Every breathing moment from now

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chapter 1

The New Suitor

It was one of the hottest summer days in New York city, that anyone could remember. It was far past 100 degrees, and Jessica Foster didn't think she could take much more as she slowly walked down the street, behide her mother.

"Jess, will you hurry up? Papa is waiting for us to get home. He has another suitor for you to meet."

She rolled her eyes, "Oh joy..." she muttered under her breath.

She wasn't the least bit excited. She actually was walking slowly, because she didn't want to go home.

Jessica's family had a lot of money problems, and they weren't in the least bit rich, and so they were trying to find her a rich man to marry. Since the day she turned 16, they were trying to find her the perfect suitor. It was more of her father then her mother. Her mother believed in marrying for true love. Her father on the other hand, all he cared about was getting rich.

"Mamma, why does Papa have to be so hard on me to find a suitor? I am only 18! I don't want to worry about being presentable for my husband, I want to feel convertible to just live my life they way 'I' want to." Jessica said as she walked beside my mother.

Her mother sighed and turned to look at Jessica. "Unfortunately, life isn't that easy. I was already married and had a baby at your age...."

"That was YOU! I don't want to be like that. I want to wait to fall in love before I get married." She said, getting a little angry.

Her mother smiled, and put her arm around her daughters shoulder. "I understand exactly how you feel honey. But hopefully when you grow older, you'll learn to love the man your father choices for you to marry. When I married your father, I barely even knew him! But look at us now. I have never loved your father more then I do now."

Jessica smiled a little. "Yeah, maybe..." She muttered, as we arrived at our house.

When they walked in the front door, she wasn't surprised to hear her father and the new suitor in the den talking.

"Jessica, is that you darling?" Her fathers voice asked from the other room.

"Yes papa."

"Be a good girl, and go up stairs and change, and then come back down here to meet Mr. Husley."

"Alright, papa." She said quietly, as she walked slowly up the stairs.

"Hurry up honey, you must hurry. You don't want to keep your father waiting." Jessica's mother called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

Once she got to my room, she went to her closet and pulled out a fancy baby-blue dress. She quickly took off her sweaty clothes, and put on the dress. Then she brushed her hair, and put it up in a french twist.

Jessica's father always told her, she needed to look her best for her suitors.

Then she left her nice safe room, and went downstairs for her father to introduce her to her newest suitor.

She always felt as if her father was trying to auction her off to the highest bidder. She absolutely hated it.

"Aww! Here she is...." Jessica's father said smiling, as she walked into the room. "Mr. Husley, I would like you to meet my daughter, Jessica."

For once her suitor was handsome. Usually, they were all old ugly men.
He had light brown hair slicked back, green eyes, and he was skinny but pretty well built.

"Hello Miss. Foster..." He said reaching for her hand and kissing her knuckles gently. Jessica rolled her eyes, but she did it so her father or Mr. Husley couldn't see.
"It is a pleasure to meet you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you too." She said, trying her best to act pleasant, even though she felt mad enough right now to kill someone.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was late one night, about a month after Jessica had first meet Mr. Husley. It was true, when she first met him, she thought he was handsome. She still did think he was, but in the past month, she had gotten to know him well enough to know, there was nothing handsome about his personality.

Whenever her parents were around, he acted so sweet around her, and so charming. But as soon as Mr. Husley and Jessica were alone, it was a different story.

Earlier that day, they were sitting out on the balcony, and he had said to her, "Jessica I hope you know, you will become wife soon. Very soon actually."

"I have not heard my father talk of this!" Jessica said a little annoyed at him telling her what she was going to do.

"Oh no, your father hasn't decided yet if we will marry, but I know soon, he will say yes. There is no doubt in my mind." He paused for a minute and then started to walk closer to her. "I also hope you know, when we do marry, there will be no love in our marriage."

She was taken aback a little.

"Yes, I admit, I do find you quite charming at times but, I will never allow myself to love you. I only need you as a wife to, accompany me at parties, and to give me a heir." He said smirking at her.

Jessica couldn't believe this! Not only was her father taking away her privilege to find a man that she loved and wanted to marry, but now Mr. Husley was taking away any dream she ever had of having love in her marriage.

"William Husley, once I tell my father of what you have told me today, he will refuse to let you marry me..."

He cut in. "I very well doubt that. He wants you to marry a rich man so that he can get his hands on some money. I am one of the riches men in New York city, and I have talked to your father about marrying you, and he said he is really considering it. And if you do tell your father, I will just easily tell him that you are lying."

All of a sudden, Jessica didn't care about being lady like.
She got right up in his face now, and said, "It will be a cold day in hell, before I marry you...."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jessica still sat in her room, thinking about this conversation they had. It made her mad all over again.

"Where does he get the nerve to treat me like that?" She asked herself out loud.

"Treat you like what, honey?" Mrs. Foster mother asked as she came into her room. Hearing her last sentence, she wanted to know what Jessica had been talking about.

She turned to her mother, and smiled at her. "Did you just get home Mamma?"

"Yes. You won't believe who your father and I ran into at the restaurant we went to. Mr. Husley!"

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Please Mamma, don't mention that name to me."

"Well Jess, your going to be hearing that name a lot in the near future. I have bad news...."

She knew exactly what her mother was going to tell her.

"Your father and Mr. Husley have agreed and....your going to be marrying Mr. Husley by the end of next month." Her mother said, knowing Jessica wasn't going to take the news well.

"What!? Mama, you have got to be kidding me! Don't I have any say whatsoever in who I want to marry?"

Mrs. Foster shook her head. "No. Not in your fathers eyes you don't..."

"But this is unfair! I don't love William, and I never will! And he will never love me..."

"Honey, you don't know that!"

"Yes I do!" She said yelling now.

Jessica told her mother about what William had said earlier that afternoon. She also got mad. "Did he really say all that? I can't believe that. And I always thought he was such a nice young man."

"Yeah. On the outside, but in the last month, I have found out the real him. And I don't like it at all."

"Mama, can't you please talk to papa, and get him to change his mind?"

"Jess, you know your father as well as I do. Once he has made up his mind, there's no changing it."

By now Jessica was crying. Usually she tried to never cry in front of people, but she couldn't help it. She was being forced to get married into a loveless marriage.

She cried on her mother's shoulder and sobbed. "It's all over. My life is going to be like hell from now on."

Her mother just ran her hand over her daughters hair, and rubbed her back gently, trying to calm her down. She didn't know what to say or do to calm her down.

"Actually...there is a way you can get out of this marriage...." Her mother said slowly.

Jessica pulled away and looked up at her mother with her tear stained face. "How?" She asked, sounding at least a little bit hopeful.

"It's actually the easiest solution. You don't want to marry William Husley so, you marry someone else..."

"Like who?"

"I don't know! You've got to have some nice guy friends who'd be willing to help you out."

"Well yes, I am really close to a lot of my friends who are men, and I am sure that they like me also but, none of them like me enough to throw away they're life's into a marriage to someone who they only like as a friend." She paused. "Well, we could get a divorce eventually, couldn't we?"

"Honey, no. If you did that, then when you two broke up, your father would just force you to marry again."

"There is no way this would work! My friends and I are close, but knowing that they'd never be able to get a divorce....there's just no way they'd accept that!"

Mrs. Foster had a sly look on her face. "Of course not. That's why, you go along with it, and act like you guys WILL eventually get a divorce, and then after you marry, that's when you tell them that you will never get a divorce!"

"Mama! I could never do that to one of my friends!"

"There is no way out of it Jess! It's either this, or marrying William."

Jessica paused.

"The only men who are my friends, that I actually like, they are all newsies! And Papa would flip if he found out I gave up marrying William who is almost a millionaire, for a Newsie who has barely any money!"

"The only way you could do this is, if you got married without your father knowing and THEN tell him. Then he couldn't do anything about it." Her mother said this a little bit more quieter, hoping that Mr. Foster wasn't close enough to hear this.

Jessica was quite for a really long time now, thinking hard. Finally she said something. "Mama, let me get this straight, you want me to find one of my friends and ask them if they'd marry me, asking them to give up everything, and then lie on top of everything and say we'll get a divorce...." She stopped for a moment here. "Don't you think they'd want something out of all of this?"

Mrs. Foster nodded her head. "Of course they'd want something in return. You could tell them they'd get a large sum of money in return. I'd be able to get the money for you Jess, so don't worry about that."

"Mama, you'd really go threw all this trouble, for me?"

"Of course! I want you to be happy." Mrs. Foster said smiling at her daughter.

All of Jessica's life, she could always remember having a close relationship with her mother.

"So...what are you going to do?" Her mother waited for her to answer.

Jessica just stared down at her bed. "I'll give it a try. Anything will be better then to marry William."

Jessica said good night to her mother, and after a hour of just laying in her bed thinking, she finally feel a sleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*