Chapter 20 Ava #2
"I met with your father," Brian said after a while. "Before the proposal."
I lifted my head. "You what?"
"I didn't ask permission—I knew you'd kill me for that. But I wanted him to know. To hear it from me first."
My throat tightened. "What did he say?"
"That he would have chosen someone else for you. Someone easier. Someone who fit the life he'd imagined." Brian's hand resumed its slow path along my shoulder. "And then he said he's not the one who gets to choose. You are. And you chose me."
"I did choose you."
"He welcomed me to the family." A hint of a smile. "Told me God help me."
I laughed despite the tears prickling at my eyes. "That sounds like my father."
"He's not so bad. Under all the polish." Brian pressed a kiss to my hair.
The exhaustion finally caught up with both of us. We fell asleep tangled together, the ring on my finger catching the morning light.
My parents insisted on paying for the wedding.
I'd resisted at first. Years of guarding my independence—of proving I didn't need anything from Charles and Eleanor Rothwell—made me wary of accepting their money. Every gift had always come with strings. Every gesture of support had been laced with expectation.
But my father had called the week after the proposal, his voice quiet in a way I rarely heard.
"Let us do this, Ava. Please." He stopped, and I heard him swallow. "I almost lost you. Your mother almost lost you. Let us celebrate that we didn't."
So I said yes.
Brian didn't care about any of it. When I'd asked about venues, flowers, caterers, and timelines, he'd pulled me close and said, "I don't care where we get married. I don't care what we eat or what color the napkins are. I'm marrying you. That's the only thing that matters."
The details fell to me. And to Zoe, Maya, and Maria, who took over our apartment with binders and color swatches and opinions loud enough to wake Watson from his afternoon nap.
"You need a dress," Zoe announced, claiming the armchair like a general commanding her troops. "Something elegant but not fussy. You'd look ridiculous in anything poufy."
"Poufy was never on my list."
"Good." She flipped through her binder—the same organizational fervor she'd brought to the proposal sign. "I've flagged some options. My mom can drive us to the bridal shops Saturday."
Maya was perched on the arm of the couch, already texting about appointments. Maria sat beside her, a sleeping Lucia curled in her lap, making notes about flowers and timelines.
"You've all been planning this," I said, looking around at them.
"Someone had to." Zoe didn't look up from her binder.
My throat tightened unexpectedly. "Thank you. All of you."
"Don't get emotional yet." Maya grinned. "Save it for the fitting rooms. Those have tissues."
Saturday came, and we invaded bridal boutiques across three boroughs. Zoe vetoed everything with excessive beading, lace, or "too many things happening." Maya cried at almost everything, which wasn't helpful, but was very endearing.
I found it in the fourth shop. Simple white silk. Clean lines. A neckline that made me look elegant rather than severe, with a back that dipped low enough to make Brian's eyes go dark when he eventually saw it.
"That's it," Maya said, her voice thick. "That's the one."
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw someone I almost didn't recognize. Not Dr. Rothwell, the ER attending who lived on coffee and adrenaline. Not the woman who'd spent fourteen years proving she didn't need anyone.
Someone who'd kept a vow until it was time to break it.
"Yeah," I whispered. "That's the one."
We got married a year after the proposal.
The venue was the Conservatory Garden in Central Park—the formal gardens my mother had tried to drag me to as a child, back when she still thought she could mold me into someone who appreciated high-society luncheons and charity galas.
I'd hated it then. The pristine hedges, the expectation that I'd become a woman who cared about such things.
But walking through it with Brian—seeing the way the late afternoon light filtered through the wisteria pergola, the way the fountains caught the sun—I understood why my mother loved it. Not for the status. For the beauty.
"It's perfect," I'd said.
Brian had looked at me, then at the garden, then back at me. "If you love it, book it."
My parents had handled the rest. The permits, the caterers, the string quartet, the thousands of details that turned a public garden into a private wonderland for an evening.
My mother had been in her element—finally given permission to plan something for me, she'd thrown herself into with a fervor that bordered on frightening. But she'd checked with me on every decision, asked my opinion, and respected my boundaries.
It was the closest we'd ever been.
Now I stood at the back of the aisle in the dress Zoe had approved, my father beside me, and tried to remember how to breathe.
"You look beautiful, Ava.” He took my hand. His eyes were wet. “Your mother is already crying."
"She started crying when she saw the flowers."
"She started crying when she woke up this morning.
" He squeezed my fingers. "I'm proud of you.
I know I haven't always shown it. I pushed you away, tried to make you into someone you didn't want to be.
But watching you build this life—this career, this relationship—on your own terms..
." He had to stop, compose himself. "You're stronger than I ever gave you credit for. "
He pulled me into a hug—brief, fierce, entirely out of character for Charles Rothwell.
"Thank you," he said roughly. "For giving me another chance."
The music shifted. Our cue.
We walked.
The garden was full of people. White chairs lined the central lawn, facing the wrought-iron wisteria pergola where Brian waited. My mother sat in the front row, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief that probably cost more than my first apartment's rent.
Brian's parents were beside her—Elena already weeping openly, Roberto sitting straight and proud with suspiciously bright eyes. Maria and the kids, Lucia in her flower girl dress, Marco trying very hard to sit still.
Shane and Garrett stood at the front with Brian, their dress uniforms crisp and gleaming. The Engine 295 crew filled an entire row—Rodriguez, the other firefighters I'd come to know over months of firehouse dinners and hospital runs, the family Brian had chosen long before he chose me.
Dr. Park was there, seated near the middle with a cluster of nurses and residents from Queens General. My colleagues. My people. The ones who'd watched Brian drop to one knee in the ambulance bay, who'd cheered when I said yes, who knew exactly what kind of life I was signing up for.
And at the end of the aisle, Brian.
He was watching me like I was the only thing in the room. Like I was the answer to a question he'd been asking his whole life. His eyes were bright, and when I got close enough to see his face clearly, I realized he was crying.
When I reached him, I took his hands. That rare, unguarded smile spread across my face—the one I used to save for no one.
"Hi," I whispered.
"Hi yourself." His voice was rough.
"Nice turnout."
"They're mostly here for the cake."
I laughed, and the sound echoed across the garden, mixing with the splash of the fountains.
We said our vows.
Brian went first. His voice was steady, even though his hands were trembling in mine.
"I'll never forget the day you moved in," he said.
"You were carrying a box of textbooks up the stairs—too stubborn to make two trips—and I offered to help.
You almost said no. I could see it on your face.
" A ripple of laughter from the guests. "But you let me carry your books.
And that night, we ended up on our balconies at 3 AM, both of us carrying things far heavier than textbooks.
You'd lost your first patient. I'd come off a bad call. And we talked until the sun came up."
His voice softened. "I spent years thinking I wasn't enough.
That I'd never be the kind of man someone would choose.
But you—you quizzed me for my paramedic exam.
You pushed me to be better. You believed I was worth investing in before I believed it myself.
" His voice cracked. "You're the most brilliant, most stubborn, most incredible person I've ever met.
And I'm going to spend the rest of my life showing up for you. The way you've always shown up for me."
My turn.
"I made a vow when I was eighteen," I said.
"That independence wasn't a preference—it was survival.
I watched what happened when you let someone else define your worth.
I promised myself I'd rather die than become that woman.
" I looked at Brian—really looked at him, the way I hadn't let myself look at anyone for fourteen years.
"And then you smiled at me on a staircase and carried my books without being asked twice.
You sat with me at 3 AM when I was falling apart and didn't try to fix it. You just... stayed."
My voice wavered. "Four years of coffee on the balcony. Four years of you showing up, again and again, until I stopped waiting for you to leave. Four years of you seeing all the parts of me I'd hidden from everyone else—and staying anyway."
At some point, I noticed Garrett standing alone near the edge of the room, checking his phone with an expression I couldn't read. There was something distant in his eyes—something that looked like longing, or maybe loss. I squeezed his hands.
"You ran into a burning building because I was inside. You showed me that needing someone doesn't mean losing myself."
Brian's eyes were streaming now. He didn't seem to care.
"I love you, Brian Torres. I'm going to spend the rest of my life being brave enough to let you love me back."
The officiant pronounced us married.
Brian kissed me, and the garden erupted in cheers.
Watson—wearing a tiny bow tie that Zoe had produced from somewhere—meowed from his carrier in the front row, thoroughly unimpressed by all the human emotion.
The reception was chaos. Good chaos.
Music, laughter, and too much champagne. Rodriguez's kids ran between tables. Shane gave a speech that made everyone cry, laugh, and then cry again. Maya pulled me onto the dance floor even though I'd warned her I couldn't dance.
"You're a surgeon," she said, spinning me around.
"I'm not a surgeon. I'm an ER doctor, and those are completely different skills!"
She laughed and kept spinning.
Brian's mother cornered me near the dessert table, showing me phone photos of Brian as a child—chubby cheeks, gap-toothed grin, Halloween costumes she'd sewn by hand.
"He was always saving someone," she told me, eyes bright with happy tears.
"Birds with broken wings. Stray cats. His sister's goldfish that one time, though that one didn't end well at all. "
"He saved me," I said.
Elena pulled me into a hug that smelled like roses and home. "No, mija. You saved each other."
At some point, I noticed Garrett standing alone near the edge of the room. He was looking at his phone, but not reading it. Just staring at something on the screen.
When he caught me watching, he pocketed the phone quickly. Offered a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
I wondered who he'd been looking at.
When he caught me watching, he offered a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, then slipped outside.
Brian found me as the evening softened, two glasses of champagne in his hands.
I took the glass, clinked against his. "I can't believe it. A year ago, I was running from a man who wanted to kill me. Now I'm married to the man who saved my life."
"You saved yourself. I just stood with you."
"You did more than staying." I stepped closer and let him pull me against his side. "You made me believe I was worth saving."
The music shifted, turning slow. Brian set down his glass, took mine, and led me onto the dance floor.
"I love you," I said.
"I love you too."
"Even when I'm difficult?"
"You're my favorite difficult person." He pressed a kiss to my temple. "Mrs. Torres."
I smiled against his shoulder.
Around us, the reception swirled on. My parents danced together. Shane and Maya wrapped around each other like teenagers. Zoe filmed everything on her phone. Dr. Park told stories to a rapt audience of nurses. The Engine 295 crew got progressively louder as the champagne flowed.
This was my family now. Chosen, inherited, and earned.
I looked up at Brian. My husband. My partner. My home.
"Thank you," I said.
"For what?"
"For waiting. For not giving up on me. For showing me that some vows are worth breaking."
His arms tightened around me. "Thank you for letting me in."
The song ended. Another began.
We kept dancing.