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Seven months in, I brought up marriage with him. Subtly, carefully. I had dodged around the subject enough. It was time for confrontation.
As I said the word, my heart beat like helicopter blades. Quick, persistent.
He laughed it off. Asked me, "What's the rush?"
I shrugged, smiling. All the while my heart rate rose like crazy. "Just curious, you know?"
He slung an arm around me and snuggled me close. Immediately my heartbeat slowed down, returning to a more normal pace. "Relax, sweetheart."
He often made me feel at ease with a simple touch, a soft brush of his hand through my hair. He would embrace me and coo in my ear and the organ beating in my chest would flap and fly.
My heart always did that. It rose and fell with people's words, their expressions. It stopped when it faced people's wrath. It started again when it faced people's elation.
I used to think of it as normal.
Later, later when I regarded it again, I saw it for what it really was.
A puppet to puppeteers.
We didn't talk too much about marriage after that. He would always give me that strange look and that quirk of his lips if I ever brought it up and I would be rendered speechless again. And somehow, the conversation always took place around my childhood acquaintance Imama, who would glance at us briefly, throw me a tentative smile, and turn away with her eyes full of questions.
I had never been sure in the beginning if he would stay, so why did it surprise me that he was reluctant to confirm it? I guess I had been hoping that from his words and promises of eternity, somewhere he would really begin to take himself seriously.
