Chapter Forty-Five Sofias Wedding
Sofia married her fiancé, Adam, on a bright autumn afternoon eight months into Elena's own marriage, and Elena stood among the bridesmaids watching a wedding unfold the way weddings were supposed to — slow, joyful, entirely chosen, nothing rushed or transactional anywhere in sight.
"It's strange, isn't it," Sofia murmured, catching Elena's hand backstage before the ceremony, radiant in ivory lace. "Watching a wedding be simple. I keep thinking of yours — how fast it all happened, how little any of us understood what we were watching at the time."
"I don't resent it anymore," Elena said, surprising herself with how true it felt.
"I did, for a long time. But watching you today, having this — the flowers you actually chose, the guest list you actually wanted, the vows you get to mean without anyone's debt attached to them — it doesn't make me wish I'd had this instead.
It makes me grateful you get to have it at all, in a family that doesn't always make room for softness. "
"You changed him, you know." Sofia squeezed her hand.
"Dante. Before you, I don't think any of us imagined he'd ever let himself want something as ordinary as this.
" She gestured at the flowers, the soft afternoon light, the entire unhurried tenderness of a wedding built on choice instead of necessity.
"He used to say love was a liability men in our world couldn't afford.
I don't think he believes that anymore, and I don't think he'd have unlearned it without you. "
Elena watched Dante later that evening, dancing with his cousin at the reception, laughing at something Sofia's new husband said, entirely at ease in a way she still found herself quietly marveling at, months into learning this softer version of him.
When he found her again, pulling her onto the dance floor with an easy, unhurried grace that had nothing to do with the careful control he wore in his business, she rested her head against his chest and let herself simply enjoy being exactly where she was.
"You're staring at Sofia's flowers like you're planning something," he murmured against her hair.
"I'm not planning anything. I'm just happy.
" She tipped her head back to look at him.
"I used to think I'd missed out on this — the proper wedding, the choosing instead of the necessity.
Watching Sofia today, I realized I don't feel that way anymore.
We built our own version of this, backward, the hard way. I wouldn't trade it, even now."
"Even the parts that terrified you?"
"Especially those," she said. "They're the reason I know exactly what I have, instead of simply assuming it.
" She kissed him, slow and unhurried, in the middle of a dance floor full of people who'd once seen her only as the debt Dante had married, and felt, for the first time completely, like she belonged there.