Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
EVERYONE DESERVES A HAPPILY EVER AFTER
some months later
LOUISA
“Hudson, I can’t find my dress,” I say, sliding across the hardwood in my socks like I’m trying to stick a landing, or Risky-Business Tom Cruisin’ it.
I’m checking the time every minute with the energy of someone who has been ready for hours, even though I’m clearly not dressed, which he doesn’t seem to mind at all. “They'll be here any second!”
“It’s hanging in our closet,” he says, watching me blur my way through the apartment from somewhere in the kitchen, where he is already completely dressed. (Of course he is.)
‘Our closet.’ It’s been a year of that. Granted, about ten months of it we weren't actually sharing the same bedroom, but now, now it really is ours, our kitchen, our dining table that has stopped being empty and for show, our sofa with the throw pillows he has stopped pretending to find inconvenient, our mismatched mugs in a cabinet that he gave up on organization sometime around month four.
Our life, in one continuous, unremarkable, and miraculous space, which is what happens when you take down enough walls.
Literally and otherwise. (Even if there’s one more remaining.)
I find the dress exactly where he said it would be (of course), dry-cleaned and hanging in its garment bag, and I put it on because, yes it’s our anniversary, and it would be a shame to only wear it once. I was not going to let her fate be sealed into the back of another closet.
It fits as it did before, but this time, I don’t bother with shoes, knowing we are staying within these walls. The same ones that we fell in love in.
When I come out of the bedroom (our real primary, not the guest room he slept in for a year), his eyes drip down my skin as his teeth make no attempt to hide behind his full lips.
Releasing the most natural smile, all before his eyes darken ever so slightly, and I know there’s an entirely different meaning to his grin.
“Even better than the first time.”
“Well, this time, I’m less nervous,” I say. He comes up and snakes his arm around my back, kissing his way down the column of my neck.
“Oh yeah?” he asks between the time his lips leave my skin and returns. “Nothing to lose this time.” He says it as he reaches my ear.
“So much more,” I say as I pull his lips to mine. Swallowing down the groans that come from deep within him.
“We never did get a wedding night,” he says into my mouth.
There’s a knock at the door, and he drops his forehead to mine. “Leave them outside. Party’s canceled. Pretend we aren’t here.”
I shove him in the chest, and as I slide my way to the front door, he catches up with me in a large step. Capturing me as I laugh and fight my way to get to our guests. But he doesn’t let go, instead making answering the door a two-person job.
Paola and Lucas arrive first because Lucas comes from the same school of thought as Hudson, which means you’re early or you’re late.
And Paola has never arrived anywhere empty-handed, which is great for me, because today it’s my favorite custard tarts to use in lieu of a first-anniversary wedding cake.
They also are on Grams-pick-up duty, she walks in, arm-in-arm with Lucas.
I give them all a big hug. In many ways, Lucas is the one behind all of this.
He set it all in motion. (Well, him, a cup of Throat Coat tea, tentacle smut, and US Immigration.)
Toby arrives alone, pockets his phone with genuine effort, but it’s appreciated, and immediately falls into conversation with Lucas.
I can’t help but watch from across the room.
It’s always interesting to see the overlap of two people without anything in common, just because they try.
Because when you look for it, you can always find something.
When the final knock arrives, Hudson is already pouring champagne as everyone is taking seats on the sofa and chairs.
Chandler stands in the doorway, but it’s the large shape behind her that immediately unfolds the smile across my face in genuine surprise.
She steps out of the way, so cooly, and there is Theo.
He catches me the way he always has, as I leap into his arms for a bear hug that has only been a memory for too long.
With a laugh that I’ve only heard through FaceTime, and hair that smells like a long, transatlantic flight.
“What are you doing here?!” I ask, as my eyes well with tears.
“I missed your first wedding,” he says when he puts me down. “I wasn’t going to miss your second.” He looks me up and down. And in all the ways, I’ve only ever looked up to him. “Even if it is in your living room and to the same bloke.”
“The only bloke,” I say.
“Oh, the Brit’s back,” Hudson says as he comes up behind me, teasing me for the parroted word choice. He reaches out a hand to Theo, but it turns into a hug.
Chandler moves past Theo into the apartment, and I watch my brother’s eyes follow her helplessly.
“Don’t waste your time pretending,” Hudson says to him as he claps him on the shoulder. Encouraging him to come in. “It’ll only cost you in the long run.”
“Speaking from experience?” Theo asks, perhaps more in jest, but Hudson doesn’t restrain the answer.
“You have no idea.”
When it’s finally time, Hudson takes my hand in the middle of the room. One that is not void of color, but was just waiting for me to bring it to life. (At least that’s what Hudson says.)
There’s no officiant this time, we aren’t really getting married. (I think Lucas might actually be relieved.) There are no pre-scripted vows. (I’m relieved.) And no walk down the aisle, except the steps we took together to get here.
We have a real first kiss this time. It’s unhurried with his hand cradling my jaw like it’s something precious. And the way he kisses me tells me he believes it is.
And when our small non-ceremony is over, we all move to the dining room, where dinner is catered just like it was the first night.
The pizza arrives and we all sit around the table, this collection of people that only make sense because of us.
Three conversations going five ways, with laughter threaded through each of them, all pulling from the same pie.
Hudson tops off the champagne glasses, because is there anything better with pizza?
Even if Chandler opts out because she is more focused on the garlic bread. (Fair.)
I sit in my wedding dress with my bare feet tucked under me and pizza in my hand, Hudson's hand on my knee. We fought so hard not to love each other, thinking the alternative was easier, better. But I’ve narrated enough books to know that it’s all about the happily ever after.
The epilogues with children (if that’s what they want) and the unguarded, unjudgemental love. And I spent too long hoping everyone had that, but myself.
I think about every version of this apartment. The wall that held all of it.
The one that's still standing. (Though, not for long.)
After we came down from the ravenous few days post-immigration, he tried to hand over the deed, officially. We laid in bed, and as my face pressed against his chest, he told me exactly what happened in that co-op board showdown.
There’s no life I see here without him anymore. That’s why, when we stood in the kitchen, and he re-proposed marriage, with the same ring I’ve had on my hand for months, it was less a question so much as an inevitability.
And with every wall I tore down for him? There is one more we would need to do together.
The space that kept us apart, or maybe brought us together, was never part of his plan.
But plans change. And now, we have brand-new ones (already co-op approved) that turn our individual spaces into our single home.
Why? Because it’s the one we chose, and the life we built together exists in these walls.
Our guests have gone, congratulating us, again, on our nuptials. And while there are many ways we plan to celebrate, there’s one that we need to do first.
The tarps have been pulled back, and the plaster exposed, the whole history of it right there, every argument, every midnight doorway, every muffled laugh, every held breath, and every word that got through.
He holds out a sledgehammer as we stand in the guest room staring at it.
“Don’t you know how to tell time?” I ask, teasingly. “Our neighbors are going to be furious.”
“Good,” he says. But as I reach for the large sledgehammer, he pulls it back.“Nuh-uh.” He holds out his other hand, a pair of workman’s goggles and boots to protect my bare feet. “First, safety. Then, swing.”
“They don’t really go with this dress,” I say as I slip my feet into them.
“Then I’ll take it off as soon as you’re done.” His lips pull into a devious smile, and there’s not a time I’ve seen it that it doesn’t quicken my pulse.
“You ready for this?” I ask as I get a grip on the handle and he (smartly) steps to the side.
“Completely,” he says. “For the rest of my life.” And I know how true it is.
I swing. Is it a good swing? Not exactly. But I definitely hit the wall and made a hole, which totally counts for something. The plaster gives and dust rises. Okay, it was more of a symbolic swing. Knowing that the contractor and crew come tomorrow to take the whole thing down.
He takes the sledgehammer out of my hands and kisses me in the wreckage, in the dust, with the small open-space light that’s trying to break through.
This, I think, is the real version. All it took was one fake marriage to my grumpy neighbor to remind me that everyone deserves a happily ever after. Even if you have to knock down a few walls to get there.