Chapter Forty-One
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Camila and David’s wedding weekend is perfect.
It’s perfect.
At the bridal brunch, we laugh until our stomachs are sore, retelling every story we remember from the bachelorette. At the rehearsal dinner, in my newly finished midnight dress, I give the speech my mom and I wrote, with practiced ease. David’s best man comes up to the mic afterward and makes a joke about the unfairness of having to follow a CEO. Which doesn’t make any sense considering I did have to pause three times to swallow my tears.
On wedding day, the weather is a balmy seventy degrees, the breeze light, the sun cascading through the trees and bathing the outdoor venue in an effervescent halo. Camila walks down the grassy, petal-laden aisle like a goddess, and she looks so damn happy watching David waiting for her that I marvel at how special it is to get to witness this kind of commitment.
We dance all night, and right before Camila and David make their grand exit, David pulls me aside and thanks me for loving his wife just as much as he loves her.
Which basically just ruins me.
“Where’s Will?” he asks after I stop blubbering over him.
“He had family in town,” I say, making an excuse. He’d gotten a verbal invitation to the wedding but had texted me to say he was going to spend as much time with Zoe and his mom as possible while they were down here.
David nods. “Maybe we’ll catch him again soon? When we get settled in New York.”
“I hope so,” I say.
“You’re done now, J.” David turns in the direction of the tunnel of people holding unlit sparklers outside the reception hall. Camila comes out of the side bathroom, running toward us with a big smile on her face, and her brand-new husband says to me, “You did a great job.”
The very next morning, I text and ask if I can see him.
Will tells me he’s at Lake Travis with his family, but I should come over at five o’clock after he drops them off at the airport.
We text all day to tide ourselves over. I tell him about Camila’s wedding; Will sends me pictures of his canoe against the sparkling lake water.
Soft living aesthetic! I joke.
It’s calling you, he replies.
I spend the afternoon getting ready. Like a nervous teenager headed off on her first date. Blush on my cheeks, a gentle curl in my hair, jean shorts and an oversized cotton button-down.
I knock on his front door with a tiny shake in my bones. Behind me, the sun is splashing across my neck and legs, but I can’t help but shiver.
After thirty seconds, Will opens the door.
“I really love you,” I say, the moment I catch his eye. “And I really mean it. I actually love the way you snore. It’s like a noise machine that was designed to remind me you’re there as I drift off to sleep. That you aren’t made up. You’re real, and you’re breathing. You’re badly breathing, but you’re breathing near me. And I love that you’ve made mistakes, and that you shared them with me, so I don’t feel alone with mine. I love that you remember, that you bought me fabric because months ago, I mentioned offhandedly that I might want it for when I was doing nothing. I love everything you ever DM’d to the Revenant account. I love how you held me in your arms the night I was sick even though I was still holding you at a distance.”
Will’s dimples pop out, familiar and perfect and adorable. His lips are pressed together but expressive all the same.
“We can spend some of our weekends on the couch, you watching sports and me doing something else nearby that doesn’t require my participation in your hobby but is still respectful of it. And probably, on those days, something you’re cooking is in the oven or on the stove. And maybe—not soon, but one day—we have a doodle. Because of your allergies, and because I just like them.”
“Josie,” he tries to say, his voice gentle.
“I’m almost done,” I say. “I still have to get to the serious part.”
I shuffle my feet and look down to calm my nerves before meeting his Blue Ridge Mountain eyes again. “The thing is, Will. The thing is, even if you hadn’t come into my life this summer, Camila still would have left Revenant. Margaret Dwyer still wouldn’t have done a very good job planning the pop-up. I’d still be working with that shitty consulting firm, and I still would have tried to become B Corp Certified on what I can now see is an absurdly condensed timeline. I probably still would have ignored Nora Lindberg, and she might still have published about me. All of that is true, even if we had never met, even if you’d never crashed your bike into my bumper that day. It would all still be true. Basically, what I’m saying is I was always going to burn out at the end of this summer. I was always going to fall apart.”
I swipe at a salty tear on my cheek, recalling his words from Barcelona.
You’re a revenant, Josephine. And if you fall apart again, you’ll put yourself back together again. Because you’re strong.
“But you told me you’d be there to hold my broken pieces,” I go on. “And that’s the difference. You lived up to your word. You never pressured me. You gave me space to make a tough decision on my own.”
“I didn’t go very far,” Will says. His eyes are kind.
“I know, and that’s special, too,” I say. “I quit my job yesterday. Maybe it’s anti-girl-bossified of me to say this, but part of me quit for you. Part of me quit for me, too, but the thing is, I love you, which means you’re a factor in my decisions. Everything I think about is in reference to you.”
“That’s my line,” Will says.
“Now it’s our line.”
Will tugs on my arm then, pulling me into a fierce hug. He smells like warm cinnamon in sunlight, feels like a safe place. His arms trail down my back and haul my waist against his, pushing our bodies flush.
“I’ve got no fucking clue if I’ll go back to Revenant,” I whisper to him. “No clue. I am made up of broken pieces right now. My best friend is leaving, and I don’t know if I can have a healthy relationship with my company ever again, and my anxiety still spikes when I think about all the stuff being said about me online. But I can live with the fact that somebody in Wisconsin doesn’t think I’m a good person if the people who matter to me do. If you do.”
After a few beats of silence, Will says, “Now?”
I laugh, the sound garbled. “Sure, go ahead.”
Will noses along my neck, and my skin sparks at his touch. His hands clutch onto my hips. “I missed you.”
“That was too easy,” I whisper.
“Because I’m only giving you a moment to breathe,” Will whispers. “I have things to say to you, too.”
“Okay.”
He hugs me close, runs his hand through my hair. “Brooks and I are going to start a catering company.”
I smile against his chest. “That’s amazing. I happen to know someone with entrepreneurial experience, plenty of free time, and about a million favors to pay back who could help you.”
“What does she charge?” he murmurs.
“I’ll have to defer to my consultant on that.”
We’re delirious as our hands roam each other. Will pulls away just enough to meet my eyes and bends his head in my direction. The sunlight is making his eyes iridescent. “You’re still a person with a meaningful existence, Josie, even now that you want to be different than you were. Especially now.” His voice is low, his tone sure. “You’re my favorite person. You’ve guided me in so many ways.”
“It’s mutual,” I say. Which feels wholly insufficient and is also exactly what I mean.
Will shakes his head, biting his lip. He moves his hands up to my cheeks, holding each of them. “I’ve spent the last few days with my mom and my sister revisiting all our favorite places in Austin. Doing our favorite things. I used to think I couldn’t be here for too long without it stinging because of the memories of Dad. But now, when I think of Austin, I think of you. Us. Here, together, in our home. For years now, I’ve been untethered, fighting my instincts, but looking for a feeling of peace. I found it the day I ran into your car. You are the good feeling.”
I grab his wrists, drag his arms back around my waist. “In that case,” I breathe, “I think we should just be together.”
“Because we both fucking deserve it,” Will adds. “Because I’m pretty sure everything in my life—everything I’ve done, every choice I’ve made—has pointed me straight back to you. How I love you, why I love you, the way I love you.”
I grip the back of his neck, feeling overwhelmed that I might possibly be this lucky.
“I didn’t think this would ever happen to me,” I admit, the words tripping off my tongue.
His lips graze mine, close but still resisting. “Being this much in love?”
“Being at peace,” I explain, repeating his same sentiment. “That’s why I get to love you. You helped me find it.”
Will kisses me then, and our emotions pour back and forth between us—all of me feeling all of him, him understanding every part of me. The good, the bad, the messy, the broken. Carefully, slowly, Will scoops me into his arms and carries me upstairs to his bedroom.
And the only thing I want to make—now, and probably months from now—is this love. Which feels like a fate we deserve and a peace we earned.