Love’s Suicide(13)
Author: Jennifer Foor

It took Branch two days to realize something was wrong, and a week to tell me about his brother being deployed. I’d been testing him, waiting for him to tell me, and was sort of pissed that he’d kept it from me.

For the next month I went through the motions of life, knowing something was missing. Finally, I sat Branch down and told him that we couldn’t get married unless Brooks could be there too. It wasn’t fair to leave him out of such a big event that impacted our whole family. We’d done everything together our whole lives and I wasn’t about to start changing things because he was out there defending our country.

Branch wasn’t happy. In fact, he paced around the room, like life depended on him making a decision. “What do you suggest we do? You want to wait until he returns? I’m not putting our life on hold because of him.”

I could tell he was angry, albeit I refused to go there knowing it would escalate and be like living in Hell for days. “I say we move up the wedding. Who cares if we’re still in school? We’ll be married six months before we graduate college. It’s one semester, and it won’t kill us. Let’s just do it.”

Branch turned with a cocky smile on his face, like rushing to the aisle was the best decision that I’d ever had. For a second, I swear I wondered if he was afraid that if it didn’t happen soon, it wasn’t going to happen at all. I also got the vibe that he didn’t care if his brother was in attendance and it didn’t sit well with me.

He scooped me up in his arms and spun me around the room. “Do you know how happy you make me?”

I giggled and became caught up in the moment, kissing him lightly on his cheek. “Tell me.”

“Woman, we can get married tomorrow if you want.”

He sat me down and I continued laughing as I walked over to the desk and pointed to the mounds of planning that I’d done for our event. “I’ve put too much time into this for it to be at a court house. I want a real wedding.”

He walked up to me and looked deeply into my eyes. “Fine. Call my mom and get things going. I’ll call Brooks and let him know a date, so he can file for leave.”

“Christmas. Let’s do it Christmas when he’ll already be home. It’s right before he leaves and he won’t have to worry about getting more time approved.”

“Fine, I’ll let him know.”

I stood there staring at him, realizing that he knew Brooks’ number and had been talking to him, but never once mentioned it to me. I would have liked to say hello and hear his voice every once in a while. Instead, I smiled and pretended it didn’t bother me at all. “Sounds great. Tell him hello for me, would ya?”

“Yeah, sure.”

After speaking to Danica and making lots of calls to get our venue changed in such short notice, we were able to find a local hotel to hold the wedding at. The date was set for December 22, 2010 and it was all falling into place.

I got my next letter in the beginning of July and reading it got me a little worked up.

Katy,

I’m all set to be home for the wedding and the holidays. I’m sure you’ve been real busy planning that dream day that you always wanted. I’ll be home on the 20th, but have arranged to get fitted here in Texas and have the company call the measurements in to the local rental place in town. Branch said he’d pick it up when he gets his.

You’re probably worried about everything going perfectly.

Don’t.

You’ll be the life of the party and everything will be perfect. Your mom and dad would be so proud of you, for all that you’ve accomplished.

I’ll see you in a couple of months.

Don’t bite your nails. You need them to be perfect for the wedding.

Love, Brooks

Knowing that I didn’t have a number to call, I started writing him a message. Then I crumbled it up and decided that I was going to call, even if I had to sneak the number from my fiancé’s phone.

So that night, I waited for him to fall asleep and walked over to his side of the bed where he kept it on the charger. I grabbed the phone and took it into the living room, in case he’d saved it under something different to make it harder to find.

I found it in seconds, seeing that, according to the call log, they’d been talking weekly for months. I felt betrayed, like Branch was keeping it from me on purpose.

I quickly wrote down the number and transferred it to my phone, returning his before he could wake up and notice it was missing.

It was hard sleeping that night knowing I was only hours away from hearing his voice. It had been so long, and I missed my best friend more than words could explain. The fact that Branch was keeping us apart hurt me. Did he really not trust us together?

Then I laid there, thinking about being alone with Brooks.

Suddenly I realized why Branch had every right to worry.

The last time I’d been alone with Brooks we’d kissed and I would have done more if we hadn’t come to our senses.

Then I became mad at myself.

If I wasn’t able to control my emotions and feelings around Brooks, then being around him was a bad idea. I had to remind myself that things happen for a reason and I was with the right man, no matter what his methods were for getting us together. In some ways, he’d stolen me from Brooks. I’d probably never forgive him for that, but the damage was done. Branch was my first and he was going to be my last. Our marriage would finalize that for us, and no one, not even Brooks, would come between us.

On the way to work that next morning, I sat in my car and dialed the number. It rang five times before he picked up and when I heard his voice I hung up quickly.

My heart was racing and I couldn’t believe that I’d done something so silly.

When my phone started to ring and the same number showed up, I knew I had to answer.

“Hello?”

“What, did you change your mind or something? Is my voice not as sexy as it was before?”

I had no idea why, but I burst into laughter. Of all the things he could have said, he’d broken the ice with that statement. “Your voice is fine. I just… I had to sneak to get your number and I don’t really know why I’m calling. I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Is it everything you wanted it to be?” he teased.

“All that and then some,” I joked back.

“I miss you, Kat. It gets real lonely sometimes. On nights like that I wish I could call you and talk about damn near anything to pass the time. You and I never ran out of things to talk about, did we?”