Dit is die moeite werd om aan te hou.
Afrikaans: Worth Keeping. Worth fighting for.
The next few days were a total bliss. Justin was almost back to his usual, jolly self. They didn’t talk about his marriage arrangement anymore and Adrienne trusted what he said. That his choice was her and he will fight for them.
They stayed together every day. After work, she returned to his apartment. She only came back to her own place to check her voicemail and to get some clothes. Every night they slept with each other, as if they lived together.
One night, they sat together in Justin’s chaise lounge on his balcony, staring at the Manhattan view. Adrienne leaned her back against Justin’s chest as she sat between his legs. She rested her head against his shoulder.
”Do you love me?” Adrienne whispered softly.
“With all my heart, honey,” Justin said and hugged her to him tightly.
“Seriously?” She smiled.
“Seriously,” he whispered and she kissed her temple.
“Justin…if…if you didn’t have me, do you think you would be married by now?” she asked.
Justin sighed. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Usually… they don’t throw you into a wedding ceremony immediately. What happened with my Mom and my Dad…they were introduced to each other, and then my father was told by my grandfather to… get to know his fiancée. They had to spend some time together.
My father had to court my Mom. Woo her so…she won’t feel like she was forced into this fate. And even if they didn’t fall in love, they would at least be friends when they got married.” Justin fell silent for a while. Then he added, “They usually set the wedding a year after the meeting. So, the couple gets like a year of courtship…a year to fall in love. My parents…they got married in six months.”
“Six months? Way ahead of the one-year courting period?”
Justin nodded. “My Dad couldn’t wait. He proposed to my Mom after six months, and she said yes. It was just formality because they were already arranged to be married. And so they did. And here I am! Being made to suffer the same fate.”
“You get one year to make her fall in love with you?” Adrienne asked, her heart tugging inside her chest. She refused to burden Justin with just how much this bothered her.
“Yes. Or at least become her friend, so the arrangement wouldn’t be that bad.”
Adrienne sighed sadly. “She will fall in love with you.”
“Why do you say that?”
She stared up at him, tears shining from her eyes. “Because you’re Justin Adams,” she said glumly. She felt proud of him. But somehow, she couldn’t help worrying even more. “As if the guy who wears the name tag isn’t great enough, the guy underneath is so… so much more worth falling in love with.”
Justin stared at her wearily. “But Justin Adams will never fall in love with her,” he stated. “His heart is already chained to somebody else. He wants no one else in his present or his future.” He paused to take a deep breath. Then he added, “I want you to remember that, Adrienne.” Then his lips descended to hers and he kissed her thoroughly.
Thursday evening, she went into Justin’s apartment from work. He was in the balcony talking on the phone.
“No,” he said. “You can’t make me, Dad!”
She stopped in the living room and listened to him. He had his back on her and he didn’t hear her come in.
“Why are you being so unfair to me?” he asked angrily. “You love Mom! You’re married to your soul mate. Every day of your life, you wake up beside the woman who means the world to you! I found the woman who means the world to me. This is not a game, Dad! I love my girl! I’m going to marry her. And you can disown me all you want, but I won’t change my mind about this!”
He paused for a while. Obviously, his father was saying something on the other side. She saw Justin gripping the rails in front of him tightly.
Then he heaved a frustrated sigh. “I’ve done well enough for myself. I don’t need your money. My girlfriend is a simple girl. She doesn’t need to live in your fancy world. And I’m pretty sure I can still give her a comfortable life with my money alone. I’m wealthy enough on my own.”
He paused again. After a few minutes, she heard him say, “Fine! I’ll move out this weekend!” Then he hung up. He took deep breaths and then he punched the rail in front of him.
Adrienne closed her eyes for a moment. She felt his pain. Justin chose her, fought for her. But it came with a great price. His family. And Adrienne knew, unlike hers, Justin’s family was perfect. And they were everything to him before she came along.
She stepped forward and then she hugged him from behind, resting her cheek against his well-sculpted back. He took a deep breath, grabbed one of her hands and kissed it.
“Well, I’m officially disowned by my parents,” he whispered.
He turned around and faced her. Tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head. “It shouldn’t be like that, Justin. You can still fix this.” Even as she said this, her heart broke for him.
He pushed a lock of hair away from her face. “The only way to fix this is if I leave you for some brat I don’t even know. And that’s not an option for me.”
“But Justin…it’s your family.”
“And on the other hand, Adrienne, it’s you,” he said ruefully. “My life.”
Then he bent down and kissed her lips thoroughly.
“Justin, are you sure you’re making the right choice?”
He sighed against her lips. “I think I am. Because my father just asked me to move out of the house and all I can think about is making love to you right now.”
He cupped his hands on her thighs and lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his hips and kissed him. He carried her to his bedroom and dropped her on the bed. He took off his shirt and soon they were both screaming each other’s names in the gates of Nirvana.
***
“That did not happen!” Yuan said over lunch on Friday when Adrienne told them what happened to Justin.
“Is he okay?”
“He tries to look okay. He doesn’t want me to feel bad about it. But I know it’s painful for him,” she said guiltily.
Still, she felt glad about Justin’s choice. She was so happy that he’s willing to sacrifice all that he is, all that he has for her. But Justin’s situation with his family now was no better than hers. And she knew what it was like to have a broken, almost irreparable relationship with family. She couldn’t help asking herself if she did the right thing in not giving him up.
“He really does love you.”
“Yes, but it feels like those ‘you and me against the world’ sagas now. And I know it’s more painful for him than it is for me. I can’t help thinking that maybe I am being too selfish.”
“It’s not about being selfish,” Jill countered. “It’s about being honest about your feelings. You could be saving Justin from a lifetime of misery that this marriage to some rich bitch will cause him.”
“I know that. I know I will do everything that I can to make him happy. But what if she was the right one for him all along and I was just in the way of…destiny.”
“He doesn’t seem like a guy who believes in destiny, Yen,” Yuan said. “He’s always been like somebody who likes to write his own. It’s his choice. The only way you could make the load seem lighter is if you don’t make him regret ever choosing you.”
“I thought arranged marriages are a thing of the past,” Adrienne heaved a frustrated sigh.
“It’s a rich people thing,” Jill responded. “Gives them the kicks.”
“That’s why the rich get richer, sweetie,” Yuan said. “Justin’s parents just want to secure their family’s wealth and gain more.”
“I wonder how she feels,” Adrienne said. “That girl. I wonder if she feels as repulsed about marrying Justin as he is.”
Jill looked at her as if she was out of her mind. “Hello! Have you met your boyfriend? Didn’t you not know, better than the rest of us, that he’s a god? That girl must know who he is and must have been pulling all her influential strings to make this marriage happen.”
“She’s lucky she’s rich!”
“Unfortunately, I’m not,” Adrienne said. “Apparently, I’m not fit to be Mrs. Justin Adams.”
“But you are. Because Justin should be the only judge of that. And he already made it loud and clear that you’re going to be someday.”
Yes, she did hear him tell his father that he would marry her. He hadn’t asked her formally, but if he said it to his Dad and it caused his father to disown him, then he must really mean it.
“Now I understand what Justin’s friend said when I met them. I made him give in to the pull of attraction and made him defy gravity,” Adrienne said. “He was single for a reason. He was already essentially engaged, so what’s the point of having a relationship?”
“But he fell in love with you. So he had to defy his parents’ wishes.”
Adrienne nodded. “I thought that after I broke it off with Troy, things were going to be easy. I didn’t know that a bigger bomb was just about fall on the top of my head.”
Her friends smiled at her apologetically. “Well, his parents have already disowned him and you’re still going strong. So what could be worse than that?”
At that point, she thought her friends were right. The worst of the storm had come and all they needed to do is just ride it out. As long as they’re together, it couldn’t be all that bad. What could be worse than that?
Over the next couple of days, Justin was quiet. Adrienne tried to cheer him up. He would smile and laugh with her, but she could see from his eyes that he was also hurting. And it just hurt Adrienne, too.
One night, they were in bed, locked in each other’s arms. Adrienne stared up and found Justin staring at the ceiling.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
He looked down at her and smiled. “Yes.”
She propped up on her elbow so she could look into his eyes.
“Justin…I know it must be difficult for you. I’m sorry.”
He caressed her cheek. “It’s not your fault, Adrienne. It’s my parents who aren’t making sense to me. But if I had to make my choice, over and over again, I would still choose you.”
She leaned forward and kissed his lips.
“I wish I can soothe your pain. I know you’re hurting. I know this is difficult for you.”
He drew her to him. “Just be with me, Adrienne. You’re my source of strength. If you weren’t with me now, I don’t think I would find the courage to fight my doomed fate.”
“I was the reason why you are breaking your parents’ hearts right now.”
“Time heals all wounds, honey. Maybe someday, when they see how happy I really am… they would find it in their hearts to forgive me.”
And somehow Adrienne hoped that was true. She couldn’t believe that Justin just gave up the most important thing to him… for her…for their love.
Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she refused to let Justin see it. She wanted to be strong for him. But deep inside, she hurt because she knew, his heart was shattered into a million pieces at this very moment.