They Called Me Beautiful

Eighteen: Doubt

The same day that Nial asked me to marry him, I rededicated my life to Christ. It was almost like a thank you for the escape He’d brought into my life. I didn’t like thinking of it like that, but I knew that if Nial hadn’t come along, my life wouldn’t have changed at all. I would still be just as quiet and shy and self-hateful as before.

But with Nial I was just a little louder, a little happier, a little more accepting of myself. As long as I could remember the look in his eyes as he knelt before me and asked for my hand, I could face life with a smile on my face.

For a little while anyway . . . until reality settled in.

I flew back home on a Tuesday, and on Wednesday night Nina and Maddie descended on me.

“Are you engaged?” Nina asked bluntly, grinning mischievously. I felt Maddie staring at me, knew that she knew.

I just laughed at Nina, not answering, but my face reddened.

“She’s blushing, Lane!” Nina exclaimed.

Maddie grinned. “See, Kate, that’s what’s wrong with always answering us the other times we asked. Before, you always said no, but you’re not saying either way now.” She glanced at Nina, a triumphant smirk on her face.

“Leave her alone,” one of the older girls told them in all seriousness.

I pretended to have someone else I needed to go talk to and left Maddie and Nina to their surmisings. Nial and I had wanted to keep it a secret till the next time he came out, but I could see that wasn’t going to work. Maddie knew just by looking at me.

She cornered me later. “You’re engaged, aren’t you?”

I had to tell her.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” She didn’t look concerned like I thought she would; she looked scared.

I shrugged. “Who’s ever ready to get married?”

“My mom was. She said she was utterly confident, not scared at all. Are you scared?”

I wished she wouldn’t have asked. Truthfully, I was scared spitless. The feverish high surrounding Nial’s proposal had faded, and marriage loomed gigantic and cold in my immediate future. I didn’t know how to be a wife. I hardly knew how to talk to guys, including my boyfriend. I still blushed every time Nial and I were seen together or whenever Nina or Maddie would tease me about him. I simply wasn’t comfortable with him yet, and I’d already promised to marry him.

So I told Maddie. I told her I was scared out of my mind.

“You can’t wait?” she asked. “I mean, you haven’t even been dating a year.”

“I’m afraid I’ll lose him,” I whispered.

She just shook her head. “If he’s really a good guy, and if he really wants you, he’ll wait till you’re ready, too. It’s not just him that has to be ready, you know. And he might think he’s ready, but I doubt he is. How well does he really know you, Kate? How well do you know him?”

I couldn’t answer her questions. I knew she was right.

“What does your mom think of him? Is she okay with you being engaged?”

“I think she wishes we’d wait a little longer, but she’s okay with it.” I sighed. “She doesn’t know everything about Nial though.”

“And if she did?” Maddie asked the question I wasn’t ready to look in the face, and I didn’t like the answer I saw in her eyes.

I shrugged. “Are you worried about me?”

“Should I be?”

She already thought she should be; that much was plain. I just wished she wasn’t right. That conversation got us nowhere. It just made me more scared and her more scared for me.