Chapter 21 – Marry You

Adeline was only a flash as she rushed into the bathroom, flipping the light switch and lifting up the lid. Seconds later, the porcelain of the toilet and the tiles in the room made her regurgitation sounds echo through the room.

Lance walked casually up to the doorway with his coffee in his hand and leaned against the door frame.

“Now that's sexy,” he said between echos.

“I'm going to die,” she said, grasping the bowl as she tried to make her stomach settle. “It was never this bad the first time. It must mean I'm dying.”

“Oh but sweetheart,” he said. He placed his cup on the counter, knelt down beside her and grabbed her long hair, giving it a twirl and flipping it up. “You can't die. What would I do without you?”

“Oh God,” she said with a groan, feeling another wave of nausea hit her.

“Is this part the one where all the breathing comes in handy?”

He smiled when she let go of the toilet bowl to ball up her fist and punch him in the arm.

“I don't know how I'll get through this one,” she said, resting her head on the cold porcelain. “I think I've thrown up stuff I ate in second grade.”

“Do you do this every morning?” he asked.

“Every morning for the past four weeks.”

“How did I miss this?”

“You're not always the most attentive, Lance.”

She immediately leaned down and the noises resumed.

“This is a little hard to miss,” he said, grimacing at the sight in front of him. “Even for me, babe.”

He held her hair up until she finished, then he ran a washcloth under cool water. Sitting down next to her, he pushed her hair out of her eyes and ran the cloth over her face in an attempt to cool her down.

“Are we going to be okay?” she asked.

He only ran the cloth over her cheek and stared. She had asked him the same thing last night. Their relationship was in limbo; he knew they had things they needed to talk about before they could go back to normal, the way they used to be.

He knew he loved her; he thought she still loved him. And he knew he would never leave her alone to raise a child – his child – nor could he ever leave her alone if something did happen and they lost the baby. But things had been in such disarray lately that he knew they were both feeling overwhelmed and unprepared to plan a wedding. With a baby coming along and Addy only growing bigger every month that passed, he couldn't see how they could put together the wedding that they had originally planned on.

“Do you love me?” he asked.

“Are you serious?” she said, sounding defensive.

“Just answer me,” he said, a slight smile on his face. “Do you love me?”

“Of course I love you.”

“Do you want to be with me?”

“Lance, come on--”

“Adeline, do you want to be with me?” he asked, smiling bigger.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then what more do we need?” he asked. “We love each other and we want to be with each other. That's what it takes to make it work. So we're going to make it work.”

With the extra time on their hands, they sat down at her kitchen table that morning to share coffee and try to make sense of their forlorn wedding plans. Unfortunately, all the fighting they had done in the past few weeks had taken its toll on their arrangements as well.

Adeline's trusty binder was in complete disarray, adding to her stress.

“Baby, I love you,” he said, nose-deep in her laptop trying to stay out of her panicked reorganization, “but you're obsessive-compulsive.”

“I'm organized,” she said in a biting tone. “There's nothing wrong with that – sweetie.”

“I'd like to think the attitude is the pregnancy hormones talking,” he said.

“You know what? I can't even think about any of this stuff right now. I love you Lance, but talk about attitude – yours sucks.”

She threw a couple of papers she was holding in her hand back in the binder and shut it harshly. She let out a breath she was holding and buried her head in her hands.

“I'm sorry,” he said after a pause. “You're right; my attitude does suck.”

“Yes, it does,” she said. “But I'm sorry, too. My attitude isn't the greatest either.”

Both of them sighed.

“How are we going to hold it together for a baby if we can't even hold it together to talk about our own wedding?” she asked. “Maybe getting married is a stupid idea.”

He looked up from the laptop. “Now you don't want to get married?” he asked. “That's what this freak wants us to do – that's the idea of all this, to get us apart.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” she asked. “We can barely agree on what to have for breakfast, let alone organizing an entire wedding.”

“We could skip the idea of a wedding and elope,” he said with a smile.

She chuckled, thinking about various conversations with Stephanie and Melissa, joking about running off to Vegas to get married by an Elvis impersonator.

“You can't be serious, Lance.”

“Why not?” he asked. “Atlantic City is only two hours away. And look--”

He pulled her binder towards him and flipped through it to one of the pockets in the back, pulling out an envelope and holding it up to her.

“We already have our marriage license,” he said.

“And who planned ahead and got that marriage license early, just in case?” she joked.

“Okay, so your compulsion came in handy once,” he said.

“Running off to elope is a really dumb idea,” she said.

“It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do,” he said, half-singing.

She had heard the song more than a few times on the radio in the car, so she rolled her eyes at him.

“Can you be serious for, like, two seconds?” she asked. “We're talking about abandoning the whole wedding, all our family and friends, and running off to Atlantic City of all places.”

He smirked. “Hey baby,” he said, looking at her. “I think I wanna marry you.”

She sighed and shook her head as he stood up and continued to sing.

“Is it the look in your eyes, or is it this dancing juice? Who cares, baby, I think I wanna marry you.”

“Lance, seriously...”

All of a sudden he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him, twirling her around.

“Well I know this little chapel on the boulevard we can go – no one will know, oh come on girl...”

She couldn't help but giggle as he tried to get her to dance along with him, swaying to an imaginary beat in his head.

“Lance!” she yelled at him through chuckles. “Seriously!”

“Who cares if we're trashed, got a pocketful of cash we can blow...” He continued to sing, getting louder, and she was quickly losing her composure. “Shots of Patron, and it's on, girl...”

“I can't take you seriously when you're like this,” she said through laughter.

“Don't say no, no, no, no, no,” he sang, crooning to her as he held her to him. “Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...and we'll go, go, go, go, go, if you're ready, like I'm ready...”

By the time he twirled her again and dipped her carefully, she had lost any shred of seriousness she had in her body. She caved in and danced along with him, singing along with him at a quieter volume.

All of a sudden, he stopped singing and dancing. As her laughter died down, she looked at him, still holding her close to him. All traces of a smile were gone from his face.

“I'll go get a ring, let the choir bells sing like oooh,” he said, barely singing to a beat. “So what ya wanna do? Let's just run, girl.”

“You're serious about this,” she said.

“My week is free, so is yours,” he said. “We have nowhere to be for once in our life, we already have our marriage license, and we need to get away from this whole mess. Let's pack up and run.”

“What about all the plans we made? The church, the flowers, our family...”

“Who cares about all of that? We lose a few hundred dollars in deposits and we'll have a big party with our family and friends to celebrate. They might be upset for a while, but they'll understand.”

“The media would have a field day with this.”

“Who cares?” he asked. “We'll clean up the mess later.”

“Oh my God, I can't even believe I'm considering this,” she said, more to herself than in response to him. “I don't want to get married by some cheap ordained minister who gives me a choice between the Elvis theme or the much classier Shaft theme.”

“But I'd look so good in Elvis pants,” he said, pretending to whine. “Don't worry – Atlantic City doesn't have any of those Vegas-style wedding chapels, just a courthouse.”

“How do you even know this stuff?” she asked.

“What do you think I've been looking up on your computer for the past half-hour while you've been freaking out, classic Addy style, over your wedding binder?” he said.

“This idea is insane,” she said.

“We're not eighteen, this is not a shotgun wedding because you're pregnant...this might be the best idea we've had in months,” he said.

She paused to think it over, more seriously than she had since he had brought it up.

“You put all our papers together and get everything ready,” she said before she knew it. “And I'll go pack a bag. Let's go.”

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It had only taken them about an hour to get ready for their impromptu trip. She had packed a small suitcase with enough clothes for a week long trip and what few clothes she had for him at her apartment. She had managed to find a dress for herself and was able to sneak it into the suitcase before he could see it. Before she could even realize she was having second thoughts, they were an hour into the drive and she was fighting her returned anxiety in addition to her morning sickness.

She bit her lip as they drove down the nearly barren highway, another bad habit she had picked up under stress lately.

“Stop biting your lip,” he said, breaking the silence in the car except for the radio talk show that neither of them were listening to.

“I can't help it, I'm nervous,” she said.

“What is there to be nervous about?” he asked. “This was the plan all along, wasn't it?”

“Not like this,” she said, almost whispering.

“Well no, not like this – but this was the idea.” He paused and let out his frustrated sigh, adjusting his legs in the seat because he had been driving for over an hour. “Lately, the idea of getting married seems like a do or die sort of thing. Do it now...or it will never happen.”

“Because somebody's trying to kill us – or because we're trying to kill our relationship?” she asked.

“Both,” he said, and at his tone, she bit her lip again and looked to the outside.

He felt the tension in the car as he switched lanes for his exit.

“Hey, I mean – it's good now, right?” he asked her. “It's always been pretty good, you know. We've hit a few roadblocks, that's all.”

“I wouldn't call them roadblocks, Lance,” she said. “I'd say it's more like the bridge has collapsed underneath us.”

“That's why you rebuild things, babe,” he said. “Things collapse, roads need construction, bridges burn – and you move on, pick up the pieces and rebuild. That's what you do.”

The rest of the drive, she spent looking out the window wavering between biting her lip and her fingernails, contemplating what to do once they reached Atlantic City.

On one hand, even though she'd previously had a dream wedding that had ended six years later in divorce, she wanted the experience with Lance. There was something special about a wedding day if you were looking forward to walking down the aisle towards someone you loved. Even if it was stressful and hectic during planning – picking the perfect dress, fighting with flower and cake shops, and finalizing guest lists and menu plans – the end result was always worth it if you wanted it.

On the other hand, he had a point. All they wanted when they returned to New York was to move beyond her long and painful divorce and start their new life together. The day the first note had shown up was the day that all of it had started to fall apart. If they didn't attempt to put the pieces of what was left back together, they may never be able to. And it didn't matter if they had a million dollar wedding or flew to Vegas and went to an overnight chapel – as long as they loved each other.

Going ahead with the plan to get married seemed like the best way to make their relationship last through this – if it didn't destroy them first.

She saw the signs of her old home state before she had come any closer to making her decision, and she felt her heart start to race. By the time he had reached the town courthouse and pulled into the parking lot, she was close to hyperventilating – a familiar and strange feeling, since she had considered herself better for so long.

He shifted the car into park and turned the ignition key slowly, then stretched his legs as far as he could in his seat.

“It's down to this,” he said. “We either do this or we don't. It's up to you, Addy – this is all up to you.”

She turned her head away from the window to look at the courthouse in front of her. It was more intimidating to look at after spending two hours in a car wavering between her only two choices. She knew she had to make the right choice, and she only had a handful of minutes to decide which choice was right.