♥Chapter 57: ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴇꜱɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴀꜱᴛᴇ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ꜱᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ♥

✿Kennedy✿

Ice cream is therapy.

Period.

Ice cream is also a way of pretending that you're so busy licking and biting it that you don't have to open your mouth to strike up a conversation.

Because that's what I'm doing right now.

Corey decided since we were all so "glum and depressed" we needed to go out for ice cream to cool off.

Instead, it feels like he captured all of us and trapped us in a bubble of awkward silence.

I avoid everyone's glance or stare. Pretty sure they knew what went down between Jake and me.

Corey sits beside me with Jake and Toothy across. It's five in the evening and the ice cream parlour is bustling with people everywhere.

Corey keeps nudging my foot with his, indicating me to say something. I nudge him back to say, 'you say something'.

Toothy doesn't talk too and is looking from Corey to Jake to me.

Jake bites his bottom lip, barely taking a bite of his melting ice cream. He's gazing at me, but I refuse to meet his gaze. There's an expression on his face that says he's deep in thought.

Even though there's chatter and noises all around us, it feels like we're sitting in the quietest room.

I think I should say that I'm not feeling well and want to go home and just end this silence—

"I've been an idiot," Jake speaks up.

Toothy, Corey and I pause whatever we were doing. My eyes snap to Jake's and he's staring at me with the greens and blues of his eyes.

"Should I record this?" Corey whispers to Toothy.

She cuts him with a look.

"I've been living in my head the whole time and I've been a fucking mess when instead I should have been strong for you." Jake goes on. "I made you feel like you were in a tight place where you couldn't express yourself and I'm so fucking sorry for that, Ken."

Jake opening up in front of everyone gives me a moment of disbelief and leaves me in shock.

"I wanted to be strong for you too," I reply after a while.

"You are. You're so fucking strong." He tightens his grip on his ice cream spoon.

"I want to make things right." He declares. "I messed up. I scared you, I talked about your death when I didn't even know if you were ready to talk about it. I've been unsupportive."

"You were scared too. I know why you acted like that." I look at him, giving him a look of understanding.

"I really did think that maybe if I took care of you intensively, I would be able to save you. I thought mom died because I cared less. So with you...I overdid it."

I hold his gaze.

"Tell me how to make this right, Kennedy. I wanna know what you want." He tells me.

For a moment I forget everything I want. But then the first thing that appears in my mind is Jake. I've always wanted him. To be his friend, to talk to him, to laugh with him. In all my life, the greatest happiness I ever got was when I was with Jake.

"I just want to spend time with you like how we used to," I reply. "When we're not thinking about cancer or death, when we were always happy. I just want everything to go back to normal."

He stares at me with understanding but there's also something else. "Ken, I'll never ignore the thought that you are going to die someday. It's fixed in my head."

A sigh comes out of my mouth—

"But what I'm gonna do now," he continues, "is that I won't let it fuck things up between us. With the thought of your death, I'm going to make every moment count." He says.

I open my mouth to say something, but he cuts me off.

"I'm going to cherish every word, every smile, every laugh you give. No matter how many days you have, I'm going to make sure you live every day like it's the best fucking day of your life."

His eyes swirl with emotions as his jaw tightens. "People say they can't imagine what'll happen to them after their loved one dies. But I do, Ken. I can imagine it. There's nothing much to imagine because my world will go completely fucking dark without you. But you know what'll light it back for me?" He asks. "Of realizing that once in my grasp, I had the best fucking thing of my life. I love you Kennedy and I'm not going to let you die without you remembering that until your last breath." He declares. "You're worth every price I have to pay."

My mouth remains parted open.

Oh mama...

Can I pounce on Jake and cry on his chest?

I probably can't jump over this table without breaking anyone's head, so I just settle down with silently crying.

In a minute, he's made me feel like I'm something so precious. He made me feel like I'm the luckiest person in the world.

"Jake." My voice laces with adoration and so much love.

He stares at me with determination. There's something else going on in his mind, I can tell by the way he's furrowing his eyebrows—

He shoots up from his seat. His chair flies back and clatters to the floor. The parlour goes silent. Everyone's staring at him. But he's only staring at me.

"Marry me." He declares.

My heart stops.

"Bro, what the fuck?" Corey exclaims, his mouth hanging open.

Toothy gasps and her hands fly to her mouth.

While me, I'm not even sure if I'm alive or not.

Someone pinch me or something!

I'm pretty sure he said something else, and I heard it wrong. Like...he can't possibly say what he said right now, right?

Right.

"Sure, pizza sounds good," I reply.

Jake face-palms before moving from his place and walking over to my side.

He grips the seat of my chair and pulls it around so that I'm directly facing him. He gets down on one knee and takes my hand, looking directly into my eyes.

"I don't wanna waste another fucking second of our lives. I want to be with you for as long as you allow me to. I want to be that person who gets to see you smile, who gets to count your breaths, who gets to take care of you when you aren't able to. I wanna be every single fucking thing you ask me to be. But in return, I want you to be something for me too." He says. "Be my wife."

If I wasn't crying hard enough before...you all can assume I'm doing that now.

He wants me to be his what now?

Me?

His wife?

Where in the entire Jumanji did he get that idea from?

"I'm gonna be a wife?" I ask with tears falling down my face.

He nods.

His hand reaches into his pocket, and he pulls out a ring. No box. He holds the ring up to me.

He came prepared?

What if I had said 'no'?

Crap! I should've said 'no' first just to stir up some drama!

"If you want, I wanna marry you right now, right here." His face holds seriousness with his jaw held tight.

My heart warms, squeezes, breaks, jumps. It's doing a million things right now. 

"You're crazy," I respond, gulping down a lump in my throat. "And people thought I was the crazy one."

"I guess we're both crazy." A little smile comes on his lips. I smile back.

He takes in a deep breath, "Kennedy Emerson Kinsey." He brings the ring closer to my hand. "Will you marry me?"

My face warms with happiness. "Ye—"

"NO!"

Toothy and Corey pounce on us.

They push us apart. Toothy pushes back Jake, while Corey wraps his arms around me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.

"What the fuck?" Jake shouts.

"We're not gonna let you both get married just like that!" Corey exclaims.

"I'm definitely not gonna see my best friend and brother get married in an ice cream parlour." Toothy states. "No offence to the ice cream parlour guy!" She shouts out.

"There's no way I'm gonna let you both get married without a proper celebration!" Corey exclaims. "Come on man! This is your first marriage. You don't want your first marriage to go without a big celebration!"

"You talk as if I'm gonna get married a billion more fucking times!" Jake glares.

"We're having a proper marriage." Toothy declares.

"Just let me fucking marry her!" Jake shouts.

"No." Toothy states. "You said you were gonna make Kennedy's every moment special. Corey and I are gonna too. And we're gonna do that by giving Kennedy the marriage of her dreams."

"I never dreamt about being married, so I don't know." I shrug. "I did dream about starting World War III and taking over the world."

"Oh yeah, do that." Corey grins at me.

Jake and Toothy shoot him a look.

Corey's grin drops. "Orrr maybe not."

"Get the fuck—" Jake yells but gets cut off by Toothy.

"Shut up. You're having a proper marriage and that's it."

Jake glares at her with deadly eyes.

He turns and looks at me, raising an eyebrow.

I give him a hopeless smile and shrug.

He sighs. "Fine."

Toothy squeals one of the loudest squeals and claps her hands in excitement. "I can't believe you're getting married! You!" She jabs her finger at Jake.

"I know, right!" Corey exclaims, leaving me and going to slap Jake on the back. "It feels like yesterday, you were a troll living under a bridge, chewing on a bone of a dead deer."

"Shut up," Jake grumbles.

"Ayo if you don't mind," Corey says, pulling out his phone and typing something, "I'm gonna tweet this moment real quick."

Jake's eyes widen in horror. "No don't do that! Cole will see it and he'll get his annoying ass here—"

"And done." Corey grins.

Jake facepalms.

A few seconds later, Corey's phone pings with a message. He looks at it.

"Guess what?" He grins. "Cole's getting his annoying ass over here. With the entire fam."

✄ ✄ ✄ ✄

THEY'RE GETTING MARRIED!!

I ALWAYS WANTED TO WRITE A MARRIAGE SCENE!

HOW WAS THIS CHAPTER?

Do you people have any iconic marriage scenes in mind?

Words: 1,700

Date of publishing: 17th June 2022