Page 218 of Now We Are

We walk back down the aisle together, barefoot on the warm stones, and I can't stop smiling.

I can't stop looking at her. Can't stop thanking whatever cosmic force or dumb luck or sheer stubborn inevitability brought us both back to this cliff where I’d silently promised her forever.

At the end of the aisle, before we rejoin our family and friends for the reception, she stops me. Reaches into the small bouquetshe's carrying and pulls something out that's been tucked in there the whole time.

A pebble.

Not just any pebble.

The pebble. The one I gave her seven years ago, when I made a stupid joke about penguins and had no idea she'd keep it for this long.

"Penguins mate for life," she says, echoing my words from back then, and she's smiling.

My hands tremble as I cup her face. My heart pounds so hard I'm sure she can feel it. We kiss again—slower this time, deeper, full of seven years of waiting and three years of building and a lifetime still stretching ahead of us like an unwritten story.

When we break apart, she's grinning in that way that makes her whole face light up.

"Ready for forever, Mr. Sullivan?"

I look at this woman who's been my friend, my first love, my almost, my always. The person who knows every version of me and somehow chose me anyway.

"I've been ready since forever, Mrs. Sullivan.”