"Shawn? Shawn, are you okay?" Belle asked worriedly. She
waved her hand in front of Shawn's face to get his attention.
Shawn blinked. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that. I
was just thinking about stuff," he explained.
Belle looked down at her hands. "Just stuff? Anything in
particular?"
"I was thinking about the day after graduation. You know,
when you told me I had to choose between you and the marines."
Belle nodded sadly. "How could I forget that day? Look,
Shawn," she began, looking up at him. "I never intended to hurt you. I just
didn't want a life where I was always moving around."
"You promised you'd marry me."
"We were eight. I also promised I'd stop putting sand down
your pants," she pointed out.
Shawn grimaced at the sand-filled memories. "Point taken. At
least you kept that promise."
"Ooh. I had that one coming." Belle reached up to touch
the side of Shawn's face. "Shawn, I'm sorry. It all turned out for the better,
though. I mean, you got your dream career and I got my dream job, and I even
got a great guy to go along with it."
Shawn turned his head. She didn't have to rub it in that
she was getting married. He was already hurting enough to last for more than a
lifetime. "Yeah, well, you didn't make the choice very easy on me, Belle. I had
to choose between my lifelong dream and my lifelong love. It was a helluva
choice, and I still don't know if I made the right one."
Belle sighed. "Damn it, Shawn, you're not making this very
easy. I'm trying to explain what I was thinking then-"
"You don't have to explain anything! When you told me that
I had to choose between you and the marines, you basically told me that you
didn't really love me. See, the way I have it figured, if a girl tells the guy
that she loves that he needs to choose between her and something else, then she
doesn't really love him. It's kind of like saying 'Okay, what do you love more?
Me or this?' That's basically said, Belle, and it pissed me off. That and made
me sit in my room for hours on end, comparing the two options. Thanks a lot for
making my life easy." By this time, Shawn's voice had risen a lot, and people
were starting to stare.
Belle looked around. "There's nothing interesting here,
people!" she yelled out, and everyone turned back to their own conversations. "Look,
Shawn, could we go somewhere private to talk about this?" she asked quietly.
Shawn took a deep breath to try and calm himself down. His
commanding general had warned him about his temper, and had told him that it
could get him in trouble. "Yeah, sure. How about we go to the dump, because
that's how I felt the minute I stepped on that plane for LA," he said
sarcastically.
Belle glared at him. "Shut up, Shawn. Look, I'm staying in
the penthouse. My parents are renting it out and I'm using it this weekend. We
could go out to dinner at Tuscany's or something and then back to the penthouse
to talk about this like the two mature adults that we are," she suggested.
Shawn nodded. "Okay, I like that idea. I'll make
reservations for 7:30, so I'll pick you up at 7. Does that work for you?" he
asked.
Belle nodded, and spotted Mimi entering the door. "Yeah,
that's perfect. If you'll excuse me, I have an old friend I need to catch up
with."