Happy. Such a small word for such a complicated feeling.
"What if I don't know how to do this?" I blurted.
Felice waited. She was good at waiting, which was annoying.
"Marriage," I continued reluctantly. "Being someone's person. My parents loved each other, but my mother gave up everything to be with my father. Her career, her country, even her family. And she never complained, but sometimes I would catch her looking out the window with this expression like she was searching for something she had misplaced."
"You're not your mother."
"No." I turned the champagne glass in my hands. "But I don't know how to love someone without losing pieces of myself. And Cassian deserves someone whole."
Felice fell quiet. Then she reached over and took the glass from my hands, setting both flutes on the side table.
"You know what I think?" She didn't wait for me to answer. "I think you're scared. And I think that's fine, because marriage is terrifying and anyone who isn't a little scared is lying. But I also think you're using fear as an excuse to keep one foot out the door."
I looked at her.
"Cassian doesn't want perfect," she continued. "He wants you. The real you. And the real you is prickly and guarded and terrible at expressing emotions, but you're also loyal and brilliant and you love harder than anyone I've ever met. You just do it quietly."
My jaw clenched. "Are you done?"
"Almost." She stood, pulling me up with her. "That man out there learned Greek for your father. You know what your dad’slike, right? He made his last three girlfriends cry and once told a waiter his pronunciation of souvlaki was an insult to an entire nation."
I chuckled. "Baba is particular."
"Baba is terrifying, and Cassian won him over anyway." Felice smoothed a strand of hair away from my face. "Stop looking for reasons to run. You already decided to stay. Now go follow through."
I didn't have a response to that. She was right.
By the time the ceremony began, my mind had calmed but my nerves heightened. It was the golden hour, when the sun hung low and heavy and turned everything soft and picturesque.
I walked down the aisle barefoot, with a flower crown sitting on my hair. The grass was cool beneath my feet, each blade a small anchor keeping me tethered to the earth. I focused on that sensation. The texture. The temperature. Anything to keep my mind from floating away.
My father walked beside me, his arm steady under my hand. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His presence was enough.
At the end of the aisle, Cassian waited.
He stood beneath an arch of olive branches, wearing a light linen suit with no tie. His dirty blonde hair fell across his forehead despite what had probably been multiple attempts to tame it. And when he saw me, his expression shifted into frames.
Not a smile, exactly. It looked like relief and wonder and fear all tangled together, like he had been holding his breath for hours and could finally exhale. His hands shook when he reached for mine. I felt the tremor and realized that he was as scared as I am.
Somehow, that made everything easier.
"Hi," he whispered.
"Hi."
"You look..." He shook his head speechlessly. Cassian, who always had something to say, struck silent by me in a cotton dress with flowers in my hair.
"I know. Like a hippie."
He laughed, surprised, and several guests chuckled along with him. "I was going to say incredible. But sure. The most beautiful hippie I've ever seen."
The officiant cleared his throat, and we turned to face each other properly.
We had written our own vows. Cassian had insisted, even though the thought of expressing emotions in front of an audience made me want to crawl out of my skin. But he had asked, and I found it difficult to refuse him when he looked at me with those green eyes full of hope.
He went first. His voice cracked twice, and he didn't even try to hide it.
