“I see that now, but because of his sacrifice, I always felt forced to…obey, I suppose. So, instead of a beautiful proposal where the love of my life poured his heart out to me while declaring his unending devotion, I agreed to marry a man much like one would negotiate a car sale. Except in this scenario, I was the car.” I sigh. “A few weeks later, I was no longer Londyn Bennett, but Londyn Ross.”
“Is that why you pushed me away? Because you used to be married? I don’t care about that. I—”
“I wish it were just that. But it’s not. I told you all of that so you’d understand this next part. There’s more.”
He cocks a brow. “More?”
I nod, turning from him and continuing up the winding path. “Despite their arguments to the contrary, I managed to convince my father and Sawyer to let me finish my studies. Told them my agreement to marry Sawyer would be off the table otherwise. So, a few weeks after I married Sawyer, I packed up my things and headed back to college. Of course, part of our agreement was that I could no longer live in the dorms. I got an apartment off campus that was right above this great little coffee shop.”
“Like in Friends?”
I laugh. “More or less, except this was rural New York. And during my senior year, that coffee shop was where I met Jay.”
“Jay?” His voice sounds hesitant, as if able to sense this is where things change.
After everything I endured that year, I often wondered what my life would have been like had I not chosen the apartment above the coffee shop, instead moving into the townhouse that was more spacious but about fifteen minutes away from campus, requiring me to drive and deal with parking. Would I have eventually found my way to The Grind anyway? Would I have been sitting at that table when a man rushed by, his commuter bag swinging on his shoulder, knocking my coffee all over my Greek Art coursework? Would I have accepted his offer to buy me a fresh cup? And would I have said hello the following day when I saw him again?
“It all started innocently enough.”
Spying a bench along the walkway, I head toward it, lowering myself as I prepare to share the next part of my tale.
“I didn’t even know he was a professor when we first met. I was just happy to finally have someone mature I could talk to, someone who seemed to understand me. No one else in my classes could really relate to what I was going through. They were all still single without a care in the world. So meeting Jay was exactly what I needed, at least in the beginning.”
“Was he one of your professors?” Wes asks, sitting beside me.
I quickly shake my head. “No. Nothing like that. I’d never even seen him on campus. He was a newer professor in the English department, taught some upper-level electives. I was an art history major. At first, we didn’t talk much, other than the polite hello when we saw each other at the coffee shop. Or a random comment about the weather. Then…” I trail off, chewing on my lower lip, unsure how Wes will react to my next admission, especially knowing I was married.
“What is it?” He drapes his arm along the back of the bench, his thumb gently caressing my shoulder. It’s an innocent gesture, but is exactly what I need right now.
“At some point, I started spending all my free time in the coffee shop, hoping he’d be there. It was stupid, since I knew he was married with a baby at home, but he’d become the bright spot in my life. We began sharing parts of ourselves with each other. He told me about the research he was doing on the interplay of the portrayal of women in Greek mythology and their modern counterparts. I shared my love of art, archaeology, and architecture. We didn’t have dumbed-down conversations about the latest reality show drama or which celebrity had cheated on whom. Better yet…” I rub my palms along my dress. “Our conversations didn’t only revolve around religion, as was often the case with my father and Sawyer.”
“You finally felt a real connection to someone,” he says in understanding.
“Our conversations were deep. We talked about our fears. Our dreams.” I pause, lifting my gaze toward Wes. “Our desires.”