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Forever.
Once she’s given her waterfall bouquet of flaming orange to her mother, who is acting as both maid of honor and mother of the bride, she smiles.
It’s a wicked sort of smile. The kind that indicates she knows my organs are struggling to keep me alive right now. But it’s still so beautiful I can hardly comprehend it.
The classic vows the officiator feeds me exit my dry mouth, stale, and it takes every ounce of my willpower to keep from going off script and waxing poetic on all the ways I believe this woman—who is standing in front of me right now with her arms folded—has saved my life.
My brain short circuits when I hear: “Marcella Keyes, you’ve prepared your own vows?”
Her lashes flutter as my attention whips to our officiator, to her, to the audience, then back to her. I mouth what, but she is a cold, heartless little imp with the smuggest smile in the world, and I am wholeheartedly, disastrously in love with her.
“Finnegan Marsh,” she begins, uncrossing her arms to cross them the other way, “it’s been six months since I met you, in an office that had fish swimming in the floor. Interviewing with you while you clicked your pens and twisted in that—” She swears. “—chair of yours was actually quite almost my thirteenth reason. Working for you those first two months resulted in many pints of ice cream consumed. Most of them donated by my friends, because I lived in generational poverty, begging a merciful God to maintain my AC better than I maintained my health. I sincerely do not know why you thought I was qualified for the position of being your assistant. I can only imagine my presentation on how I color-code schedules surpassed your expectations. Let me confess now: that habit of planning ahead is caused by unmedicated anxiety.” She loosens a hand from her crossed arms just enough to touch her chest with all the grace of a princess. “Today, you are marrying a disorder, but I hope you already know that, otherwise I’m going to be very embarrassed.”
When she pauses, I stammer, “I don’t think—”
“Yes, you do. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Laughter bubbles up in my chest, so I bite my lip and fight the smile overwhelming me. It is nearly as forceful as the threat of tears.
“Finn,” she continues, “thank you for loving me. Even though I’m guarded. Even though I find it hard to accept perfectly adequate people for the dumbest things. Thank you for telling me it is okay to protect myself until I feel safe enough to let my walls down and admit that it’s really not all that annoying when you twist in your chair or when you separate all your food by primary colors or when you…” She blinks, and her attention drifts skyward. “No actually, I’m adamant about the pen clicking. That one you will need to stop or do out of hearing range, lest I murder you in your sleep. I’ve gone off topic. What I’m saying is, I’ve grown accustomed to the hate them before they hate me mentality. But when you saw me, for me, you didn’t hate it.” She lowers her face, blows out a breath, and contains herself. “I don’t know how I’ll ever understand that, but I can promise to love you forever for it.” Squaring her shoulders, she clears her throat. “Today, we’re both missing people who should have been here—your parents…my brother—and I know I can’t fix that.”
My heart clenches, and she unravels her arms to clasp my hand.
“I know I can’t fix a lot of things.” She squeezes my fingers. “I’m not rich. I don’t have a glowing personality. I’m anal about too much stupid stuff. I really don’t have anything to offer you in a relationship. But…there is something I have that I’m willing to share, if you’re okay with it. It’s pretty second-hand, and it comes with olives in the tomato sauce, but it’s…” She frees a wet laugh. “…well, it’s actually quite unequivocally the best.” Turning to her side of the aisle, she says, “My cousins.”
In an uncoordinated stream, a dozen people stand, wrangle children, and cross the aisle to my side.
“My aunts. My uncles. My grandmother.”
The procession repeats, more people moving across the petal-strewn lane to my side. A teardrop hits the flower in my pocket.
“My parents’ friends, who said they wanted to come to a fancy wedding when my mother blabbed about it.”
A handful of people laugh as they stand and join my seats.
Marcella looks behind her, at Penny and Brigid. “My best friends.”
They cross to stand behind me, tapping my shoulder as though I’m not already struggling with everything in me not to sob.
“My mom.”
A swear hisses past my lips as I look at the sky. It’s perfect. Blue. Beautiful and full of soft white clouds.
The woman shows no mercy as she sweeps in to hug me tight before standing firmly behind me, a hand on my back.
“And, my dad.”
He stands on my other side, clasping his hand over his wife’s. I feel them both through my suit jacket—an overwhelming presence.
“Finnegan Marsh,” Marcella says, tears in her eyes, “I hope you know that once you marry me, you won’t ever have the luxury of being alone again. You’re entirely too lovable. And I give it half a reception before all the poor saps you didn’t meet at dinner last night are under your spell.” She sniffs, huffing. “I say half because you and I will be leaving early. I am already tired.”
Laughter encases me as I fall utterly apart.
Forgetting myself and the order of things, I kiss Marcella a bit too early. Before my hand can find her hair, I swear into her mouth and pull back. “Sorry,” I exhale. “Sorry.”
Chuckling, our officiator says, “Mr. Marsh, you have something you wanted to present?”
This time, Marcella gets to look surprised.
