CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MATTI
“No matter how much I try, I just can’t shake the image of you walking away,” she whispers through clenched teeth. “And every time I see it, I hate you for it.” For a moment, I’m not sure which of us she hates most. Me, for abandoning her like it was nothing, or her for believing it.
“Want a new image?” I ask her quietly, closing my eyes and going back to memories I’ve tried just as hard to forget.
Though, for different reasons. “I barely made it on the bus that night. I stumbled going up the two steps in. Collapsed to my knees the second the door closed behind me.” I clear my throat trying to free my voice from the onslaught of emotions.
“Ask Knox. He’s the one who had to help me up and drag my ass over to the sofa.
Jason and Cass were there too. I remember Cass started crying just looking at me.
” I open my eyes again to find her looking at me, tears rolling down her cheeks again.
This time in silence. The sobs are absent. These tears fall in peace.
“I had no idea,” she breathes.
“Of course not.” I tilt my head forward until my forehead rests on her soft hair.
“You weren’t supposed to. If you’d known, you’d only have put me first again.
” I reach my hand up to twirl around one of her wavy, blonde strands.
“I don’t even care that you hated me then.
Maybe you needed to hate me to let us go long enough to make room for you.
” I swallow down the fear burning my throat.
“But please don’t hate me now. How can I help you not hate me now? ”
Her hand finds my chest and she applies pressure, pushing me back into the sand, her body following along with mine. “Hold me.” She nestles in against me, half on my chest, half at my side, her head resting over my heart.
At first, I freeze, afraid to move and upset some invisible boundary between us I can’t see but am certain must exist after all we’ve admitted here tonight.
But as she continues to sink into me, her heart beating in rhythm with my pulse, I shut down my brain and follow my own advice for once. No more thinking. Just feeling.
My arms wrap around her, one leg folds over hers, and we lie here. Just us. Real. Unguarded. And anchored. In everything we were. Everything we are today. And every last hope of what we could still become.
NESSA
Feeling him like this, all the truth laid out between us, all the ugly on display, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced.
And there’s only one thing I know to do to give him what he’s given me, to truly heal the wound I’ve let fester. It’s to share something with him, something I’ve kept to myself for over twenty years.
Now, darlin’ let me share with you all that’s in my heart
‘cause it’s time you know, what I want from you, is for us to never part
He tenses in surprise at the sound of my singing, and I reach my arm around his chest and squeeze it gently, hugging him closer before I go on, placing a kiss directly on his heart before I do.
You might think I’m foolish, too young to know my heart
So, I gotta say it now, boy, I’m ready for our life to start.
Baby, you’re my first thought, every single morning
And once I think that first thought of you boy, yeah, they just keep on comin’
Like how you make me brave now, no fears at all now
Then your love it frees my mind, makes me seek until I find
Loving you’s the stars and the moon and the sun
Darlin’, you’re the one
Darlin’ won’t you trust in me, let me hold your heart in mine
So that you can feel, all my love for you, ‘til the end of time
Love ain’t always true, boy, but what we have feels right.
Now babe my heart’s been claimed and won
I’m here to tell you you’re the one, Baby, please be mine tonight
Baby, you’re my first thought, every single morning
And once I think that first thought of you boy, yeah, they just keep on comin’
Boy your amber eyes are magic, fire and mischief,
Got a smile that fills my heart, gives me hope when life is dark
Loving you’s the stars and the moon and the sun
Darlin’, you’re the one
First thought, first kiss, first love, boy I swear it’s fate
Baby, you’re my first thought, every single morning
And once I think that first thought of you boy, yeah, they just keep on comin’
Like how your sweet soul is a wild one, free and on the run
Always in with all you got, always give it your best shot
Loving you’s the stars and the moon and the sun
Darlin’, you’re the one
Baby, you’re my first thought, every single morning
And once I think that first thought of you boy, yeah, they just keep on comin’
Like how you make me brave now, no fears at all now
Then your love it frees my mind, makes me seek until I find
Loving you’s the stars and the moon and the sun
Darlin’, you’re the one
Baby, you’re my first thought
Every single morning.
Only after I’ve sung the last note, do I tilt my head to see his face.
“You rewrote it,” he whispers, his expression stunned with undeniable awe in his eyes. “When?”
“The morning after you first sang it to me.”
“I can’t believe you never told me.” His brow crinkles and I know he’s confused, wondering why I wouldn’t have shared it with him the way he shared his song with me. “I would have loved it. I love it now.”
“Matti,” I try to explain, “when I first fell for you, it was this all-consuming feeling I didn’t know how to control, let alone contain.
For a while, it felt like just thinking about you made a part of me slip away.
And that song, it became my anchor for all those feelings.
It gave me a way to express them, a space to hold them in, that both felt a part of me and outside of me.
As much as I wrote it to share with you, once it was written, I suddenly needed to keep it for myself. ”
The confusion softens in his eyes. “Why are you sharing it with me now?”
“Because I learned a long while ago that the real anchor was you. That I didn’t disappear in my feelings for you, I grew in them.
Became more myself in loving you than I was before I even knew how to love like I love you.
That the pieces I thought were slipping away, were really just expanding, finding new ways to be in the world.
” I scoot my way up his chest until I’m lying on top of him, face to face.
“Matti, when I’m with you, all of my ugliest feelings stop being scary.
I know my way in the shadows, and I know where to find the light. ”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying I was angry. And wounded. And yeah, hating you was so much easier than feeling the pain of losing you.
Because losing you hurt so deeply, it suddenly felt a lot like falling in love with you did back then.
Like it was too much, too out of my control, too easy to get lost in.
And for the first time in our lives together, giving you my heart hurt. ”
He reaches up and gently moves the wayward strands of hair from my face, tenderly tucking them behind my ear. “I hate that I let you down.”
“I hate that I let you down.” I lean in, closing my eyes and letting the tip of my nose touch his. “But I don’t hate you, Matti,” I whisper. “I don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. My mouth stretches into a smile that lights my heart. I lift my lids again to find him staring back at me, hope blooming in the golden brown of his eyes. “Marry me.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. From either of us.
We’re back .
I press my lips to his in a surge of bliss I can’t begin to hold in. Nor do I want to.
“Marry me now,” I murmur breathlessly against his mouth as his kisses grow stronger, wilder.
“Right now?” His lips keep moving over mine, moving to my cheek and my neck before finding their way back to my mouth. “Here?”
“Here.” I kiss him one more time before I force myself to pull back. “Now.”
He looks up at me, half dazed half deliriously happy.
I know the feeling. “Okay.” He starts to push himself up until we’re both sitting, both covered in sand and entirely unbothered by it.
“Let me call some people. I’m sure we can get someone out here to marry us.
Your family’s already here. I know Knox and the crew will come running the second I tell them. ”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to wait. We already did all of that, we don’t need to do it all again. All we need is you and me, under that moon, making promises.”
His eyes turn upward, and in the light of that night sky they sparkle with every bit of magic I know that man is made of. “I’m in.”
It’s the last we say out loud for a long while.
More kissing follows before we gradually make our way to our feet. Holding hands, we face each other, both drenched in moonlight, our skin glittery with sand. So much is said between us we never speak out loud.
Then, when the words come, I know even before we’re finished saying them, they’re the vows we’ve always been true to but never knew to say. Until now.
“Nessa,” he starts, swallowing hard before he goes on, “Do you promise to keep making me laugh, more than any one person has ever made me laugh? To challenge my mind, bending and breaking it open when I get stuck in my own thoughts and perspectives? Do you swear to keep surprising me? To keep growing and changing and letting me see you and know you over and over? To always keep the doors to your soul open for me to explore and the light of your smile lit for me to find my way home. And do you vow to be honest with your heart when you entrust it in my care? To be equally true to your vulnerability as well as your guard, allowing me to love you in all the ways you need me to, in all the ways I need to love you,” he ends on a long, ragged breath, brimming with emotion.
“I do.” Tears begin to spill from my eyes.
Happy tears. The best kind of tears. “And Matti, do you promise to keep showing me my strengths, to keep seeing me so clearly, so confidently, I never doubt my ability to conquer the world? To love me so unconditionally, I am free to be and think and feel and wonder to the ends of possibility? Do you swear to always make me believe? In love. In magic. In fate. To be the keeper of flames, fueling the passion within us for each other as well as the world around us? To be the maker of mischief, forever holding space for fun and adventure. And the protector of hope, so we never fear getting lost because we are safe from giving up. And do you vow to stay wild in your chase for the moon, your dreams, the best for this family...and me?”
Our eyes stayed locked on each other as he lowers his forehead to gently rest on mine, bringing us closer. “I do.”
“Then let’s leap one more time.”
It’s as good as ‘you may now kiss the bride’. Maybe better. Because we kiss each other. Neither of us waiting for the other, we move as one, meeting in the middle where we’ve always been our best.
Together.
His lips still softly caressing mine as he slowly begins to sway us to the rhythm of the waves.
“ Loving you’s the stars and the moon and the sun,” he sings softly.
“Darlin’ you’re the one,” I sing back.
In the end, it’s the only promise we ever needed to make. The one vow between us that has always been, always will be. Because we made it the first night we spent together, and it’ll be true every night until our last, under the stars, and the moon...and the sun.