“Obviously,” Diana said under her breath.
“Not you, Quinn. I’ve accepted that you’re going to be living with me until we’re ninety.” I paused. “P.S. You’re taking over Trey’s old position at ClickMarket.”
Quinn groaned, and I said, “It’s happening. Embrace it, sister.” Then I said, “Marcy, I meant you. Won’t you be moving to Raleigh with Price?”
She shook her head and opened the jar, dunking a spoon into the peanut butter. “Hell no. My parents are so excited I’m finally getting married that they gave us the house as a wedding gift.”
I raised my eyebrows. “No way! So we still get to be neighbors?”
“Of course!”
We both squealed, and I handed her an apple slice.
“Shouldn’t the pregnant woman get the food first?” Diana asked.
We each picked up an apple slice, touched them together as if we were toasting, and crunched.
“I knew all you needed was to find a man,” Marcy said. She paused. “But maybe I was wrong about that.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. I think you needed to findtheman.”
“You think I found that?”
“Do you?”
I just smiled. Because with best friends, as with true loves, there are some questions that don’t need to be answered out loud.
It had been the scariest year of my life, no doubt about it. But I smiled anyway, looking at the three women who had defined these past few months for me. They had helped me in more ways than I could say. They had helped me move forward into my future. And I believed Marcy, Diana, and Quinn had moved forward into theirs too. We had given that to each other.
I thought back to two years ago, to a time when I thought my spreadsheets could keep me safe and my color-coded calendar could give me the life I had always wanted. I knew now that, when it came to happiness, there were certain things you simply could not plan.
And I realized that sometimes when you’re speeding through thin air, the brakes worn out and the engine shot,maybe it feels like you’re falling. But, in reality, that’s when you’re learning to fly.
diana: exactly where you started
If somebody’d told me that Frank’s mother would be the one zipping me into my dress that afternoon, I never would have believed it. But once she got on board, she got on board big. She was the one who’d bought me my wedding gown. My girls were kind of ill about that, but it was gorgeous. Plus I didn’t care one thing about the dress.
I realized pretty quick that night that I didn’t care about the rest of it either, not all the people and the tents and the flowers. I didn’t care that the food was the finest money could buy. I didn’t care if Frank carried me over the threshold of a single-wide and made love to me for the rest of my life on a pallet on the floor.
There will never be a moment that means as much to me as when he stood there, tears running down his face, and promised to love and cherish me for the rest of his life. I had waited for that day for what seemed like an eternity. And there it was. All those people, they may have been watching us, but up there, in that moment, it was like it was just the two of us.
Maybe my baby would be born, and I’d realize that that moment was even better, but it was going to be a close call. Because if it weren’t for this man and this love that we had sharedfor so very long, there wouldn’t be a baby in the first place. That baby would know every day that its momma and daddy loved each other to the ends of the earth.
I never got that, never saw it. I was okay with it that my own momma was sitting in a chair in the fourth row listening to me pour my heart out to the man of my dreams. But mostly because she got Phillip set up with her in a nice new apartment on the outskirts of town that Frank, man that he was, furnished. She was taking really good care of him. It was the one single thing she could have done to open a door between us, that could make me be a part of her life. Because I knew for damn sure I would be there every single day for my brother, so that he had everything he needed and, way more than that, that we were giving him every advantage so he could live the bright life he was capable of having. Because there was so much underneath the surface, so much more. I saw that already. That part of me was grateful that our momma came back, that she was spending every hour she wasn’t at work with Phillip, teaching him, bringing out the man we knew was inside.
Then it was my favorite part, where I slipped that plain gold band onto that beautiful finger and said, “With this ring, as a token of my love and affection, I thee wed.”
And I do. I do with all my heart.
He kissed me, and then he did the cutest thing a man had ever done at a wedding: he leaned down and kissed my belly. Everyone laughed and clapped, and I felt mascara running alldown my face, and I didn’t care what Frank’s momma said. Because that was the happiest I’d ever been in my whole life. And, damn it, I deserved it.
We walked back down the aisle, and I realized that I didn’t even hardly notice the sun sparkling over the perfect water. Me and Frank, we could’ve got married inside one of them Pods Greg and Brooke had all over the yard while they were redoing that house next door.
They gave us a minute alone with each other before the photographer and the bridesmaids and everybody started running after us.
Frank wrapped me up in his arms and planted one on me like it might be the last.But really, I thought,it’s just the first.
