Kat interrupts

"I ..." I did. I did want to get married.

The place was perfect for a proposal. A summer's day in the park, sat under the tree with the love of my life, albeit joined by the ... principal and our teacher. I closed my eyes and pictured the wedding for a moment. It could even happen under this tree. Surrounded by our closest friends and family, with our favorite foods. White ribbons hanging from the tree, chasing the pink blossom in the wind. I chuckled at the naivety of our guests: only a few would ever come to know the insane story we'd lived through to get here. Not that it mattered.

I opened my eye and reached for Kat's hand to squeeze it but it wasn't where I expected it to be. I turned, confused, but couldn't see her face: she was curled forward with her head between her knees and her hands squeezing her calves. She rocked back and forth on the grass manically. I mistook it for excitement for a moment until I looked closer. She was squeezing so tight her fingers turned white.

"Kat?" My heart sank as I came to realise something was deeply wrong. "Kat?!" I ran to her, fell to my knees and pried her hand from her leg. I squeezed it in my hand. "What is it?"

"Please don't make me do this... please don't make me do this." She looked up with tears pouring from her eyes. She was struggling to speak through her tears. "I don't want to be the one to do this." She wasn't looking at me - she was looking at Samuel.

I looked at him for answers but even he looked confused. He narrowed his eyes and watched her.

My heart couldn't bear to watch her in pain. Tears began to form in my eyes too. "Kat? What's wrong."

She didn't look at me. She leant further forward and curled into a ball, **** on her tears as she rocked.

"What did you do, Samuel?!" I stood next to Kat and screamed at him. Inflicting this kind of suffering was beyond even him. "Fix this!"

His upper lip twitched but he said nothing. Clara, scared, gathered her toys and stood behind him cuddling them.

"He didn't do anything. At least not now.." She spoke so quietly I had to drop to my knees and put my ear close to her to hear.

"What do you mean?"

"Tessa, I love you. You are everything. But no..." Kat struggled to speak.

I backed away. "What do you mean? We love each other. This is what we both want. We can talk about this."

She poked her head up and looked between Samuel and I.

"Kat? We can talk about this. I want to get married, I promise I want to get married!" I was crying now. "I promise ... Kat?"

Yet another, deeper wave of tears swept over Kat. She squeezed her eyes shut and wailed in grief. She could barely control her breath to speak. After a few seconds she stood up and looked at me. I rose to meet her.

We looked at each other for a moment. Suddenly, she hugged me so tight I thought she'd **** me, and then kissed me dearly. I felt her jagged breaths and wet cheeks pushed against mine before she pushed me away and stepped back, herself. I looked at her. She stood rigidly, clenching and unclenching her fists over and over. I reached for her hands to take them into mine but she snatched them away.

"Tessa, my love, never marry me."

The words hit individually like bullets. I couldn't reply; I couldn't even move. Everything collapsed around me. I couldn't distinguish the power Samuel had vested in her from my feelings; for a second, it wasn't clear which was more powerful.

Kat grabbed my hand, squeezed it with her beautiful, sweaty, tear-covered hand, and spoke between sobs, "I love you. I really really love you, but I can't let you do this." Before I could reply, she ran away. My legs were too weak to chase her.

I looked at Samuel for help, or at least reassurance that this was part of his game, but he gave nothing of the sort. His mouth hung slightly open and his jaw hung crookedly: he looked almost bested. "Huh," he said to himself.