Page 113 of Take Two

“How’s Charlie?” I ask him. I haven’t seen him since our rehearsal dinner last night. We had a bonfire on the beach, and afterward, my mom dragged me inside and away from him.

“He’s great. So excited. He looks almost as handsome as Johnny and Evan.”

My mom and Terri walk around me. Mary Leigh cries softly in the corner. She dabs the corners of her eyes every few seconds. I spin in front of the mirror and smile in pure happiness.

The dress is exactly how I want it. It’s all white, strapless and has a sweetheart neckline. The top is made like a corset, and it cinches my waist. The bottom of the dress is long and loose with a skirt that appears to go on for miles, trailing dramatically behind me.

“Time for your veil,” my mom says. “Mary Leigh, Terri, come help me. You too, Vickie.” I’m glad my mom includes them. It’s been the five of us and a wedding planner making sure everything is perfect. Charlie helped too, but he left all the little details to us. They lift the veil, but since Mary Leigh is the tallest, she gets to position it on my head. My mom pulls it down over my face.

The veil is made of the same lace as the skirt of my dress, and it’s just as long.

“Don’t let me cry,” I say as I fan my face. My two maids of honor dab my eyes with a tissue.

“It’s your wedding. You can cry if you want to,” Vickie says. “Don’t tell Colt, but I cried like a baby. We had two weddings, and I was a mess both times.” She giggles and looks around. “I kinda love my husband a whole lot.”

“We’ll keep that to ourselves. We don’t want it to go to his head,” Mary Leigh jokes. She goes so far as to put a finger to herlips.

“You’re stunning, Violet,” Terri says. “The most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.”

“I agree with that,” I hear my dad say. I turn to see him walking into the bedroom. “Wow.” He stops about six feet in front of me and just looks. He pulls out a handkerchief and dabs his eyes. “There’s a very eager groom out there waiting for you. There’s also a very pretty little flower girl who is this close to getting dirty,” my dad says.

Johnny’s friend Jasmine Wakowski is our flower girl. Vickie suggested it, and her parents happily accepted.

“Let’s go,” my dad says. He takes my hand, and we follow Vickie out of the bedroom. The house is so large that I don’t know my way around it, so we let her lead. It takes almost ten minutes for me to walk down the stairs and finally step outside. The wedding planner lines everyone up while I stay at the back with my dad.

I tune out what everyone else is saying and just hold onto my dad’s arm. If he wasn’t here to hold me upright, I would have fallen over already.

“Show time,” he says when the music starts, and Johnny and Jasmine run down the aisle.

I take a deep breath and wait for our turn. I think I have myself under control, but the aisle clears and I get my first look at Charlie in his dark gray suit. After that, my walk down the aisle is a blur through my tears.

Charlie

I don’t think I’ve taken a breath since the music started and Johnny and Jasmine decided to sprint instead of walk downthe aisle. They don’t drop a single rose petal like they practiced last night. When they get to the altar, they dump their baskets of rose petals on each other’s heads, and everyone, including myself, laughs. The photographer snaps several pictures before someone gets them to sit down. That only lasts a second before Johnny joins his father next to me. Jasmine does the same, and Colt ends up holding both their hands at the altar. When it’s Evan’s turn, he decides to stand next to me instead of taking his seat. Instead of one best man, I end up with three and a best flower girl. I couldn’t ask for a better day.

I tune everything else out and wait for my bride. I’m not ready when I see her walking to me in a vision dressed all in white. She’s just as I imagined. Classy with a big dose of sexiness thrown in. I don’t know how a man like me, a man who’s made so many wrong turns in this life, could possibly end up with a woman like that. She’s perfection in every form. Her beauty and her body are what people see, but I get parts of her that no one else gets. I get her heart. I benefit from her selflessness, and I vow I will never let her go.

She thinks she’s getting the good end of the bargain. Yes, she’s getting a man who loves her more than anything. I’ll do anything to make her happy. Those things are easy for me to do, but I’m the one who gets to bask in the one thing I never thought I’d find in a woman. She’s given me the one thing I knew I needed but never thought I could ask for. She figured I needed this all on her own. She’s given me safety.

I only breathe when she stops in front of me. Her dad lifts the veil, and I stop breathing again. Her father dabs her eyes with his handkerchief and whispers something in her ear. I don’t know what he says, but it makes her laugh through her tears. He kisses her cheeks and shakes my hand. Then he takes her hands in his and puts them in mine.

“Dearly beloved,” the minister begins.

THE END