Page 14 of Downfall

I look down at my feet, the dress shoes I never bothered to take off last night still firmly in place.

“Declan,” she says more softly now. “I was trying to mess with you like you were messing with me. There was supposed to be another page after the first confirmation. They must have changed it.” She moves closer to me, and I can’t help thinking it’s instinctual—that she knows her next words are going to wreck me and that her proximity will soften the blow. Even now, in her frantic state, hating me, she doesn’t want to see me hurt.

“We obviously need to fix this. Tell me you know that.”

She wants to fix it because it was a mistake. The worst she’s ever made. I was right. Her words do wreck me.

“Of course.” It’s all I can think to say.

“Then meet me at the courthouse. First thing tomorrow morning. They open at eight.”

“Okay,” I say, picking my jacket up off the couch before I head to her front door. I don’t allow myself to look back, but her soft voice calling out makes me spin around.

“Declan.”

I look down at her, hope staining my gaze.

“Why did you stay here last night?”

I sigh. “You fainted. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

She gives a slight nod, and with that, I turn around, making my way down her front steps and onto the sidewalk. Skylar lives in a little cottage off Main Street, so it’s only a short walk back to where I parked my bike last night. Luke would have a stroke if he knew I left it out in the open all night where anyone could mess with it. In fact, I’m sure he saw it when he left Allie’s restaurant and is going to give me an earful, but I don’t give a shit.

All I can think about is the last twenty minutes. Skylar’s words bang around in my skull like dirty sneakers in a washing machine.

Maybe they can just reverse it.

How could we have been so reckless? So stupid.

We obviously need to fix this. Tell me you know that.

Of course I know it. How could I not? What happened last night was the result of pent-up, drunken rage. She confirmed what I had known all along. She was fucking with me. That’s not the part that kills me, though. No, the worst part is that she thinks I wasn’t serious, that I would joke about wanting to marry her.

That’s when it hits me. Throughout our entire conversation this morning, neither of us said the word ‘married’ once. Like if we didn’t say it, it wouldn’t actually be real. But it is. At least for the next twenty-four hours, Skylar Galloway is my wife.

After that, there’s nothing else I can do. We’ll get it reversed or annulled, and it will be like it never happened.

7

SKYLAR

I walk past the marble bust of Francis Pelham, the first mayor of Emberfield, for the tenth time, cursing his jovial smile as I do. There’s nothing to be happy about, Frankie. The world is imploding. I check my phone again. It’s eight-seventeen and still no sign of Declan. I deleted his number years ago. Do I still have it memorized? Yes. Did I try it and get a ‘this number is no longer in service’ recording? Also, yes.

I do a few more laps back and forth in front of the Emberfield Courthouse, and by eight twenty-five, I give up and storm inside.

I heave the door open, take a sharp left and walk down the hallway to the County Clerk's office. Marjorie is sitting at the front desk as usual, typing away at her computer. She holds a slightly arthritic finger up as she continues to click the keys with her other hand.

“And done.” She looks up, and a smile immediately forms on her face, the soft wrinkles at the edges of her eyes crinkling. “Skylar, my dear, what a surprise.”

Marjorie has been the head office administrator here for going on forty years. I wouldn’t be surprised if she assisted Francis Pelham himself at some point. I got to know her pretty well over the past few years as the point person at the paper for county records.

“Hi Marge,” I greet her. She insisted I start calling her Marge after we spent an afternoon together rifling through public tax records for a piece Dan was working on.

“What brings your pretty little face here so early on a Monday? New hot story?”

“Not exactly.”

Marjorie frowns, pulling her glasses down to her nose so she can look up at me through the top of them. “Are you in trouble? Henry can have a getaway car idling out front in ten minutes.”