A Thousand Letters(81)

"It's easier than saying goodbye, isn't it?"

He pulled me close, still smiling. "It's only two weeks."

"Two weeks is too long," I echoed, and he kissed me sweetly before whispering in my ear.

"Two weeks, and then forever."

And at that, I cupped his cheeks, kissing him once more as the sunlight danced across his grandmother's engagement ring resting on my finger, the same finger that was closest to my heart.





Epilogue





Elliot

He laid his hands gently on my jaw, my heart singing his name and tears stinging my eyes, and he kissed me, sealing the vow of our forever.

The people who loved us cheered and clapped from behind us, but I barely heard a thing. There was nothing outside of his hands, his lips, in that moment when our lives began. And when he pulled away, his hands still warm on my face and the ghost of his kiss still on my lips, he smiled at me with more joy than I knew one man could possess.

He took my hand, and we walked up the aisle, past Sadie and Sophie, crying and smiling from the front row, past Ben and Lou with her hand on her round belly, Charlie and the kids, as confetti rained down, spinning to the ground like dervishes. Hanging candles in jars and paper flowers spun above us in the light breeze, whirling the tiny scraps of paper around us.

The Black Forest was magical, a fairy tale forest of trees stretching up to the heavens, lush and green and older than time. The big trees were so tall, so dense we could barely see the sky, the leaves and moss so green they almost glowed. When Wade and I had come here to view the venue, we'd both known it was the perfect place to start our fairy tale.

A year of planning after years of loneliness had brought us to that moment. We'd flown back for Sadie's graduation and brought her and Sophie back with us, and every day since then had been busy with the whirl of preparations, time mostly spent constructing decorations for today, this day.

All the paper cuts were worth it.

I'd typed up all of our letters on an old typewriter, and though it wasn't the first time I'd read them all, every one hurt in its own way, sated only by the peace of forgiveness. But I remembered writing every line, and I felt every line of his.

We'd photocopied the originals and used them to make a myriad of decorations, mostly paper flowers, some big, some small, some in bouquets, some to make garlands of, which hung all over. Some were made into strips and used as streamers. A thousand more copies were shredded into confetti, confetti that floated around us like snow.

A thousand letters that brought us to that moment.

My heart skipped in my ribs as we walked together to the back of the venue with my hand in the crook of his elbow, the long chiffon spilling down from the empire waist of my dress, floating around me like mist. And as we reached a curtain made of tulle strips strung with flowers, he pulled me through it and stopped.

He was so beautiful, his uniform crisp and medals shining as he smiled down at me.

"Mrs. Winters," he started as he brushed a scrap of confetti from my nose.

"Yes, Mr. Winters?" I asked with a smile.

"I have dreamed of this day for eight years." His fingers trailed across the lace capping my shoulder in a triangle.

"And was it all you imagined?"

At that, he smiled and tipped my chin with a single finger. "More. And now there is nothing left in the world I could possibly want."

His kiss spoke the truth of his words, stealing my breath, stopping my heart, starting my life.

Because now, we would live.