wed to each other until death do us part, or until the minute we can get a divorce. Married. MARRIED. To think that I just did something so incredibly stupid and brave makes me shiver with pride. Nobody would believe I had it in me.

He’s staying.

But now I’m going to work, and the giddiness, this rolling sensation in my stomach that’s making me feel like I’m on a boat—it’s not for Mo.

In ten minutes I’ll be with Reed again.

I don’t have time to stare at my face in the mirror, so I assume everything is the same as it was this morning.