As if it were possible to love him more…
I glanced around the bridal suite and wondered if it were possibleto love anyone more than the women in the room, either.
“Are you nervous?” Harper asked, gorgeous in her emerald-green dress.
“About marrying Xander?” I teased. “Been there, done that.”
She laughed. “I meant about returning to the east coast.”
After I graduated UCLA armed with a degree in architectural and urban design and an interior design certificate I started my own business. I didn’t have a storefront but worked remotely and already business was good. Xander graduated from Caltech with PhDs in quantum physics and astrophysics. Before the ink was dry on his diplomas, he was offered a position doing research with the Event Horizon Telescope in Massachusetts, which worked out of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he’d be teaching as an adjunct professor.
My business was mobile. I could do it from anywhere, so there was no way I could let him turn it down.
But I knew why Harper was asking. Massachusetts bumped elbows with Rhode Island, but I was no longer the scared girl I had been back in Castle Hill. I wasn’t about to let old fears or pain stop either one of us from achieving our dreams. We’d both been working so hard, saving money for the move, and setting aside enough to throw a big wedding to celebrate us before a much-needed honeymoon in Costa Rica.
“I’m not nervous about that,” I said, and smiled at my mother as she joined us. “I’ll be closer to Mom now.”
She smiled back, looking regal in her pale green, mother-of-the-bride dress. Her cheeks had more color, and she had more weight on her bones since divorcing my dad two years ago. She took him for half of everything he owned…not that it mattered. His business was booming, but he had no one to share it with. He sat on top of his mountain of gold alone.
To me, that was a fate worse than financial ruin.
“Em, isn’t it time to put on your dress?” Delilah cooed from theother side of the bridal suite, where my simple but elegant dress was waiting. She stood with Christina and Chloe, my UCLA BFFs, and Alicia Alvarez.
After Ms. Alvarez was fired from Castle Hill Academy, she took another job in Virginia and quickly rose in the ranks to administrator. I don’t think she ever belonged in a place like CHA. Or maybe they needed her more than they knew and had stupidly let her slip away.
She joined us and clinked her champagne flute to mine. “Put on that dress, sweetheart. We’re all dying to see it.”
“I will,” I said. “I just want to take in this moment a little longer.”
The women in my suite were my favorite people…but for my other favorite person across the hall, getting ready with his groomsmen: Orion, Kevin Huang, and his best buddies from Caltech: Quinton and Kieran. I loved all of Xander’s friends as if they were my own brothers.
And Jack, my own brother.
He was one of Xander’s groomsmen too.
I smiled. Today would’ve been perfect but for two missing pieces: Xander’s father had passed away six months after we arrived in California. They’d been happy ones; he smiled a lot and seemed to enjoy himself when Xander had wheeled him through the Athenaeum, pointing out different Einstein artifacts. The light in his eyes had never been brighter.
Xander had taken his ashes to the Bend alone and scattered them in the bay.
“It was his favorite place,” Xander had said. “He’ll be close to Dean there.”
Dean, of course, was the other missing piece. But the sun was brilliant on this June day, just as it had been at his funeral.
They’re both still with us—little pieces of light that go on forever…
After more prodding from Delilah, I got up to put on my dress with Alicia’s help.
“I’m so proud of you, Emery,” she said. “And so very happy.”
“None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t helped me, Ms. A. You gave me the courage.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t do anything. You walked through the door on your own.”
“But you held it open for me.” I put my arms around her. “Thank you.”
She held me tight as a knock came at the door. Delilah answered.
“Xander! You can’t see the bride before the wedding!”
