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And then I started thinking to myself… if I did this, I would have to get divorced one day. I would have to tell my future husband—if there was one—that I’d been married once, and I would never, ever be able to tell him the truth as to why I’d done it. It wasn’t like I could lie and pretend it had never happened, even if it would be fake and in word only.
Was that cool? Was that fair? Maybe it was because my mom never married while I was young, but I’d always envisioned it as being this ultra-serious, special thing that not everyone got to do. A union of two people who decided they were going to tackle the world together—so you should be picky with whom you chose as your partner. ‘Til death do you part and all that stuff, otherwise you would just be wasting your life. Right?
When I wasn’t contemplating all that stuff, I asked myself what in the world I would tell the people in my life. They would know I was up to my neck in shit if I suddenly said I was marrying Aiden. I would have to bring up the loans if I told them the complete truth, and I would rather stick my hand in a boiling pot of water than do that.
It was all too much. Way too much.
And so, I finally picked up the phone and called the only person who I wouldn’t be able to fool with my lies. I couldn’t live with it any longer. I was tired, grumpier than ever, and I wasn’t focusing because I was too distracted. I needed to make a decision.
“Diana, would you marry someone for money?” I asked her out of the blue one afternoon when I called her during her lunch break.
Without missing a beat, she made a contemplative noise. “It depends. How much money?”
It was right then that I knew I’d called the wrong person. I should have dialed Oscar, my slightly younger brother, instead. He was the levelheaded one in my life, the basketball player studying mechanical engineering. He’d always been wise beyond his years. Diana… not so much.
I only told her the partial truth. “What if someone bought you a house?”
She “hmmed” and them “hmmed” a little more. “A nice house?”
“It wouldn’t be a mansion, you greedy whore, but I’m not talking about a dump or anything either.” I figured at least.
“All I had to do was marry someone, and they would buy me a nice house?” Later on, I could laugh over the entire situation leading up to this conversation, and how easily Di was considering it.
“Yes.”
“Would I have to do anything else?”
What else would there be? The marriage would just be to get his residency; it wouldn’t be a forever thing. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh.” Her tone perked up. “Sure. Why not?”
Sure. Why not. Good grief. I snorted.
“Wait a second. Why are you asking? Who’s doing it?” She finally chimed in, extremely interested.
When I was done explaining to her just about everything minus what had been my tipping point to quit, I waited for her sage—usually not so sage—advice.
What I got was: “Do it.”
“That’s it?” I scoffed. I was asking her for her opinion on a life-changing decision, and that was how she was going to respond?
“Sure. Why not? He has money, you know the worst things about him, and he’s willing to pay you. What do you have to think about?” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
She was definitely the wrong person to call for advice. “It’s illegal.”
“In that case, make sure you don’t get caught.”
Okay, Aiden Junior, I thought before she continued on.
“People do it all the time. Remember Felipa?” That was her cousin; how could I forget? “That Salvadoran guy she married paid her five thousand dollars. You might get a house, Va
Definitely the wrong person. “We’re not each other’s biggest fans.”
That had her exasperated. “You like almost everyone. He can’t exactly hate you if he’s asking you and not someone else. I’m sure he’d have bitches lining the block if he even remotely put in some effort.”
Her comment had me groaning. “You really think I should do it then?”
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. You don’t have a boyfriend. You have nothing to lose.”
She was making this too easy, making me feel dumb for not immediately jumping at the chance, but something had been lingering in my gut, and it wasn’t until she said the thing about bitches lining the block that I realized what it was. My pride. I cracked my knuckles. “I don’t know how I’d feel about being married and having my husband,” I almost choked on the word, “being with other people during. Even if it was fake. Someone would find out that we’d gotten married, and I don’t want to look like the poor idiot wife whose husband cheats on her and everyone knows.”
Diana hummed again. “Did he date around while you worked for him?”
He didn’t. Ever. He didn’t even have any females saved in his contacts on his phone. I would know. I was the one who had gone to the store to get him a new phone and have his contacts transferred, and I might have looked through them. There had definitely never, ever been any sleepovers at his house, or any women hanging around. There couldn’t be any after away games because, according to Zac, Aiden always went straight back to his hotel room afterward.
So, yeah, I felt a little dumb. “No.”
“So then there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”
I swallowed my saliva. “I can’t date anyone either.”
That had her cracking up and I suddenly found myself insulted at how hard she was laughing. “You’re fu
“It’s not fu
Her hysterical laughing reached a peak. “I can’t date anyone either,” she mocked me in a voice that I knew was supposed to be mine. “Now you’re just making shit up.”
It was a well-known fact that I didn’t date much.
Diana sounded like she was covering her mouth with her hands to smother her laughs. “Oh, V. Do it and stop thinking about it so much.”
She wasn’t being any help, and I found myself still torn in half. “I’m going to keep thinking about it.”
“What’s there to think about?”
Everything.
But I thought about it. Then I kept thinking about it some more.
I looked online at how much I still owed on my loan, and I almost threw up. Looking at the balance was like looking at an eclipse; I wasn’t supposed to do it. The six digits before the period that glared back at me from the screen made me feel like I was going blind.
This thing with Aiden was a lottery, and I happened to be the only one with a ticket to it; it also happened to be the wi
I would be helping someone whose sincerity I couldn’t judge completely.
I would be signing away years of my life.
I’d be doing something illegal.
And I would be doing this all as technically a business transaction. It wasn’t that complicated because I understood what Aiden was doing and why he was doing it, for the most part.
I just didn’t completely understand why he insisted on trying to reel me back into his life.
Regardless of everything else though, a part of me was resentful that Aiden I-get-everything-I-want Graves, had his mind set on me to be the one to help him out. I guess I didn’t feel like he deserved my help or my loyalty when he’d never exactly done anything to deserve it.
But…
My student loan debt wasn’t just a paycheck; it wasn’t payable in five years like a car loan. Plus, if a house would also be a form of payment… We were talking a lot of money, a lot of heartache, and a lot of interest. Thirty years on a mortgage. It would be a massive relief.
Wouldn’t it?
Could I just forgive Aiden and do this?
I knew people made mistakes, and I understood that you didn’t always know what you had until you didn’t have it; I had learned that myself the hard way about small things I’d taken for granted. But I also knew how resentful I could be, how I held on to grudges sometimes.
I found myself driving to Aiden’s house, heart in my throat, risking my life and freedom for a freaking student loan that I couldn’t just forget about or disregard.
The security guard at the gate gri
“I quit,” I explained after greeting him. “He shouldn’t be surprised I’m here.”
He gave me a look that said he was a little more than impressed. “He’s not. He’s been reminding me every week to let you in if you came by.”
He was either a little too confident or…
Well, there was no ‘or.’ He was a little too confident. I suddenly had the urge to turn my car around to teach him a lesson, but I wasn’t egotistical or dumb enough to do it. With a good-bye wave at the guard, I drove passed the gate and toward the home I’d been to too many times to count.
I knew he’d be home, so I didn’t worry about the absence of cars in the driveway as I parked on the street like I had every time in the past, and marched up to the front door, feeling incredibly awkward as I rang the doorbell.
I wanted to turn around, walk away, and tell myself I didn’t need his money. I really wanted to.
But I didn’t go anywhere.
It took a couple minutes for the sound of the lock getting tumbled to let me know he was there, but in no time, the door was swung open and Aiden stood there in his usual attire, his towering body blocking the light from inside the house. His expression was open and serious as he let me in, and led me over to where everything had begun—the big kitchen. It didn’t matter that his couch was incredibly comfortable; he always seemed to prefer to sit in the kitchen at the island or in one of the chairs of the nook to eat, read, or do a puzzle.
He took a seat on his favorite stool, and I took the one furthest away from him. It was weirder than it should have been considering what was at stake.
I was a person, and he wasn’t any more or any less special than I was, and regardless of what happened, I had to remember that point.
So I sucked in a breath through my nose, and just went for it. Honesty was the best policy and all that, wasn’t it? “Look, I’m scared,” I admitted in one breath, taking in his familiar features, the slants of his cheekbones, the thick, short beard that covered the lower half of his face, and that ragged white scar along his hairline.
For two years, I’d seen his face at least five times a week, and not once had we ever had a moment remotely close to this. I couldn’t forget that, because it mattered to me. It would be one thing to have a stranger ask me to marry him because he wanted to become a U.S. resident, but it was a totally different thing to have someone that I knew, who had never cared for me, ask.
Honestly, it was worse.