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Sixty-six minutes to fall in love. Rachel snapped open the silver heart locket around her neck and peered at the face inside. Don Hemmerson was just your average Joe Dirt: a rock slab of a face, pebbly little eyes, and a trench of a mouth. But it wasn't his looks that made her feel like a piece of jagged brown glass was wedged somewhere in her stomach. No, it was much simpler than that: she didn't love him. There had been no cliché click, snap, crackle, pop, or otherwise. Her mind hadn't summoned up violins from nowhere to play a romantic backdrop, and if she were going to drown anytime in the near future she'd rather it not be in Don's sewer-water eyes. Now, looking at those mucky puddles framed in silver and staring back at her, she shuddered and realized she was now further from loving him than she had been in the start. Rachel-soon-to-be-Mrs.-Hemmerson fumbled with the locket's clasp and tossed it at the wastebasket. She missed. Thirty-three minutes to fall in love, and still she was regressing. She had noticed in the last half hour that Don's teeth sprouted from his gums at awkward angles, and she had stopped lying to herself about his age. He was younger than her by almost a month. Everybody knew the guy was supposed to be older. Distractedly she wondered why this didn't bother her mother, who was so absorbed by tradition. T-minus twenty-three and all Rachel could do was regret keeping silent all this time. Even in the last few hours she hadn't been able to speak up. Maybe it was because of her 'dive in head first now, dry off later' mentality. Maybe it was because she was too timid to stand up to her mother. Or... maybe she really did want to marry Don. This thought shocked her at first, but the more she reflected, the less she could remember every disliking her man-to-be. "Maybe I've only been picking him apart all this time because I don't want myself to love him, and I really do like him." The sound of her voice, so confident, caused her to utter a startled squeak; she had begun to forget it even existed. This alone was almost enough to make her believe those words—but then doubt came seeping back in again, until her heart was soaked in the stuff. Rachel awoke with a start and shot a fearful look at the clock. She didn't remember falling asleep, but now she only had three minutes to put on her jewelry and run downstairs. Three minutes to fall in love! Rachel mulled over the last thing she could remember—her own voice—and tottered in her heeled shoes as she raced down the stairs. Joe Dirt Don Hemmerson was waiting for her. Her mind was made up—even if her heart wasn't. |
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