Tuck Everlasting - Alternate Ending

Chapter 8

Winnie jumped two feet in the air and looked around wildly. Jesse just sighed. "Come on out, Stanford," he droned.

A man stepped into view. He looked to be in his mid-fifties. Jesse held her hand tight, making her nervous. He stepped towards them. "Benjamin Stanford," he said, holding his hand out to her. She cautiously let go of Jesse's hand and watched her hand disappear in the man's palm. The hand was rough and calloused, nothing like Jesse's. "You're Winnie, right?" She nodded.  "From New Hampshire?" She nodded again and glanced at Jesse.

"I talked a lot," he said nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

"I didn't think you was real," Stanford said with a chuckle. "I thought you was a figment of this boy's imagination. I been listenin' to him go on about you for months."

"I didn't know he was there until a few weeks ago. I was talking about seeing you again. He came out and asked me if you were real. I said, 'Yeah she's real, she's my fiancée.' And he said, 'If she's your fiancée, why ain't she with you?' I said you were in Treegap, waiting to be old enough, so we could get married."

"How old are you?" Stanford interrupted. 

"Seventeen," she said.

"And that's old enough? You look pretty proper to be getting hitched at seventeen."

"Yeah? Give me one reason we shoudn't get married," Jesse challenged.

"All right. How are you going to afford to live anywhere? You Tucks ain't exactly  rolling in money. Even though she looks like she has a family that is, I'm guessing her parents ain't very happy she's marrying someone from the lower class."

"I got enough!"

"Are her parents here? Or are they still back in Treegap looking for, oh, I don't know, a missing daughter?"

"She left of her own accord."

"Even so, you got no right marryin' her 'til she's eighteen." 

"That's only two months away," Winnie put in.

"It don't matter. You still belong to your father. And you should be gettin' her father's approval."

"I can do what I want," she snapped.

"Not yet, you can't. You're your father's until you get married. If you do marry this boy, you'll belong to him. That's the way it is, Darlin'. Ain't nothing you can do to change that." Jesse glared daggers at him, then started in the opposite direction, Winnie close behind. "Don't do anything stupid, Tuck!"

Once they were out of earshot, Jesse swore loudly. "That's the one problem, Winnie! Miles never gets looked at strangely! He's a grown man! Where as I can never get a long term job, and almost no one takes me seriously because I'm only seventeen! But I'm not seventeen! I'm older than all of them!"

"Jesse," Winnie started.

"Maybe it'll be better now you're here. Maybe married men are more respected."

"Jesse," she tried again.

"Maybe we should say we're eighteen or nineteen."

"Jesse!" 

"What?"

"Don't let him get to you." She slowly approached him, as if she was approaching a wild animal. He reached out and took her hand.

"I'm sorry, Winnie. It's just gotten really annoying after 93 years."

"I know. No, I don't."

"Come here." He pulled her to him and held her tight. "And, as long as you're my wife, you'll never be my property. You'll probably end up bossing me around."

"Where are we going first?"

"I was thinking I could take you to my favorite place I've ever been. I haven't been there in 70 years, but I absolutely love it. It's a tiny little town in Kentucky."

"Sounds nice."

"It's also cheap, so we can get a place and some land with what I've got, and I can get a job."

"I'm sorry I didn't bring any money, I've never had any of my own money."

"Don't worry about it."

"You think we'll be okay?" He rested his head on top of hers.

"We'll be fine."

I would write the next bit too, but it spirals into like 30 pages of filler that I can't split into separate chapters so that's all. Plus, 400 reads! Yaaaaaaaaaay!