Jamie McGuire - A Beautiful Wedding

Me.

Abby had lost her childhood, and I’d lost my mom, so for two people who struggled to get on the same page, we were the same story. That gave me an edge, and after making this my goal over the past months, I’d arrived at an answer:

Abby’s Tell was not having one. It might not make sense to most people, but it made perfect sense to me. It was the absence of that Tell that gave her away. The peace in her eyes, the softness in her smile, the relaxation of her shoulders alerted me that something was wrong.

If I didn’t know her better, I might have thought this was just our happy ending, but she was up to something. Sitting in the terminal, waiting to board a plane to Vegas, with Abby snuggled into the curve of my body, I knew it was easy to try to ignore. She kept lifting her hand, staring at the ring I’d bought her, and sighing. The middle-aged woman across from us was watching my new fiancée and smiled, probably fantasizing about a time when she had her whole life ahead of her. She didn’t know what those sighs really meant, but I had an idea.

It was hard to be happy about what we were about to do with the cloud of so many deaths hanging above our heads. No, really, it was literally above our heads. A television on the wall displayed the local news. Footage of the fire and the latest updates scrolled across the screen. They interviewed Josh Farney. He was covered in soot and he looked horrible, but I was glad to see he’d made it. He was fairly hammered when I saw him before the fight. Most of the people who came to the Circle either came drunk or worked their way up to a buzz while they waited for me and my opponent to trade blows. When the flames began to crawl across the room, adrenaline pumped into everyone’s veins—enough to sober up even the most intoxicated.

I wished it hadn’t happened. We’d lost so many, and this wasn’t exactly something you’d want your wedding to follow. From experience, I knew that the memory of a tragedy could be misplaced. Attaching this date to something we would celebrate year after year would keep it front and center in our minds. Damn, they were still bringing out bodies, and I was acting like this was an annoyance. There were parents out there who had no idea they’d never see their kids again.

That selfish thought led to guilt, and that guilt led to a lie. It was a sheer miracle that we were getting married right now, anyway. But I didn’t want Abby thinking I was anything but super fucking pumped about getting married. Knowing her, she’d misread it and then change her mind. So I focused on her, and what we were about to do. I wanted to be a normal, so-excited-I-might-puke groom-to-be, and she deserved nothing less. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d pretended not to care about something I couldn’t get out of my head. The living proof was snuggled up next to me.

On the television screen, the anchorwoman standing outside Keaton Hall held the microphone with both hands, a frown line between her eyebrows. “. . . what the families of the victims will be asking: who is to blame? Back to you, Kent.”

Suddenly the nausea became real. So many had died, of course they were going to hold someone accountable. Was it Adam’s fault? Would he go to prison? Would I? I hugged Abby to me and kissed her hair. A woman behind a desk picked up a mic and began to speak, and my knee started to bounce uncontrollably. If we weren’t going to board soon, I might pick up Abby and run to Vegas. I felt like I could have made it there before the plane. The airline agent instructed us about boarding the flight, her voice rising and falling with the scripted announcement she’d probably read a million times. She sounded like the teacher in those Peanuts cartoons: bored, monotone, and impossible to understand.

The only thing that made sense were the thoughts on repeat inside my head: I was about to become the husband of the second woman I’d ever loved.

It was almost time. Damn. Shit, yeah! Fuck, yes!

I was getting married!

The Way Back

Abby

I stared at the sparkling rock on my finger and sighed again. It wasn’t the airy sigh a young, newly engaged girl might make while staring at her rather large diamond. It was full of thought. A heavy, thoughtful thought that made me think heavier, thoughtful thoughts. But not second thoughts. We couldn’t stay away from each other. What we were about to do was inevitable, and Travis Maddox loved me in a way most people dreamed about. The sigh was filled with worry and hope for my stupid plan. I wanted Travis to be okay so much that it was nearly tangible.

“Stop that, Pidge,” Travis said. “You’re making me nervous.”

“It’s just . . . too big.”

“It fits just fine,” he said, sitting back. We were wedged between a businessman talking softly on his cell phone and an elderly couple. An airline employee was standing behind the gate desk, talking into what looked like a CB radio. I wondered why they didn’t just use a regular microphone. She announced a few names, and then hooked the device somewhere on the back of her desk.

“Must be a full flight,” Travis said. His left arm was settled on the back of my chair, his thumb gently rubbing my shoulder. He was trying to pretend to be relaxed, but his bobbing knee gave him away.

“The diamond is excessive. I feel like I’m going to get mugged at any moment,” I said.

Travis laughed. “First of all, no one is going to fucking touch you. Second, that ring was made to be on your finger. I knew when I saw it—”

“Attention passengers of American flight 2477 to Las Vegas, we are looking for three volunteers to take a later flight. We’re offering travel vouchers good for one year from your departure.”

Travis looked at me.

“No.”

“You in a hurry?” he asked, a smug smile on his face.

I leaned in and kissed him. “Actually, I am.” I reached up with my finger and wiped away the smudge of soot under his nose that he’d missed in the shower.

“Thanks, baby,” he said, squeezing me against his side. He looked around, his chin lifted, his eyes bright. He was in the best mood I’d seen him in since the night he’d won our bet. It made me smile. Sensible or not, it felt good to be loved so much, and I decided right then and there I would stop apologizing for it. There were worse things than finding your soul mate too early in life, and what was too early, anyway?

“I had a discussion about you with my mom, once,” Travis said, looking out the wall of windows to our left. It was still dark. Whatever he saw wasn’t on the other side.

“About me? Isn’t that kind of . . . impossible?”

“Not really. It was the day she died.”

Adrenaline burst from where adrenaline bursts from and sped through my body, pooling in my fingers and toes. Travis had never spoken about his mother to me. I often wanted to ask him about her, but then I thought about the sickening feeling that came over me when someone asked me about my mother, so I never did.

He continued, “She told me to find a girl worth fighting for. The one that doesn’t come easy.”

I felt a little embarrassed, wondering if that meant I was a huge pain in the ass. Truthfully, I was, but that wasn’t the point.

“She said to never stop fighting, and I didn’t. She was right.” He took a deep breath, seeming to let that thought settle into his bones.

The idea that Travis believed I was the woman who his mother was talking about, that she would approve of me, made me feel an acceptance I’d never felt before. Diane, who had passed away almost seventeen years before, now made me feel more loved than my own mother.

“I love your mom,” I said, leaning against Travis’s chest.