Prologue
Noah
Present Day
It’s saidthat when you’re about to die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. There’s no way for me to confirm this, because I’m not currently about to die—as far as I know, anyway—but I’m certain what I’m about to do will create one of the images I’ll see before I kick the bucket.
“Noah,” my brother says, his voice traveling through the thick wooden door. “You about ready?”
His question could be answered two different ways. Am I dressed? Is my hair combed? Have I tied my bowtie correctly? Do I look like a doofus but also maybe like James Bond in this monkey suit? Then yes, I’m ready.
Am I ready to walk out into that courtyard and create the image I’ll probably see on my deathbed?
“Almost,” I croak out.
“You nervous?” He pushes open the door and walks in without asking. Brody is shorter than me by two inches, and I’ve never let him forget it. He insists he’s better looking because his chin is square, and his cheekbones are chiseled—just like the shirtless men on the covers of the romance novels his wife reads. I told him Alyssa is looking at the rippled abs on her bookshelf, not the pretty faces.
“A little.” Maybe I shouldn’t be nervous, but I am. Mostly because I can’t stop picturingher.
Brody slaps me on the back, the thick black fabric muffling the sound. “I was nervous too. It’s normal.” He grins his wide, toothy, confident Sutton smile. As if everything has always gone his way, and everything will continue to be grand for him. He married his college sweetheart, and has two kids. Nothing like me. My own lips waver in my second-born, opposite of the first son, Sutton smile.
Brody bends at the waist, falling back onto the small tan couch inside the room I’ve been given to get ready. From his pocket, he pulls a small plastic bag with five gummy bears.
“Want to relax a little?” He pops one into his mouth and holds out the bag.
“No.” I frown at him. “I’d like to be fully present today.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugs and throws another one into his mouth. After stuffing the bag back into his pocket, he stands and heads for the door. Before he walks out, he tosses me a last glance. “Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“You made the right choice.” The door shuts softly behind him.
Choice? Did I ever really have a choice?
In a few minutes, I’m going to take a trip down the aisle, but the walk down memory lane is too alluring. The memories are easy to conjure, perhaps because they’re never far away.
So readily she comes to me, her copper hair alive when the sun streaks across it, shades of deep red and burnt orange, like the glow of a dying fire. Her smile, the way it tugged on the constellations of freckles that dotted her nose and beneath her eyes.
Just like on that day, her face twists my heart.
As though I’m dying right now, I see everything in slow motion. Every moment of Ember, drawn out to allow for careful examination. Everything that led me to this day, to this spot. I think, I see, and I wonder.
What if I hadn’t stopped when I saw her? What if I let her quirky, electric personality keep me from leaving? What if, on the day I met her, I’d kept my eyes closed instead of letting her open them?
Were those choices I made? Or inevitable plot points in Fate's never-ending story?
Without a knock or warning, the door to my dressing room flies open again. Brody walks in and opens his arms, a question on his face.
I turn back to the full-length mirror and adjust my bow-tie one last time. “Sorry. I’m thinking a lot. About—”
Brody shakes his head, and my words die on my lips.
“You got this man.” He says it with strength. His smile is confident, the grin of a man who believes what he’s about to say. “Ain’t nothing like the real thing.”
A smile tugs at one corner of my mouth, and for the first time since I stepped foot in this small room, my nerves disappear.
That woman out there… She’s the real thing.
