This was real. And somehow, this was my life.
A goddamn miracle.
Forest
On Their Second Wedding Day
The September sun tried its best to be heroic, a pale gold spotlight fighting the marine haze off the coast, but the weather was as typical for the Bay Area as ever: stubborn, chilly, beautiful in that existential way that only San Francisco could pull off.
You couldn’t know the exact aroma of low-tide brine and honeysuckle unless you’ve stood barefoot on an early-September morning on a Pacific beach near San Francisco. To others, it might not be great, but I breathed it in, savoring it.
Today was my wedding day, my real one. And the man waiting at the end of the makeshift aisle between a few rows of chairs was Nash Brockway.MyNash, in full dress uniform, hair regulation-tight, and with an expression that said he’d been waiting his entire life for this moment. I would never grow tired of him looking at me like that.
I wasn’t dressed for fog. I was dressed to say yes for the second time. I’d chosen cream and pale blue, the suit tailored tight enough to make my shoulders look mythic and my legs longer. Nash had asked what look I was going for, and I’d said “queer Gatsby,” which had made him laugh so hard I thought he’d pull a muscle.
And what came after had been even better—him pinning me against the kitchen counter and making me remember why we were so good together. I liked that about us. The way we built new traditions at the expense of old ones, ripping up the script and taping it together in a way that looked unhinged from the outside, honest on the inside.
And now, here we were. Again.
My mother fussed at me, my sister Meadow fussed at my mother, and Creek—dear, exasperated Creek—stood at my elbow with a combination of pride and worry so pronounced it could have been his own wedding. Kaelan was somewhere up ahead, signing the ceremony in real time for Tameron and Dax, and all I could do was smile. In fact, my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard that I half-feared they’d start to spasm.
The music started, and Creek held on to me tightly as my mom finally sat down and we started walking toward Nash. I wanted to both run and go as slowly as possible to soak up every second of this moment. Well, running was out of the question anyway, and Creek had to work hard to keep us both stable. I’d flat-out refused to use a cane, even on the beach. Not on my wedding day, darn it.
I kept my gaze fixed on Nash, calculating each uneven step, trying not to dwell on the drag in my left leg, the wild stutter of my heart, or how every molecule of air around us seemed to catch and glimmer with expectation. Nash had this way of standing even when he was still, as though he were permanently bracing for something—deployment, catastrophe, a thunderbolt of luck—and now he just waited for me, unflinching.
He wore his full set of medals, the ones he hid in a battered shoebox under our bed, but today, they hung in perfect rows against his chest, colors gleaming. When I got close enough to see his eyes, I almost lost it. I didn’t know if there was a word for the emotion that hit when Nash caught sight of me—some fusion of awe and hunger, like he couldn’t believe his luck, like he wasn’t done being surprised by me.
I was glad I’d splurged for the nice suit, gladder still that Nash seemed to approve, that I could feel his devotion from forty feet away.
The chairs for the guests were borrowed from the local beach rec center and half-sunk into the sand. It made everyone look slightly askew, which was only fitting. Meadow was already crying, her tissue shredded and damp and clinging to her hand like a barnacle. She didn’t even try to hide it. My mom wasn’t faring much better. I wasn’t passing judgment on that, even though we didn’t talk much. I was grateful she was here, that she was happy for me.
At the front, Dayton, Tameron, and Bean stood like proud brothers, the last two in full dress uniform just like Nash and Creek. I’d have to make sure the photographer—one of Nash’s coworkers—took some pics of the four of them. They looked dashingly handsome, though Nash was the best-looking, obviously.
Creek turned to me when we reached Nash, and then I was on the receiving end of one of his tight hugs, the kind thatswallowed you and made you want to lean into him. So I did, just a little, just for a moment. Then he did the same to Nash, and he also lingered for a moment longer. That was Creek for you: all bark, ultra-lowkey softy on the inside.
I was determined not to wobble, but my knees kept knocking, maybe from the uneven sand or maybe from the emotional pileup behind my breastbone. The world went pin-drop silent, even the gulls holding their breath as the officiant—one of Nash’s old Army friends, a woman with marine-blue hair and a tattoo sleeve of endangered birds—grinned at us with a conspiratorial warmth that managed to calm me.
“Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here to do this again, but more epically.” Her words punched through the fog. “Nash and Forest have requested an abbreviated ceremony, so everyone can get to food, drink, and celebratory shenanigans as quickly as possible.” She winked at us, and then at Meadow, who gave an enthusiastically wet sob.
“And because, apparently, we have multiple people with equilibrium challenges, a.k.a. a couple of flamingos, as Nash worded it,” she joked, which made Creek snort, and any remaining ice was now broken.
She started her speech about love and fortitude, about two souls who’d found each other because of the ridiculous American healthcare system. I tuned in and out, watching Nash from the corner of my eye and letting snippets land on me like sunbeams: “chosen family…radical, stubborn hope…fierce devotion.”
Every phrase fit us.
She was funny, irreverent, totally herself, which was perfect because she was another extension of Nash's no-bullshit crowd. I’d never felt more seen than I did in that moment, standing between my brother and the man I loved, with a circle of oddballs and survivors arrayed like a shield wall around us.
Nash squeezed my hand so hard I thought he might break it, but it was a transfer of nerves—his, mine, maybe both. The vows were next. We’d decided to write our own, of course, because traditions were only good when you could tweak them. I’d spent two weeks agonizing over mine, deleting and rewriting like a deranged poet until I’d given up and written from the heart.
If there was ever a time to look Nash dead in the eye and say something that mattered, this was it. I could only hope I didn’t flub my words. I cleared my throat, feeling a wild, electric urge to laugh, cry, sprint headlong into the sea, possibly all three. Instead, I clung to his hand and started reading, my voice louder than I expected.
“I used to believe that if I couldn’t be strong, I couldn’t be loved. That if I failed too obviously, let my body show every weakness, then the world would shut its arms to me. You kind of ruined that for me, Nash.” That line got a small ripple of laughter from the crowd. “You showed up, even when I was broken. Even when you were broken. You fixed problem after problem, never faltering, never hesitating. The first time, I thought it was a fluke. The second time, I thought maybe you liked a project. But after a while, I realized you liked me, even when I was complicated and embarrassing, even when things weren't working right. And I liked you right back, even when you weren’t perfect and had your own struggles and demons. And then like grew into love…or maybe it had always been love.”
My hands were shaking, so I squeezed his fingers and zeroed in on his face.
“Because somehow, we are right, you and me. We match. We fit. We belong. That’s why I promise you all of me all over again. My body, my heart, and my soul. Forever.”
I let that last word hang, not caring that my breath caught at the end or that my throat felt tight as a piano wire. Nash’s face was a beacon of love and pride and gratitude with that ever-present layer of concern for me. I almost told him he should go next before I lost my shit, but he nodded once, sharp, and started his own vows with the bullet-point brevity that was so, so him.
