10 – LOYALTY
Things had gotten a bit rocky before they'd gotten married.
It was for all the reasons that long-term couples do argue. It was a question of faithfulness, of whether or not they were in this for the long run.
When Jill had asked Tim, he'd flustered, flitted around the question and changed the topic of the conversation. It was all she had needed really, to slam her chair backwards and storm out of the restaurant. She left Tim behind, red-faced and joking awkwardly with the waiters.
She thought that she loved him, but she didn't want to chain him down if she wasn't ever going to be his one-and-only.
She'd caught a taxi home, and made a show of slamming the door behind her, fleeing to the sanctuary of her room, and crying till her head hurt and her eyes swell shut.
The next few days saw her moping, sulking, hiding in the shadows. She didn't talk to her family or her friends, and she certainly didn't talk to Tim…not that he'd called. By the end of the week however, she sat pathetically by the phone, praying to whoever would listen that she'd hear the familiar grunting.
He called on the thirteenth day. He wasn't confident or cocky or even funny, he was awkward and shy and the small talk was tense. Nonetheless, he invited her to dinner - the same restaurant where the fight had began.
Jill had sat at the table, self-conscious and anxious, whilst he sat opposite, trying desperately too hard. After dessert, he'd sighed in resignation, and taken her hand in his.
"I don't know, Jill. I don't know where we'll be twenty years from now. I don't know if we'll be together, or with other people. I don't know if we'll have started a family, I don't know. But I know now, I know that, right now, all my loyalties are with you, I know that I love you and that I can't even begin to imagine my life without you."
Needless to say, they'd gotten married the next month.
Next up: 11 - Infatuation.
