Marley's Twisted Arranged Marriage

My eyes practically bulged out of their sockets as I watched Bethany mash her lips onto Conrad’s.

Who was my fiancé.

Before I could give it a second thought, I lunged forward and barreled straight into Bethany, effectively knocking her onto the floor. I sat on her midsection as I held her limp arms over her head.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” I exclaimed at her. There was a flash of confusion on her face until anger took place on her features. She struggled to flip us over so she was pinning me down.

“Kissing my boyfriend, that’s what! Conrad loves me,” She screamed as I thrashed around and managed to wiggle an arm free and clip her jaw with my right fist. Her head whipped around incredibly quick and I heard a loud crack!

Bethany may look small and petite, but she must be hiding a serious six pack of abdominals under that blouse! She struggled against me to be the dominant one and landed a good blow to my stomach with her knee, temporarily knocking the wind out of me.

“Marley, you better take this bitch down!” Andy cheered from above me. What did he have against Bethany?

She took my momentary distraction as an advantage and slammed my back into the ground, my head colliding painfully with the tile beneath me.

I thought I was going to lose in the fight, up until I remembered what she’d done. She’d left Conrad without even a goodbye and let Damien get into her head, and now she thinks she can just waltz back into Conrad’s life and automatically have him back?

Well this bitch had another thing coming.

Another surge of adrenaline pumped through my veins as I pictured the kiss in my mind. She kissed Conrad – my boyfriend/fiancé/future husband/lover/best friend.

I grit my teeth as I placed my hands against her shoulders and shoved her so she was, once again, under me with her arms pinned tightly above her head. She thrashed around under me.

“Don’t you ever kiss my man again. You left, don’t forget that,” I hissed at her. Her eyes glared into mine and I smirked victoriously at her silence.

I climbed back to my feet and brushed the dirt off my jeans, returning to Conrad’s side. Everyone stared at us.

“Are you jealous because you’re afraid you might lose Conrad to me? I already had him once, and I know just what he likes.” Bethany narrowed her eyes challengingly at me and smirked as I tried to lunge for her again. Conrad threw his arms around my waist and crushed me against his body. Andy pulled Bethany against himself so she didn’t try to hurt me again.

“I’m not afraid of you. I know Conrad would never leave me for you. Especially after the way you treated him. I mean, leaving without even saying goodbye to the guy that was ready to give you everything he had? What the hell is wrong with you?” I repeated my earlier question.

“He wants me back! Damien said so! Why else do you think I’m here? Conrad never got over me; he’s still completely in love with me.” Bethany was slowly losing confidence in herself and I finally understood what was going on.

Damien must have found a way to contact Bethany at her new number and told her to come down here because Conrad was still grieving over her. Then Conrad would fall back in love with Bethany and dump me, leaving me single and ready for Damien to steal away.

Do the words ‘arranged marriage’ mean absolutely nothing to Damien? I would have to marry Conrad even if he did fall out of love with me and want Bethany back.

Which wouldn’t happen, and I know it. I know Conrad has true feelings for me that he won’t throw away just because some senseless girl struts back into his life after a few years, wanting him back.

“Bethany, I don’t know where Damien got the idea that I wanted you back, but I don’t. I’m with Marley now and we’re happy together,” I glanced at Bethany. She looked like a mixture between confusion, hurt, and anger. Conrad stopped abruptly and took a deep breath.

“You hurt me. When you up and left like that, I wanted to just stay locked in my room for the rest of my life. You didn’t even hesitate to just pick up and move away, all because of my brother. He ruined the special bond that we had, but I’m happy now. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life with Marley. She makes me feel even better than you ever could.

“You’re an amazing woman, Beth, and you will find a man that will make you happy one day. I’m just not that guy. He won’t have any stalker brothers to chase you away.” Conrad took a deep breath when he was finished. Bethany’s eyes were tearing up and she was slightly sobbing.

Conrad didn’t seem to care that Damien was in the room while he called his own brother names. It probably hurt Damien to hear his brother call him names like that. I know I would be insulted.

Bethany looked up through her lashes at me, her eyes glistening with tears. The drops of water slowly rolled down her cheeks and slipped off her jaw line, hitting the floor beneath her.

“You’re one truly lucky girl, Marley. Don’t let go of him. You’ve got yourself a keeper.” Bethany whispered.

It was then that I realized even though Damien was the reason for this whole mess, he had been completely silent since we arrived home.

“Damien, why are you so quiet?” I asked in a soft voice. I shifted my eyes away from Bethany’s heart-broken expression to Damien who was standing directly next to Andy, who still had Bethany in his arms.

“Well would you like me to speak, Marley?” He didn’t wait for an answer from anyone before he went on. “How was your day today?” I could tell he was directing the question toward me because his eyes were engrossed on my face. I was so used to it by now that it didn’t even creep me out anymore. Sad, right?

“My day was pretty good up until you had to go and stir up drama. Why can’t you just back the hell off, Damien?” I asked as I pulled Conrad’s arms down from around me.

“I’m glad you had a nice day.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

I groaned loudly in annoyance and saw how Bethany looked at me. She looked at me with envy, but she also had a scared look in her expression. Like she was worried about me. The tears had stopped flowing from her eyes and she just stared at me.

Andy finally dropped his arms from around Bethany, and she charged at me. The difference was that this time it wasn’t angrily.

Bethany’s body ran right into mine and she held onto me like I was her life supply. She embraced me and it was weird for me. After a moment I hesitantly wrapped my arms around her midsection.

She didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to her. Nobody spoke. It was pure silence as we all waited on edge for Bethany to make her move to kill me. She finally reached her lips up to my ear so discreetly that I wouldn’t have even known she’d done so if it weren’t for her whispering to me. Her whispers were so quiet that I had to really focus on her voice to hear her.

“Please be careful. Damien will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Keep a watchful eye out.”

She pulled me away to arms-length and inspected my face. I gave a slight inclination of my head to show I understood. She sighed and dropped her hands to her sides.

“Well, I guess I better go now. It was nice to meet you I guess,” Bethany laughed awkwardly to me and started toward the door.

“Wait,” I called and stepped forward toward her. Her hand stopped on the door knob and she turned around to face me.

“Let me walk you out.”

It wasn’t a question. I was going to find out more about Bethany in these next few moments we would have together.

She nodded and I scurried to her side. As soon as the door closed behind us, I asked away.

“Why did you really leave? What pushed you over the edge?”
She clenched her jaw uncomfortably and stared at the ground in front of her as we walked to her car.

“Damien was just too much. He was stealing my dirty clothes, following me whenever I left the house by myself, constantly trying to kiss me. If he tries to bargain with you, don’t listen to him. He’s a liar.” She placed her hand on the handle of her car door and faced me.

“Too late. I didn’t know any better,” I explained. She blew a stray lock of hair out of her face and swung open the car door.

“I don’t blame you. Just keep watching out. He’s a sneaky bastard.” Bethany hugged me one last time and it was weird considering just a few minutes ago we were literally at each other’s throats.

“Would you like to exchange numbers?” She asked as she situated herself into the car and rolled down the window. I nodded and we told our numbers to each other.

Maybe she’s the best girl friend that I’ve been looking for my whole life.

“Call me anytime. I don’t care if you just wanna talk about your hair or if you wanna know more about why I left – which I pretty much told you everything about why,” She told me. She shifted her car into drive.

“Thank you, Bethany. This means a lot. I don’t really have many girl friends,” I mumbled. Her eyebrow rose in question. “I’ll tell you everything later. I’ll call you around ten.” She nodded in reply and smiled at me before driving away.

I waved at the back of the car until it was completely out of view.

I’d just made my first real girl friend. I had other friends that were girls when I was popular in high school, but they were all fakes. They just wanted to be my friend so they could get boys to notice them.

I did, however, have one best girl friend in middle school. Her name was Paisley. She had brown hair that could never be tamed because it was so frizzy and curly. She always wore a large pair of thick eyeglasses. She had the pale skin with a tall and lanky build going on. We met in the beginning of sixth grade – we had two classes together. We didn’t talk very much until we were assigned to sit next to each other in one class, then we slowly started to talk more and became really good friends. She was one of those friends that you could tell anything to and they wouldn’t judge because they needed a friend just as desperately as you did. She was the most fun and trustworthy person I’d ever met.

Once we got into high school, boys started to notice me. I became popular in a matter of weeks and I ignored Paisley, the one person who was true to me and actually cared. She called regularly and dropped by my house, but I always had Grace answer the phone calls or greet her at the door to tell her I wasn’t home. I couldn’t face her knowing I’d be swept up with guilt as soon as I saw her face. She tried to talk to me at school, but I was always with the popular girls who would taunt her until she left.

She finally gave up after one last phone call four months after I had started letting go of her. I let the call go straight to voice mail and regretted it when I listened to the message later.

“Hey, Marmalade,” That was her nickname for me. We always addressed each other by nicknames. “I just called to see how you were doing….. I miss you. We haven’t had our Saturday night sleepover in a while.” Every other Saturday night, we’d switch off having sleepovers at each others’ houses. We’d paint our nails and watch chick flicks all night.

“Anyways, I just wanted to talk,” She sighed heavily into the phone and it was silent for a moment while she thought through what she was going to say next. “I really miss you. You’ve changed. You became one of the girls that we used to make fun of – with the fake look. You dress and look completely different than the real Marley that I know. The real Marley wouldn’t keep ditching me for fake friends that will stab her in the back in the end. They’re using you, why can’t you see that? The sad part is I think you do know they’re using you; you just want your fifteen minutes of fame.

“I’m getting tired of this. I’m sick of trying to get you to come back to me. I’m annoyed that you’re forcing your sister to pick up the phone and answer the door for you because you don’t want to face me. You don’t want to face the guilt and take the blame, even though we all know it’s your fault.” My chest constricted and I felt a stinging feeling in my eyes like I was about to cry.

“I called because I want you know that when all your friends dump you like yesterday’s trash, I’ll still be here for you. You can come back to being my friend anytime you’d like. I’ll wait, because that’s what real friends do – they stick by your side even though they know the feeling isn’t mutual.” She took a long breath and it was silent on the other line once again.

“Call me if you want.”

The message ended and that was the last time I’d ever received a call from the one true friend I’d had. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t go back to being friends with her once my popularity spiraled downwards and I became a social outcast once more.

The reason is because she moved. The summer inbetween ninth and tenth grade, her dad was offered a job in a different state so they packed up and left. I didn’t even find out until tenth grade started and someone in school told me.

Halfway through my tenth year was when the rumor was spread about me and I was shunned by everyone. I couldn’t go to anyone for closure because there was nobody left. My parents weren’t around, society was disregarding my life, and Grace was way too young to hear about that.

I never told Paisley about what had happened because, honestly, what could she do from hundreds of miles away besides say ‘I told you so’?

I ended up saving the voicemail Paisley left on my phone that night. Even though it was hurtful and made me feel incredibly guilty, it was still somewhat heartwarming in a way I couldn’t even describe.

I still have that voicemail saved on my phone – along with her cell phone number. I didn’t even know if her number was still in service or not.

When I realized I had been standing outside, still staring at the road where Bethany’s car had driven down, for a significant amount of time, I went back inside the house.

“Is everything okay?” I whipped my head around and saw Conrad sitting on the stairs, probably waiting for me to come back inside. He looked concerned – probably with the fact I had went outside with his ex-girlfriend that still loved him and hadn’t come back for a long time. That would probably get anyone worried.

“I’m fine. Bethany’s really great…. If you leave me for anyone, I want it to be her,” I said thoughtfully and saw an amused smile spread across Conrad’s face as he stood up and walked over to me.

“I’m not leaving you. Ever.” He replied as the traces of a smile were gone from his features and he gazed into my eyes. They glistened with seriousness and love and I knew he was going to stay true to his word.

I love this boy.