"A betrothed woman with a sponsor, dear Lord, there is no way you can get sentenced under that pretext. We will close your case with settlement and a plea of community service at..."
I turned to look at Mr. Priest with one of my smuggest faces, lips stretched out evilly and eyebrows wiggling. Take that, Mr. Jobless Nosy Priest!
He stared back at me with his eyebrows furrowed and teeth clenched. His jaw jutted out with dedication and a promise of vengeance.
Bad decision, I thought.
"...The church!" Mr. Priest completed Mr. Mills' line of thought, projecting his thoughts into the officer's mind. "We need a youthful volunteer for cleaning the premise as dearest Agartha is having a baby!"
Whilst Mr. Mills squealed enthusiastically and begged for details about Brickery County's dearest church maid Agartha O' Sullivan and her sixth pregnancy, my warm soul almost left my feet numb and cold.
This cannot be happening. I need to take action.
"No!" I all but shout in protest, stamping my hand on the cold metal of the desk and scaring Mr. Priest out of his wits.
He ruffled around with his cloak and pressed a hand to his heart, checking if he was alive or not. Almost begging, I began, "Arrest me instead! Jail me, if you may! Make me lick cobwebs off the sewer walls, or have me clean your floor with an earbud, put me anywhere but the Church!" I cried, rattling my handcuffs in Mr. Priests' ear. "I don't want to be around him!!"
My cries fall on deaf ears. As always. The society isn't a just one, I tell you, no matter how loved you are in one second, the next they shall use you for their devious means and discard you, nevertheless.
"The law is not that cruel, my child, serve at the church and I shall guide you to penance," Mr. Priest soothed a hand over my head and I groaned in consumed misery.
"Sounds fair enough," Mr. Mills smiled at Mr. Priest, before typing away on his keyboard.
My jaw hung, weighed down by betrayal of Mr. Mills' kind smiles. He sold me off easy.
"Did you not have something to do at Mr. Lawyer's? Why are you even here?" I questioned in an accusatory tone, eyes narrowed at his overjoyed face. The joys of recruiting a new slave were beaming off his entire body.
"Just weekly donations," Mr. Priest brisked off the topic, patting his pocket and smiling at the jingle of coins that replied affirmative to him, before he added, "Nothing you need to worry about."
I don't know if Mr. Priest had the ability to guide me to my penance, but he sure guided my temper to societal negligence. Indeed.
"You have not committed any legal wrongs, but morally, you should not have disrespected the integrity of our Court House while trying to lure respected lawyers in buying your...um, products," Mr. Mills informs me kindly, shifting on his chair. I mouth, 'dildo,' but no one pays attention. "Also, Priest Richard here brought us our first case, how can I not agree with him. Right?"
There was kindness in his round eyes and boxy smile. Kindness was usually easy to reciprocate. So, I slumped back in my seat with a pout.
"You'll agree, Ms. Rivers, won't you?"
A manipulative kindness that had all my retorts recoiling into non-existence. So, wrapped in a trance, I nodded. Not that I had much of a choice.
Fuck, I'm a pushover pushedover by a pushover.
Now, it was Mr. Priest's turn to pull his lips in a smug smile. I rolled my eyes and slouched in the chair, palm supporting my chin on the elbow. I am mad at the world and everything in it, especially people whose designation started with alphabet P. Priests. Police. Politicians. Pediatrics. Everyone.
Aslan's big hand found my head and decided to stroke my hair. My breath hitched and I jerked his hand away to look up and found him smiling down at me. Well fuck, he was dazzling and every beautiful thing came at a price.
Which I'm too broke to pay.
Brickery County had recently recorded the lowest divorce rate in history, that being 0.1% per 10,000 couples. They were trying to use it as a selling point to make our county pop up on the world map. The Brickery Cathedral has laws for the married entirely different from single people, or so I have heard my father-figure, sperm donor, speak on a few occasions.
I think everyone around here had a soulmate complex.
Marriages were too sacred a union in here.
"Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous," Mr. Priest bursted my bubble of thought.
He unlocked my handcuffs with a key given by Mr. Mills and stared in my face with wide, bright, expectant eyes.
I gulped, standing up, and rubbed over my irritated, rosy wrists. Handcuffs are not good accessories, I concluded, the rappers were wrong.
"Are you...okay?" I hesitantly questioned Mr. Priest's unflinching stare at me.
A hand slides around my waist, pulling me snug to its body. I suck in a hasty breath. It was Aslan again. He placed his chin on my head (tall bastard) while his fingers found my wrists, softly rubbing the irritation out of them.
Fuck, that felt nice.
But where is this familiarity breeding from?!
I clenched my teeth, eyes widening as heat rose violently to my cheeks. I was enveloped out of the blue. It had my heart pounding in my ears and made me deaf to all the happenings around.
Being suddenly pulled into a hug. That felt weirdly nice. Affectionate even.
Am I being a simp right now?
I haven't even seen this person ever—
"Do you agree, Ms. Rivers?"
A random question caught me off guard.
His body was warm, but his shirt was cool and soft. It feels nice, I acknowledge with a nod.
"Do you want to do it now?"
Backhugs aren't as overrated as everyone else deems them to be. They are awfully cozy and I could have lived there forever.
I nod to myself, again, "I do."
"In the name of the Great Heavens, and the power bestowed upon me by the Lord and the Church, having Mr. Miller as the witness, I pronounce you Man and Wife! You have declared your consent in a— police station. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your love and fill you both with his blessings. That God has joined, man must not separate. Amen!!"
And suddenly I was pulled out of Aslan's embrace and pulled into Mr. Mills'. His sweaty shirted arms circled my shoulders and patted my back.
"I can't believe you agreed so quickly. I'm so grateful!" He bursts into whispered exclamations beside my ears, "I had always wanted witness a wedding first hand! This is a dream come true!"
"Congratulations, congratulations!" Mr. Priest exclaims, caressing the top of my head and blessing me with some words I did not have the caliber to comprehend.
"Huh?" I question out loud.
I turned to Aslan with an inquisitive glance but he stared back with those cloudy grey eyes of his. There was a subtle confusion in his furrowed eyebrows but a soft amusement in his small smile. The tiniest gesture of his lip ends curled up.
It was beautiful. I sucked in another breath.
Who was he?
"I have finally witnessed something that my older brother hasn't!! A wedding!" Mr. Mills announced proudly, all but jumping out of his tight breeches.
Wedding?
What in the actual depths of the shitty ocean of my life?
"A wedding?" I question out loud, eyes widening in blind exasperation. They understood it to be a wild exclamation of joy.
The chances of Mr. Mills bonding gay ties with Mr. Priest were null to void— and there wasn't any other living organism to be presumed under a vow of marriage in Mr. Mills' close proximity.
"Yes, do invite me in your official one! I'll bring the documents from the Sheriff's and you can sign on it! We'll make the headlines tomorrow!" Mr. Mills chirped, chubby hands clapping on the train of glee that was driven by my misery. He pushed past me and Aslan and skipped all the way out.
My brain cells needed a moment of serenity, but Mr. Priest, as the President of 'Depriving Niagara all Happiness Club', did not let me have it.
"I respect your decision. Marrying fancy isn't on par with marrying true. I shall support you both in this holy matrimony. You'll make a wonderful pair. Let me make a call now, your parents must know!" Mr. Priest smiled at us.
Smiled.
The man smiled so genuinely at me, that for a split second I felt that my entire existence had been a fake nightmare.
His eyes crinkled on either side of his face. His wrinkles made way to two rosy apples on his cheeks. He smiled.
But wait— PARENTS NEED TO KNOW?!
I need to bleach this tangent away. When I woke up today, the only problem I had in my life was my horrible name. That felt a little too underwhelming now.
"I think there is a misunderstanding," I found myself declare before I could think anything through.
"It okay, darlin', don't you worry about a single thing. Priest Richard, I think we should tell our parents ourselves. It would be better if we surprise them, right, doll?" Aslan questions kindly, taking my lanky hands in his ringed ones.
"Y-yee, um, -Haw," I exhale, going putty under his considerate touch.
"She agrees," Aslan smiled at me, patting my head, before looking at a nodding Mr. Priest again.
Mr. Jacobs was already out, having confirmed the identity of Aslan's exchanged phone's owner. He was stoked over the moon to make his first arrest while his brother skipped inside with papers in hand.
Papers of my doom. Filled by Aslan because this was too hilarious a circumstance to be mere reality of my shaky hands.
Yes, it is a fever dream and my soulmate is freaking fabulous. But I should wake up soon; one more look at Mr. Priest and my eyes would fall off my sockets and roll themselves into a hole and never come out.
I love my eyes. I wanted them back. I needed them back.
So I signed the papers.
And became a married woman.
That $50 note would come real handy right now.