Epilogue
Leo
Three months later…
The sand is warm under my bare feet, and somewhere behind me, my father is fighting a losing battle with his own composure.
“You’re really doing the no-shoes thing,” he says, for what might be the fourth time this morning, like he’s hoping repetition will eventually change my answer.
“It’s a beach wedding, Dad. Shoes would be dumb.”
“I had shoes at my wedding.”
“Your wedding was in a church in November.” I roll my shoulders, more out of nervous energy than any actual stiffness. “Different circumstances. Plus, do we want to use a wedding to KiKi as an example?”
“Heh, fair.”
“Also, this wedding could have been themed, and then you would’ve had to dress up in a costume.”
He visually shudders. “No shoes is much better.”
“I don’t know. You would’ve made a great Orc.”
He scoffs. “I would’ve made a great Zeus.”
“Sure, dad.”
He claps a hand on my shoulder, solid and warm. “You look nervous,” he says, gentler now.
“I’m not.”
“Leo.”
“Okay. A little nervous. But the good kind.”
He laughs at that, and it eases something in my chest, watching him relax into the day a little.
“I was going to give you a speech,” he says. “I wrote one. I’ve read it back to myself probably ten times this week.”
“You don’t have to give it now. Save it for tonight.”
“I know. I just want you to know it exists. That I’ve been thinking about what to say to you since you were small enough to ride on my shoulders. Somehow, none of the words I practiced feel big enough for today.”
He looks out at the water for a second, the late afternoon light doing something soft and gold across the whole horizon.
“You’re the best thing I ever did, Leo. I want you to know that before you walk out there.
Whatever else happens today, whatever else has happened this whole complicated week with your mother—”
“And the fact that you hooked up with my bride’s older sister?”
He clears his throat. “Yes, that too. I am so unbelievably proud of who you chose.”
My throat goes tight in a way I wasn’t prepared for, three minutes before I’m supposed to walk out and get married.
“Don’t make me cry before the ceremony,” I tell him. “Juniper will never let me hear the end of it.”
“Cry. Better she know now how sensitive you can be.”
I punch his bicep. “You’re a terrible best man.”
“I’m an excellent best man. I just also happen to be your father, which means I get to do both things badly at the same time.” He squeezes my shoulder once more, then steps back, straightening his jacket, some of the levity falling away into something steadier. “You ready?”
I look down the length of sand toward where the small crowd of chairs has filled in, toward the spot where I know, in about ninety seconds, Juniper is going to appear barefoot in white with her sister standing beside her.
I feel the particular, settled certainty I’ve been carrying since a Captain America costume and an ambush kiss rearranged my entire life in the space of one convention weekend.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve been ready for a while now.”
We walk out together, my dad and I, no aisle to speak of, just open sand and ocean and the soft murmur of family finding their seats, and I take my place where the wedding coordinator directed me hours ago and try to remember how to breathe normally.
The music starts. The crowd turns.
And there she is.
I won’t remember, later, what the dress looked like in detail, or what flowers she carried, or any of the small specific things I’m sure I’m supposed to notice. What I’ll remember is the exact moment she finds my eyes across all that sand and all those people, and smiles.
And everything inside my body shifts as if it’s finally falling into place. As if now everything is how it should be.
Just her. Walking toward me.
Exactly the way she walked toward me barely two months ago, across a convention floor, looking like a princess. Looking like my princess.
Juniper
“You’re shaking,” Clover says, adjusting the same loose strand of my hair for the third time, even though it has not moved even slightly since the first time she touched it.
“I’m not shaking.”
“Juniper. Your hands are shaking.”
I look down at my hands, holding my bouquet in a death grip that is probably bruising the stems, and concede the point. “Okay. Fine. Slightly shaking. It’s a big day.”
Her smile grows. “It’s a wonderful day.” She finally steps back, looking at me properly, something bright and shiny in her eyes. “You look incredible. I need you to know that. Like, genuinely, unfairly beautiful, in a way that’s almost rude to the rest of us.”
“You’re required to say that. Maid of honor duties.”
“Bah.” She waves her hand dismissively. “I’m required to say nice things. I’m not required to mean them with my whole chest, and yet, here we are.” She reaches out, squeezes both my hands at once, bouquet and all. “How are you feeling? Really.”
I think about the question seriously.
“Certain,” I say. “Which feels like it should be a strange thing to feel about something this fast. I mean who gets married after only knowing someone for less than three full months?”
“You do!”
“I used to think certainty was supposed to feel calm. Steady. Like still water.” I look toward the tent flap, beyond which I can hear the soft hum of the gathering crowd, the ocean somewhere underneath all of it.
“It doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like the suitcase the day I packed for that convention.
Everything slightly too full, the zipper barely holding.
That’s how I feel. Like I’m bursting at the seams with joy and love and excitement at getting to marry Leo. ”
Clover laughs and a tiny sob sneaks out. She dabs carefully at the corner of one eye. “That is the most you answer you could possibly have given.”
I pull her into a hug.
“Five minutes,” someone calls from outside the tent, and my stomach does something complicated and enormous.
Clover straightens, she fusses with my veil one more time, unnecessarily, then stops herself and just looks at me instead.
“I’m so happy for you,” she says, voice thick.
“I want you to know that whatever else is happening this weekend, none of it touches this. None of it touches you and Leo. That part has been perfect since the very beginning, and I’ve gotten to watch the whole thing happen, and it’s been one of the great privileges of my life. ”
I don’t trust my own voice to respond to that without ruining my makeup completely, so I just pull her into another hug instead. We stand like that for a second, two sisters who built a life together when the world took nearly everything from us.
“Soooo… if you marry Heath will that make you my sister and my mother-in-law?”
“Oh my God,” she says.
Then we both dissolve into a fit of giggles.
I follow the cue from the resort’s wedding planner and step out into the light.
Leo is already looking for me. Of course he is. He’s always looking for me. It’s that same unwavering attention he gave me after I kissed him, like I might disappear if he looks away for even a second.
I find his eyes across all that distance, all that sand, and the rest of the world goes soft and quiet and unimportant.
There he is.
Exactly where I left him, every single time, since the very first day... waiting for me.
I walk toward him, feeling completely certain and nearly giddy at the prospect of exchanging vows with him.
I love you, he mouths as I draw closer to him.
I know, I mouth.
And he laughs.
Yep, no regrets, Leo was totally worth ambushing.
***
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