Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
CALLA
SEVEN YEARS AGO
In twenty minutes, I would walk down an aisle and become someone's wife.
I could see the botanical garden transformed into a vision Cassian spent six months creating.
White and blue everywhere. Olive branches woven through the archways.
Lanterns hanging from trees like captured stars.
Long tables draped in linen, the color of the Aegean Sea, the same shade my mother used to describe in stories about her childhood summers in Thessaloniki.
My mother… She was gone for four years. She would never see me in this dress, cry at my wedding, or hold the children I might have one day.
I pushed the thought away. Today wasn't for grief.
"If we can't get married in Greece," Cassian had said when he first showed me the plans, "we'll bring Greece here."
I stared at him for a long moment. This man who barely knew how to boil pasta, never left the country, had no obligation to care about traditions that weren't his, made every effort to recreate the place I wanted to go back to.
"You don't have to do this," I had told him.
"I know." He’d smiled. "I want to."
That was Cassian. He wanted things fully, openly, without any armor. He loved like breathing, natural and unconscious. I loved like holding my breath, always waiting for the moment I'd have to let go.
"You're thinking too loud."
I turned. Felice stood in the doorway, a vision in flowing blue silk.
She was holding two glasses of champagne.
We’ve been best friends since sophomore year of high school, when she transferred mid-semester and sat next to me in calculus.
Everyone else ignored the new girl. But I shared my notes without being asked, and she decided on the spot that we were going to be friends whether I liked it or not.
Fifteen years later, I still wasn't sure I agreed to the arrangement.
"I'm getting married in twenty minutes," I said. "I'm allowed to think."
"Not when you're thinking about work." She crossed the room and pressed a glass into my hand. "I know that look. That's your did-I-forget-something-important face."
I took a sip. The champagne was expensive, a gift from Cassian’s friend Riven, and I barely tasted it.
Felice settled onto the settee beside me, her dress pooling around her. She studied me with the same focus she brought to her design projects, like I was a problem she intended to solve.
"Talk to me,” she urged.
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Calla."
I looked down at my dress. Simple white cotton, delicate embroidery at the shoulders, designed to be barefoot-friendly because I had insisted on feeling grass beneath my feet. My father had raised an eyebrow when I showed him.
"Your mother would have opinions about this," he had said. Not disapproval, exactly. Just a comment.
I almost smiled. "She would have hated it."
"She would have hated the dress," he had agreed. "But she would have loved seeing you happy."
Happy. Such a small word for such a complicated feeling.
"What if I don't know how to do this?" I blurted.
Felice waited. She was good at waiting, which was annoying.
"Marriage," I continued reluctantly. "Being someone's person.
My parents loved each other, but my mother gave up everything to be with my father.
Her career, her country, even her family.
And she never complained, but sometimes I would catch her looking out the window with this expression like she was searching for something she had misplaced. "
"You're not your mother."
"No." I turned the champagne glass in my hands. "But I don't know how to love someone without losing pieces of myself. And Cassian deserves someone whole."
Felice fell quiet. Then she reached over and took the glass from my hands, setting both flutes on the side table.
"You know what I think?" She didn't wait for me to answer. "I think you're scared. And I think that's fine, because marriage is terrifying and anyone who isn't a little scared is lying. But I also think you're using fear as an excuse to keep one foot out the door."
I looked at her.
"Cassian doesn't want perfect," she continued. "He wants you. The real you. And the real you is prickly and guarded and terrible at expressing emotions, but you're also loyal and brilliant and you love harder than anyone I've ever met. You just do it quietly."
My jaw clenched. "Are you done?"
"Almost." She stood, pulling me up with her. "That man out there learned Greek for your father. You know what your dad’s like, right? He made his last three girlfriends cry and once told a waiter his pronunciation of souvlaki was an insult to an entire nation."
I chuckled. "Baba is particular."
"Baba is terrifying, and Cassian won him over anyway." Felice smoothed a strand of hair away from my face. "Stop looking for reasons to run. You already decided to stay. Now go follow through."
I didn't have a response to that. She was right.
By the time the ceremony began, my mind had calmed but my nerves heightened. It was the golden hour, when the sun hung low and heavy and turned everything soft and picturesque.
I walked down the aisle barefoot, with a flower crown sitting on my hair. The grass was cool beneath my feet, each blade a small anchor keeping me tethered to the earth. I focused on that sensation. The texture. The temperature. Anything to keep my mind from floating away.
My father walked beside me, his arm steady under my hand. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His presence was enough.
At the end of the aisle, Cassian waited.
He stood beneath an arch of olive branches, wearing a light linen suit with no tie. His dirty blonde hair fell across his forehead despite what had probably been multiple attempts to tame it. And when he saw me, his expression shifted into frames.
Not a smile, exactly. It looked like relief and wonder and fear all tangled together, like he had been holding his breath for hours and could finally exhale. His hands shook when he reached for mine. I felt the tremor and realized that he was as scared as I am.
Somehow, that made everything easier.
"Hi," he whispered.
"Hi."
"You look..." He shook his head speechlessly. Cassian, who always had something to say, struck silent by me in a cotton dress with flowers in my hair.
"I know. Like a hippie."
He laughed, surprised, and several guests chuckled along with him. "I was going to say incredible. But sure. The most beautiful hippie I've ever seen."
The officiant cleared his throat, and we turned to face each other properly.
We had written our own vows. Cassian had insisted, even though the thought of expressing emotions in front of an audience made me want to crawl out of my skin. But he had asked, and I found it difficult to refuse him when he looked at me with those green eyes full of hope.
He went first. His voice cracked twice, and he didn't even try to hide it.
"Calla, I knew I was going to marry you the third time you rejected my coffee date invitation." The guests laughed in chorus. "Because anyone that stubborn was obviously someone I needed to spend the rest of my life with."
A smile formed in my lips.
"I promise to be patient when you forget to eat because you're too focused on work," he continued. "I promise to learn how to make your grandmother's avgolémono soup, even if it takes me fifty tries. I promise to never stop trying to make you laugh, even when you pretend you don't think I'm funny."
His eyes met mine, full of sincerity. "And I promise to love you exactly as you are. Not the version of yourself you think you should be. Just you. Always."
I swallowed hard. Tears pooled in my eyes, but I managed to blink them away, as I took my turn. I had spent weeks writing and rewriting my vows, discarding draft after draft because nothing felt right. In the end, I had settled on simplicity.
"I'm not good at this," I began, my voice wavering. "Feelings. Words. Any of it. I spent most of my life believing that needing someone was a weakness and that independence meant never letting anyone close enough to hurt you."
Cassian's fingers intertwined with mine.
"Then I met you." I took a breath. "And you were so open, so unafraid of wanting things, and it terrified me. You terrified me."
A soft ripple of laughter reverberated in the air, but it was Cassian's grin that made me calm down.
"But you were also patient. You waited. You let me come to you in my own time, at my own pace, and you never made me feel broken for being slow." I held his gaze. "I can't promise to be easy to love. But I can promise to try. To choose you, even when I'm scared. To stay, even when it’s hard."
I paused, reaching out to stroke his cheek, tracing the contours of his face. "You make me want to be brave, Cassian. That's not something I say lightly."
He blinked rapidly, and I realized he was trying not to cry. This ridiculous, wonderful man who wore his heart on his sleeve and somehow loved me anyway, was tearing up because of me.
We then exchanged rings, his hands were still shaking when he slid the band onto my finger, and mine were steady only through sheer force of will. The metal was warm from his pocket, and it settled against my skin perfectly.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife."
The words washed over me. Husband and wife. We were married.
This was real.
Cassian cupped my face in his hands and kissed me gently, and the guests erupted into applause. I kissed him back with my eyes closed and my heart pounding, thinking this was the beginning of our lives together.
The reception unfolded like a fever dream. We broke plates in the traditional way, porcelain shattering against stone while guests cheered. Cassian had researched the custom thoroughly, determined to get every detail right.
"For good luck," he explained to a confused groomsman. "And to ward off evil spirits."
We danced to American music and Greek folk songs my father had insisted on, his voice rising above the crowd as he corrected Cassian's footwork during the Kalamatianos. Cassian stumbled twice and laughed both times, unbothered by imperfection I had never learned to be.
The food tasted like my childhood. Lamb and lemon and honey, recipes passed down through generations.
My father had supervised the caterer personally, refusing to let strangers butcher his wife's dishes.
I watched Cassian go back for thirds of the baklava and the sight that he so carefully embraced my culture warmed my heart.
Riven, Cassian’s best friend, gave his speech after the main course.
He stood at the head table with a glass of wine in hand, his expression characteristically unreadable.
Riven was not a warm person. He and Cassian had been friends since college, an unlikely pairing that somehow worked—where Cassian was open, Riven was guarded; where Cassian filled silences, Riven let them stretch.
In another life, Riven and I might have understood each other. We were cut from similar cloth.
"I'm not good at speeches," he began, which made several people laugh. "So I'll keep this short."
He turned toward Cassian.
"You called me at two in the morning six months ago to ask about olive tree symbolism.
You had spent weeks researching Greek wedding traditions.
Reading books. Watching documentaries. Taking notes.
" His mouth twitched, the closest he came to a smile.
"Because you wanted Calla to feel like she was marrying into her own history and not leaving it behind. "
I glanced at Cassian. He was watching Riven with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"That's who you are," Riven continued. "When you commit to something, you commit fully.
No reservations. No half measures." He lifted his glass.
"Calla, I don't know you well. But I know Cassian wouldn't have chosen you if you weren't worth choosing.
So welcome to the family, I suppose. Try not to break him. "
The crowd laughed. I didn't.
Because beneath the dry delivery, I heard what Riven wasn't saying. It was a warning wrapped in welcome. Don't hurt him. He's already given you everything.
I lifted my glass in acknowledgment, and Riven nodded once before sitting down.
Cassian leaned close to my ear. "He likes you. That's practically a declaration of love from Riven."
"He told me not to break you."
"Like I said. Practically a love letter."
The night wore on. Guests danced and drank and laughed. My father pulled me aside at one point, his large hands warm on my shoulders.
"Your mother would be proud," he said. His accent thickened the way it always did when he talked about her. "You know this, yes?"
I nodded because I couldn't speak.
He kissed my forehead and released me, disappearing back into the crowd to argue with my uncle about soccer.
Finally, when the last guests said their goodbyes and the venue emptied to silence, Cassian and I climbed into a car heading toward a hotel neither of us could reasonably afford.
He reached across the console and laced his fingers through mine.
"We did it," he said.
"We did."
The city lights blurred past the windows. I was tired in a way that felt earned, my feet aching from dancing, my cheeks sore from smiling more than I had in months.
"Any regrets?" Cassian asked.
I turned to look at him. His profile was lit by passing streetlights, familiar lines and angles I had memorized over three years.
The slope of his nose, slightly crooked from a childhood accident.
The way his hair fell forward no matter how many times he pushed it back.
The curve of his mouth, always ready to smile.
"No," I said, shaking my head.
He glanced at me with vulnerable eyes. "Really?"
"Really."
He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. "Good. Because you're stuck with me now."
"I know."
The hotel appeared ahead of us, lit up against the dark sky. Cassian pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine, but neither of us moved.
"Hey," he said.
I looked at him.
"I meant what I said in my vows." His voice was quiet but certain. "I'm going to spend the rest of my life making you happy. Whatever it takes. Whatever you need. I'm yours, Calla."
My heart pounded. There was an ache that wasn't quite pain.
"I know," I whispered.
And I did know. That was the thing. I knew exactly how much he loved me and how much he was willing to give.
I just didn't know if I was capable of giving the same.
But I wanted to try. For the first time in my life, I wanted to try.
Cassian smiled like he could read my thoughts. Maybe he could. He had always seen more of me than I wanted to show.
"Come on." He opened his door. "Let's go start the rest of our lives."
I followed him into the hotel, his hand warm in mine, and told myself that wanting was enough.
Love would teach me the rest.