SkyGirl5
Cadet
Title: Change Your Mind
Genre: s/v au a little angst
Summary: Sydney and Michael are immeidatly attracted to one another. The only problem is: Michael desparately wants a family and he's not getting any younger. Sydney, on the other hand, doesn't want anythign to do with marriage and definitely doesn't want any children. Will he be able to change her mind before it's too late?
28 Chapters + Epilogue
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Chapter 1 (below) Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8
Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16
Chapter 17 Chapter 18 & 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24
Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 + Epilogue
Chapter 1
“It was a beautiful ceremony, wasn’t it?” Wendy sighed into her champagne glass before taking a sip. The table full of bridesmaids in their peach colored taffeta gowns with matching peach ribbons holding their hair nodded or “Mmhmm”ed in agreement. Six of them in all had been recruited by the bride Jamie Wesley, now Jamie Thorpe, to be in her wedding. All knew her in some way shape or form: two were colleagues from work, one was a sister, one a neighbor and the other two were merely friends she’d collected along the way. The six women, though, had not known each other hardly at all until the reception dinner two days earlier.
“I cannot believe you don’t want this,” Beth said to Sydney, who was sitting across the table from her. The two women worked with Jamie at the law offices of Thorpe, Sloane and Bristow, so they were the closest of all the bridesmaids, prior relationship-wise anyway.
At Beth’s comment, Sydney turned her eyes slowly away from the staring table of women and down to her lap. Beth’s comment, while not untrue, brought up the taboo subject she was not keen on discussing, at least, not in the company of strangers and especially not at a wedding. “What is she talking about?” Jamie’s sister Karen asked, her eyes darting between Sydney and Beth.
“Sydney doesn’t want to get married – ever,” Beth said as though it was the most scandalous thing in the world. It seemed the rest of the table shared her sentiments since they all gasped loudly and began whispering to each other at once. “I know, I know. Terrible, isn’t it?”
“It’s not terrible,” Sydney defended her opinion. “I just… I don’t see the point,” she sighed. She glanced out towards the nearby dance floor where the bride was sharing a dance with her new husband. They nuzzled each other’s faces and whispered to each other before sharing a soft laugh. As Sydney watched this, she felt the strong urge to gag.
It was not as though she did not believe in love (the jury was still out on that topic) or the sanctity of marriage at all. Marriage was wonderful for some people, just not her. Obviously it was working just fine and dandy for Jamie and Andrew Thorpe, both successful lawyers, both religious church goers, both nauseatingly in love with each other to the point where they would randomly make out in the law office where they all worked, which was something else that gave Sydney the urge to gag.
“How can you not see the point?!” Wendy demanded. “It’s spending your life with someone!”
“Who will inevitably break your heart,” Sydney informed her. “Do you know the divorce rate these days? Fifty percent. Half of all marriages are doomed to fail – in the first five years, too.”
“Aren’t you a divorce lawyer?” Emily, another bridesmaid, asked with a raised eyebrow. Sydney shrugged and nodded. “No wonder you’re so cynical. You’re surrounded by bickering couples day and night.”
“I’m not cynical, just realistic. I don’t want to get married because I don’t want to get divorced. It’s as simple as that,” Sydney explained.
“It gets worse!” Beth chimed in. “She doesn’t want kids either.” At this seemingly ghastly (at least by Beth’s tone) suggestion, the women at the table gasped once more and looked at Sydney wide-eyed in shock.
“What planet are you from?!?” Karen demanded.
Sydney gulped down the rest of her champagne before sighing at the shocked faces surrounding her. “I’m not from another planet, I just don’t want kids and a family, okay? So sue me! It’s not like I hate kids or anything. I have twin nieces who I love to pieces!” Sydney told them.
“That is true,” Beth defended her friend. “She has pictures of them all over her office.”
“See,” Sydney gestured towards her. “I just don’t want kids or a family of my own. That is not a crime.”
“Whatever,” Emily sighed. “I just don’t understand how you can’t want them.”
“That’s because you have two already, don’t you?” Karen asked with a laugh.
“Uh, three,” Emily laughed, gesturing towards her round belly. “I can’t help it; I just want more and more and more… although, I think we should stop after three – we’re running out of room in the house!”
“Tell that to Dave,” Karen giggled along with the rest of the table. All except Sydney, that was; she was still slightly miffed at being called an alien just because of her lack of desire to settle down with two point five children, a golden retriever and a husband in a house with a white picket fence. That life was perfectly fine for those who wanted it, like her sister, but not for her. It was not as though she was the only person in the world that felt that way either; lots of people chose not to have children and families.
Having no children or no husband to speak of did not make her life unfulfilling either. She did not need those things to fill up the empty nooks and crannies of her life. She was perfectly content working a sixty-hour week, especially since it earned her that promotion she had been wanting for the previous six months. She dated too, so it was not as though her life was completely devoid of male companionship. She was happy and that was all that mattered. As long as she was happy, she didn’t need someone to come along and sweep her off her feet.
PMs a bit later...
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