The Friend Zone(97)

My jaw dropped.

She looked like a zombie bridesmaid. Her braid was frizzy, and her red lipstick was crooked. She wore the pink bridesmaid’s dress from her mom’s wedding three years ago, and she’d buttoned the dress wrong. Her hands clutched the half-dead flowers from her kitchen that I’d been picking through earlier. She must have taken them out of the trash. She had deep, dark circles under her eyes, and she looked pale, even with the blush.

But she was here.

I threw my arms around her.

“I couldn’t not be here,” she whispered.

I couldn’t even imagine the strength it must have taken for her to pull herself out of the house to be here for me. The emotional anguish she would feel, watching me have the wedding she never got.

But she came.

Josh hugged her, and for the first time, I saw Brandon’s absence etched on his face. He’d been doing a good job trying not to dwell on it, I think. But with Sloan here, Brandon was a void.

This wasn’t the way any of this was supposed to go. Sloan and Brandon would have been long done with their honeymoon by today, at home and settled in. I don’t know where Josh and I would be, but I realized now there was no world in which the two of us didn’t end up together. And Brandon and Sloan would have been in our wedding, supporting us.

Instead, it was just her. And she wasn’t really her anymore. I didn’t know if she ever would be again.

But at least she was here.

Sloan stood next to me and I sniffled, picking up the Taco Bell receipt I’d jotted my vows down on.

I looked up at Josh. His chest rose and fell a little too fast. He had this look on his handsome face—a touch of anxiety, worry, and anticipation around his brow, like he was afraid at any minute all this would be taken from him, like I might suddenly change my mind.

I deserved that.

This was a shotgun wedding. Josh was the one holding the shotgun.

This whole thing was some flash-bang-chaos campaign to hustle me into marriage before I got my bearings. He wanted to lock me down before I freaked out on him and ran. That’s why he’d rushed this. Only, the joke was on him—I wanted to be locked down, and I’d never change my mind. I’d never leave him again. If he wanted this rust bucket of a body so badly, he could have it, and I’d just have to spend the rest of my life making sure he felt secure and loved.

I looked at him, my eyes steady, and I took a deep breath. “Joshua, I vow to text you back.”

Everyone in the room laughed, my fiancé included, and his face relaxed.

I continued. “I will answer every call you make to me for the rest of my life. You’ll never chase me again.”

His eyes filled with tears, and he seemed to let go of a breath he’d been holding.

“I promise to always go to family day at the station so you know that you’re loved. I vow to support you and follow you anywhere until you’ve found the place that makes you happy. I’ll be your best friend and try and fill that hole in your heart. I’m going to take care of you and cherish you, always and no matter what.” I smiled at him. “I’ll orbit around you and be your universe, because you’ve always been my sun.”

He wiped at his eyes, and he had to take a moment before he read his own vows.

While I waited, I let his face anchor me. I soaked him in, let his love remind me again and again that I was worth it.

He looked at his paper and then seemed to decide he didn’t need it, setting it down on the desk. He gathered up my hands. “Kristen, I vow that no matter what health issues lie ahead, I will love and take care of you. I will show you every day of your life that you’re worth everything. I will carry your worries. All I ask is that you carry your own dog purse.”

The room chuckled again.

“I promise to love Stuntman Mike and slay your spiders, and keep you from getting hangry.”

Now I was laughing through tears.

“I will always defend you. I’ll always be on your side.” Then he turned to Sloan. “And I vow to protect and care for you, Sloan, like you’re my sister, for the rest of my life.”

This did it. The tears ran down my face, and I was in his arms and weeping before I knew I’d closed the distance.

We were both crying. We were all crying, even the witnesses who had no idea how hard the journey had been to get here, the sacrifices that were made for this union.

Or who we’d lost along the way.





FORTY-ONE





Kristen




Doctors’ offices are never warm enough. You’d think they’d keep the heat up in a place where you’re expected to sit and wear nothing but a paper gown.

Josh leaned next to me against the examining table where I sat with my bare legs dangling. He held my hand so I couldn’t fidget.

“Does it always take this long?” he asked, checking his watch.

His wedding ring was on his watch hand and I smiled at it, despite being cold and nervous. The inscription inside his ring said “okay.” I’d had my ring sized, and Josh had it inscribed with “my universe.” We were adorable.

We were also hungry.

It had been almost a half an hour since the ultrasound tech finished taking images. Nobody had been back since, and I’d had to fast for a glucose test. Josh hadn’t eaten in solidarity, so we were both starving.