Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
“There. It should stay on this time.”
I wish I had a mirror so I could check. Since I don’t, I turn around to face him. “Do I look pretty?”
His lips tug up and he looks me over with warmth and far too much familiarity. “Gorgeous.”
I grin. “Thanks. So do you,” I say mostly to be polite, but he does look very handsome in his tan suit and white dress shirt.
Our wedding is intimate and beach-casual, so there’s no vest or tie. His snowy white dress shirt is open at the throat with an extra button undone below it because he’s Jonathan and he has to show off his excessive hotness.
On the way down the beach, literally walking beside me in a wedding gown and veil, two girls in bikinis slowed down to giggle and make eyes at him.
His appeal cannot be stopped, apparently.
“You ready for this?” he asks.
I nod confidently. “Absolutely.”
He nods, offering his arm.
I take it, my hand curling around his muscular bicep as I stay close and continue the rest of the way down the beach to where the wedding ceremony is set up.
Butterflies fill my tummy and warmth fills me to bursting.
I can’t believe this is really happening.
Growing up, I was never the little girl who dreamed about her wedding day. My dad’s wedding spelled the end of our parent-child relationship, and my mom had never married. None of my mom’s married friends seemed especially aspirational. They had husbands or wives they cheated on or referred to like chains wrapped around their necks, choking the life out of them and draining all their joy. My mom’s best friend was the only one who loved her husband, but that was after he got sent to prison for kidnapping her—actually, threatening to kill her and stuffing her into a trunk after they had a fight and she stormed out of the house, but kidnapping was the charge that stuck.
I was only a kid, but I was smart enough to know that probably wasn’t what love should look like.
I also wasn’t a kid who followed in the footsteps of a woman I could hardly stand.
I’ve never been able to understand that. Watching my mom was a good way to take notes on how not to live my life, but I was capable of seeing her faults and avoiding that path myself. I wasn’t blinded because she was my mom, wasn’t doomed to be like her just because she raised me.
Maybe I’m lucky to be that way. I don’t know.
All I know is the love stories I imagined for myself weren’t about puffy white dresses and a wedding celebration full of friends and family members who don’t give a fuck about me.
I just wanted a man who would love me deeply and never turn his back on me.
Someone to feel safe with for once in my life.
I knew someday I’d find it.
Someday, there would be a man relentlessly in my corner, someone who would fight for me, die for me, rip demons apart for me with his bare teeth. Someone fiercely protective of me who would never let me feel the ache of abandonment, who would never let me feel alone in the world ever again.
And now, I’ve found him, and I have more than I ever could have hoped for. Not just one incredible man, but a whole family that has my back without question when push comes to shove.
I know I can’t lose them, too.
They love me when I’m ugly and impossible to love.
When I’m hurting and fight their unyielding embrace, they hold me down and force me to accept the support I need.
Even when I do everything in my power to destroy the good thing I’ve found, they just… don’t let me.
Even as a kid, I was always cognizant that my mother’s version of love was unreliable. If I made a wrong move, I might lose it. She might not want me anymore.
Now, I have a love I’m not afraid to lose. We’ve been through hard times already, but nothing has made him love me any less.
Finally, something solid and reliable. A love and a family I can truly belong to and thrive in.
Unconditional love and acceptance.
I sigh with a warm surge of contentment that wells up in my chest.
Normally, I’d roll my eyes at myself for feeling so sappy, but it’s my wedding day, for Christ’s sake. I’m allowed a little sap.
In the distance, the sun hovers just above the ocean.
A beach wedding at sunset. Perfect.
A pergola is set up on the beach with sheer white fabric strategically draped to look incredibly romantic and also to shield us from the wind a bit while we exchange vows.
Excitement surges up inside me and I grip Jonathan’s arm a little tighter.
One of the reasons I didn’t want a traditional wedding and reception is that I don’t really have anyone to invite. I don’t have any close extended family, and I haven’t spoken to the woman who gave birth to me since I ran into her at the grocery store that day.