Time wasn’t what bothered her most about this whole situation, but it was a contributing factor. She hadn’t really given much thought about the repercussions of encouraging Marigold to think of Evan as a father figure, but perhaps Leah should’ve put the brakes on and really considered that choice. The four-year-old had already been through so much in her short life, from being taken from a government facility and brought back to her mother, to moving around from room to room with her mother without really settling anywhere.
What if this relationship with Evan wasn’t made to last but for a short while? Zombies may have had the run of the city, but the earth still turned, couples still got together and they still broke up, too. Maybe she’d been too quick to give Evan the title of Papa.
Especially if it meant he was this quick to bring up the topic of marriage. Leah’s thoughts were contradictory and all over the place, which only served to fuel her temper and shorten her patience. Being married would’ve solved the problem of fearing that her daughter would lose someone else she cared about, but… it was too soon. Five months wasn’t long enough to decide whether or not she wanted to spend what was left of her life with Evan.
“It matters because I don’t want you to be trapped.” She replied quietly. Her tone implied that not only did she not want him to be trapped, but she didn’t want to be trapped either. Like her mother. “You could wake up one day and decide that this isn’t what you want, and rather than being able to leave without much of a fuss, a wedding band would be like handcuffs. And then you’d slowly go back to hating me again.”
Leah pulled in a breath, her hands tightening around the tree’s branches. For the first time in a while, she didn’t believe Evan when he told her that he hadn’t been planning on proposing. All the signs pointed to a lie. If he’d simply wanted to talk about marriage, he could’ve done that anywhere, instead of making this whole romantic scenario feel like the backdrop for a proposal.
’I’m not Ben.’ It was a simple explanation. Truthful. Spoken right then, however, it felt like a slap in the face. She blinked a few times, trying to accept his explanation for what it was, but unable to see anything but an insult that was aimed at her feelings for Ben.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” She asked, turning her head slowly to glare at him. “Are you trying to say that just because I didn’t marry Ben, I loved him any less? I carried his fucking baby, Evan. If that’s not love, then obviously I don’t know what is.”
Shaking her head, Leah made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Forget it. We’re done here. If you think I have to marry you to prove how much I love you, then… maybe this was all a mistake.” She swung forward off the branch, hooking her legs around the trunk of the tree and began shimmying down to the ground.