Coda Wedding Day （One Year Later）
I looked in the wardrobe mirror, trying to tie my bowtie for the tenth time and fucking it up again.
“Ben’s keeping your wedding rings in a ceramic box,” said Bex.
“He says it’s fire-resistant. In case a dragon lets loose on him, I guess.
I called him Sméagol, and he took it as a compliment.
He said Sméagol was the best ring bearer in the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy because he died with the ring in his hand. ”
I knew Bex was trying to calm me down, but it wasn’t working. I pulled the tie off and flung it onto the bed next to where he was sitting.
“Just don’t wear it,” said Bex.
“I’m wearing a tux, Bex. I can’t not wear a tie.”
The tux was a wedding present from Joel and his husband, Reg.
Reg had sent Eddie and I to his tailor, and we’d each had a tux made to measure.
It fit like a second skin—a really expensive second skin.
I felt paranoid I was going to spill something on it or tear it.
Just breathing in it was stressing me out.
“How did you tie your tie, Bex?”
Bex hooked his finger over his bowtie and pulled on it, then he let the elastic snap back.
“Oh,” I said. I almost asked to borrow his, but I stopped myself. I wasn’t an expert, but I had a feeling you weren’t supposed to wear a tie on an elastic with a tux this expensive.
“Stay put,” said Bex, getting up.
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer, just let himself out of the bedroom. Which left me with nobody to talk to.
I’d left the bedroom window open because it was so mild.
I looked outside. It was exactly what I’d dreamed of for him and me.
We’d gone from living in my crappy little apartment to having our own house by the lake—his engagement present to me, because he knew that was what I wanted. To marry him and live here.
It was early evening. On the lawn near the lake, the wedding tent was glowing from the lights inside, and a few people were wandering toward it. I recognized Royce by his laugh. He was talking to Reg. I could tell it was Reg because he was the tallest one here. No sign of Eddie.
I checked my watch. Go time was in twenty minutes. I was starting to have a panic attack when someone knocked on the bedroom door.
“You can just come in, Bex,” I said.
The door opened, and Joel stepped in.
“Bexley said you needed some help,” he said.
Joel was wearing a tux, and, of course, his tie was perfectly tied.
He was only four months older than I was, but I felt like a kid next to him.
He’d gone to Juilliard and acted on Broadway.
If he hadn’t been Eddie’s best friend, I would never have met someone like him, and no way would he have been so nice to me—gone out of his way to be nice to me.
I picked the tie off the bed. “I can’t....”
Joel took it from me. “Turn around. Face the mirror.”
He came up behind me and draped the tie around my neck. And he tied it perfectly the first time. Like it was easy. His hands were rock steady.
“You would have made a good surgeon,” I said.
Joel laughed quietly. “I almost was.”
“Really?”
“Mmm. But I would have been a very unhappy doctor. Reg helped me see that and discover who I really wanted to be.”
The way Joel said Reg’s name sounded like he owed his life to Reg.
I felt the same way about Eddie. If I’d never met him, my life would have been miserable, and I would never have known why.
I wouldn’t be tap dancing. I would have been taking abuse from my parents and my sister and letting them crush me.
I wouldn’t have been here in this beautiful house by the lake with all my friends, about to get married.
It was like Joel could read my mind. He caught my eye in the mirror and smiled at me, and I smiled back.
“I’ll see you down there,” he said.
“Yeah...thanks.”
Joel left. I checked my watch. Ten minutes.
I started going over all this stuff in my head, stuff I needed to do for the wedding.
We could have had a simple service at city hall.
And part of me was in a rush to marry him.
But a bigger part of me wanted our wedding to be special, for him.
Just twenty guests, my friends and his, at our house.
Eddie hadn’t invited Tommy and Edgar. He told me Joel had taught him what real friendship was, and what he had with Tommy was just memories, not friendship.
There was another knock at the door.
“Come in, Bex.”
It wasn’t Bex or Joel this time. It was Eddie. He came in with his hair all slicked back, not messy like it usually was, and so dark it looked almost brown.
“Hey,” he said.
“What the hell, Eddie? We’re not supposed to see each other before the wedding. It’s bad luck.”
“Says who?”
“I don’t know. People.”
“You look good,” he said. He stroked my tux with the back of his hand like he was brushing something off it, but there wasn’t anything there.
“Joel tied my tie,” I said.
“Yeah, mine too.”
He moved in closer and put his arms around me, and I put my arms around him and held him, listening to him breathe.
And the calm feeling that only he could give me came back, the assurance that everything was going to be okay.
It was a privilege to be able to love him and such a gift that he loved me back.
And it was so overwhelming that I started sobbing, because I realized I could stop trying to make everything perfect. It already was.
I had to let him go because I didn’t want to get snot on his tux. I sniffed and looked around for a Kleenex. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out to me, and it was so not the kind of thing I’d ever seen him do before that I laughed and took it and blew my nose.
“Bexley said you didn’t eat lunch,” he said.
“No way can I keep anything down.” The last thing I needed was to puke all over my tux while I was saying my vows.
“What’s wrong? You getting cold feet?”
“No. How could you say that? It’s just...it’s a lot. It’s everything. I’m afraid to read my speech out loud, because I know I’m gonna cry and make a fucking idiot out of myself.”
“Why? What does it say?”
“Just...how I feel about you.”
“I could read it for you.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Sure, if you want me to.”
I got out my phone, opened it to my speech, and handed it to him. “I know it’s kind of...I don’t know. I tried.”
He took my phone and sat on the bed to read it. Dusk was coming on, and a deep green light filled the bedroom from the window and the skylight—the one I’d promised him we’d have after he’d first proposed to me.
I could hear the dusk chorus starting up, the birds singing like crazy. And I watched him in the light of dusk and the glow from my phone.
He went quiet and still. I wanted to say something, to apologize for it not being good enough, because I was really self-conscious of my writing. I’d tried to be honest about how I felt, and, well... Even though I hadn’t seen her in years, I could still hear my sister calling me a sap.
“Is it okay, honey kid?”
He didn’t answer. Then I saw him wipe his eyes. He’d never cried before we broke up. But after we got back together, he sometimes did.
I was so stupid. I’d been so emotional about getting married, I hadn’t thought it would be emotional for him too. He’d always seemed so chill about everything. I hadn’t meant to hurt him.
“Honey kid?”
He looked at me. I took his hand and lifted him to his feet, pulled him up against me.
“Dance with me?” I said.
“There’s no music.”
So I hummed the song I’d written him for our first Christmas, before my parents, before the breakup, when everything was still good.
And I gave him one of those kisses he loved, and I did it really slowly, drew it out, made it a work of art.
I knew I’d knocked it out of the park when I felt his whole body respond, and he gasped when I pulled away.
“Let’s get married,” I said.
I took his hand and pulled him out of the room, down the hall, and down the stairs, tugging him along.
And then we were outside, and we looked at each other, and we started running, racing to the tent, and then he tripped and fell.
I turned and saw him lying in the grass, laughing.
I went back and took his elbow and hauled him to his feet.
I brushed the grass off his tux while he kept giggling.
Then we held hands again and walked the rest of the way to the tent.
I was supposed to go in first, walk up the aisle, and then wait for him.
That was how we’d rehearsed it. But he squeezed my thumb between his fingers, and I thought, Fuck it.
I don’t want to let him go. And we went in together.
And all our friends inside were waiting for us, and they cheered when we came in.
Then everything got really serious and quiet. It happened so fast. We were saying our vows, and I started crying again, then he started crying, but we got through them. Then Ben stepped up with the ring box. Only he couldn’t open it. It was stuck.
I couldn’t open it. Eddie couldn’t open it. Bex couldn’t open it. Donie got a knife from the buffet and tried to pry it open, but she couldn’t open it. Then Joel got a kettle from the caterer, put the box on the ground, and poured hot water over it. It popped open.
Ben said, “See? I kept them safe for you.”
And everyone laughed, except Bex, who said, “Thanks, Sméagol.”
Then everyone laughed harder, and Eddie put his ring on my finger, and I put mine on his. Then we kissed.
And I felt at peace. My heart stopped racing. I felt like I’d been running for too long, and I could finally just...stop. Because now, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I hadn’t eaten all day. I hadn’t even been hungry.
But suddenly, I was starving. At the reception, I ate three plates of food, and when we’d all finished eating, my tap company put on a show for us.
Then Joel stood up and read a poem Reg had written for us.
And then I stood up to give my speech to Eddie.
And I didn’t mess it up, but I did make him cry a little.
At the end of my speech, I thanked everyone who’d helped with the wedding and been there for us and for me, especially Bex and Ben, and last, whoever owned the construction company that decided to pile-drive the ground outside my lab building that day.
Because if it wasn’t for them, I never would have met my Eddie, my honey kid.