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“RaeLazarevasoon,” I correct softly. “In about twenty minutes.”

Her eyes spill over. So do mine.

So much for the mascara.

We stand there leaking all over each other’s fancy outfits until a knock at the door makes us both jump.

“Rae?” Gideon’s voice, slightly muffled. “They’re, uh—they’re ready for us. Whenever you are.”

I wipe my eyes and Jillian wipes hers. “Go get ‘em, Sunshine,” she whispers.

She slips out the door ahead of me, and I hear her heels clomp down the stairs, followed by the distant sound of the garden door opening and closing. From outside, a lone violin drifts up through the window.

I take one last look in the mirror. “Okay, Mom,” I whisper. “Okay, Dad. Here I go.”

Then I open the door.

Gideon is waiting in the hallway. The sight of him nearly takes me out at the knees.

He’s wearing a charcoal suit that fits him properly. Lukas had it tailored for him, and the two of them have been working out together for the last few months, ever since Gid finished rehab, so there’s actually some width to my brother’s shoulders. His dirty blonde hair is trimmed and combed, his jaw clean-shaven for the first time in months, and his brown eyes are bright, clear, and brimming.

As good as he looks, his best accessory is one that’s tucked out of sight: a chip that marks ten months of sobriety. My heart swells ten sizes bigger with pride for him.

In fact, it swells so big that I get a little unsteady and have to reach out before I topple over.

“Whoa!” Gideon catches my elbow. “You okay there, princess?”

“You look so grown up,” I splutter.

He grins and waves me off. “Don’t start. If you make me cry before we even get outside, I’ll never live it down.”

“You’re allowed to cry at your sister’s wedding, you big cupcake. Your man card won’t get revoked or anything.”

He rolls his eyes and offers me his arm. I take it. His bicep is solid under the charcoal wool. Along with Lukas’s lifting sessions, kitchen work has filled him out and given him the quiet physical confidence that comes from actually using your body for something productive instead of trying to destroy it one high at a time.

I squeeze his arm and he squeezes back, and we start moving slowly out of the room.

“Mom and Dad would be so proud of you,” he says quietly as we walk.

The tears come back. I don’t fight them this time. “They’d be proud ofyou, G.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not the one who held everything together for six years. That was all you.” He clears his throat and sighs. “You never gave up on me. Not once. Even when I gave you every reason to.”

I can’t speak. I stop for a sec to just lean my head against his shoulder and breathe. He lets me gather myself back up.

“Ready?” he asks after a moment.

“Ready.”

We descend the stairs together.

The brownstone’s garden is small and imperfect, and it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.

Jillian has strung fairy lights through the leafy branches of the old maple tree and wound ivy around the wrought-iron fence. White wooden folding chairs line a narrow aisle blanketed in white petals. The violinist plays in the far corner. The summer air is hazy but not hot, the sky a clear, rich blue that feels like a gift.

The guests turn as I appear in the garden doorway. There aren’t many, which was a conscious choice, made over coffee one morning when Lukas asked how many people I wanted and I said,Just the ones who matter. Jillian is in the front row, already destroying a tissue, alongside a few others whose faces blur past me because my vision has tunneled down to a single point at the end of the aisle.

Lukas.