"Okay, shut up now." Tasha's eyes are wet with welling tears. "You're going to make me ruin my makeup and then I'll have to stand next to you looking like a soggy raccoon, which would really put a damper on things."
I give a watery laugh, and Tasha squeezes my shoulders once before stepping away.
And then my mom is there beside me.
The room quiets. Something softer than silence settles over everyone. A collective recognition that this moment belongs to us, just me and my mom. The chatter fades to murmurs, the movement to stillness.
She stands before me, her hands cupped around something small. Her eyes are already shining, and the sight of my strong, loving mother trembling on the edge of tears undoes me even before she says a word.
"I've been holding onto this," she says, her voice unsteady. "Waiting for the right moment."
She opens her hands.
A hair comb rests in her palms. Antique, delicate. The metalwork is tarnished to a soft patina, the tiny pearls yellowed with age, but somehow more beautiful for it. Real. Worn. Loved.
"This belonged to my grandmother." Mom's voice is barely above a whisper. "Your great-grandmother. She wore it on her wedding day in 1932, and she was married to your great-grandfather for sixty-three years. Sixty-three years of love and partnership and raising a family together." She looks up at me, tears spilling now. "She used to tell me that a good marriage wasn't about perfection. It was about showing up for each other, every single day, even when it was hard. Especially when it was hard."
My breath catches high in my throat, and I feel heat flooding behind my eyes, a pressure building as my heart swells to fill my breast.
"I never thought I'd get to do this." Her voice breaks. "Watch you get married. Stand beside you on this day. After everything—" She stops short, takes a breath. Her voice softens nearly to a whisper. "You know what I gave up to keep you safe. I'd do it again, sweetheart. A thousand times. But I never dreamed I'd get to be here for this."
The weight of it crashes over me.After everything.
Her sacrifice. Years behind bars because she protected me. My childhood, stolen from us both. And now, standing in my penthouse, surrounded by friends, about to walk her daughter down the aisle to a man who loves me as much as I love him.
The grandchild she'll hold in a few months. The life stretching ahead of us.
"Mom—" My voice is strangled, thick with tears.
"I love you, baby girl." She reaches up, cupping my face in her hands the way she did when I was small. "And I love the man you're marrying." Her thumb brushes my cheekbone. "You found a good one, Avery. Hold onto him."
The tears come and I let them fall, hot on my cheeks, my hands shaking as I reach for her. The sound that escapes me is somewhere between a laugh and a sob, breaking open in the quiet room.
Someone shrieks, "The mascara!"
Suddenly there's motion everywhere.
"Don't touch your face!"
"Quick! Someone get tissues!"
Tasha's voice rises above them all. "Zoe,do notwipe your sticky hands on Aunt Avery's dress!"
Laughter breaks through the tears. The makeup artist swoops in with brushes and cotton pads, clucking her tongue. Eve thrusts tissues at me while Tasha fans my face with both hands. Zoe stands in front of me, asking why I'm crying, and my mom is laughing and crying at the same time, her mascara now as ruined as mine.
The chaos is beautiful. I look around at all of them. Tasha dabbing under her own eyes. Eve passing tissues while trying not to spill her champagne. Lita pretending she isn't sniffling. Serena misting up beside her. My mother's hand still warm in mine.
The love in this room is so close, so physical, it's like standing inside an embrace.
A few minutes later, with the emergency repairs complete, the makeup artist steps back with a satisfied nod. The hairstylist lifts my great-grandmother's comb and carefully slides it into my hair, securing it among the soft waves.
"One more thing," Serena says, and then the tiara is being lifted, positioned, secured. The final piece.
Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue.
All of it in place. Every piece carried here by someone who loves me. By Nick, my mother, Serena, and Eve. I feel the weight of each one against my skin, my hair, my throat. The history and the promise and the grace of it.
I turn to the mirror.
