Epilogue

Wedding

I finish darning the platform of my pointe shoes and crack the shanks. I step on the box to break it down. While the rest of the company falls in for class, I set my shoes against the wall and hold tight to the barre, stretching my back.

My family arrives in three hours. I left my phone in the car so I wasn't bombarded with constant group text messages.

After class and snowflake rehearsal, I shower at the studio and wrap my wet hair into a clip. It's warm in California in October, so I've dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, knowing I will change when I get home anyway. Hattie will do my hair. Serena has hopefully pressed my dress while I was at work.

When I get back to my apartment, I'm hit with a "Surprise!"

My parents, Lori, Hattie and her kids, Gracie and the baby, stand in the living room with Jen, Callie and Serena. I'm not surprised that they're here, but I am surprised by the arrival of decorations. They've been blowing up balloons and arranging flowers, and I give them all hugs, insisting, "This isn't necessary!"

"It isn't for you," Serena argues for the millionth time. "It's for us . Let us have this."

"We don't have a lot of time!" Hattie insists. "I'm taking her. You guys get ready."

She directs me to my bathroom and pulls out her hair and makeup tools. She looks at the right side of the sink. " Wow ." She holds up a measuring tape. "Why is this in your bathroom? Who is he?"

He's Tucker. And he spent last night in the fifty-year-old house he just finished renovating, with his brothers and best friends, while I stayed in our home. Callie had to take my phone away because I kept texting him, and he FaceTimed me and she said that was against the rules. Serena's rules. Tucker and I planned a simple wedding ceremony at the San Francisco City Hall and Serena planned whatever comes after that. I didn't care about the big wedding. I didn't want it. My relationship with Tucker had always been a sacred, personal thing that he and I experienced alone, and I wanted our wedding to be the same.

I also want him. So badly. Since we moved into this apartment in May, we hadn't spent a single night apart from each other. I hadn't gone a single day without him saying I love you - not a joke - or feeling his body against mine. I missed him, even though it had only been about eighteen hours since I saw him. He demanded to kiss me goodnight at nine o'clock last night and when he didn't return to the car in five minutes, Johnny had pry him off of me.

Hattie asks, "Why did you work today?"

"Because the whole point was for this to be low-key and simple. A quickie wedding."

"Not with Serena at the wheel."

I spin around. "What is she planning?"

"Get ready for it," she laughs. "You're going to love it."

"Tell me. Please. I can't handle anymore not knowing."

"Okay, fine, but don't tell her I told you." Hattie gives me a stern look while I promise to hold the secret and then she smiles. "Serena booked a yacht."

My jaw drops.

"She knows somebody, or Johnny's paying for it, I can't remember but -"

"That's so cool."

She flashes her eyes excitedly. "I know. See, aren't you glad you let us come?"

I close my eyes while she drags eyeliner along my lash line and responds, "Ask me that when the day is over." Happiness bubbles inside of me. "I can't wait to see him."

While my family gets dressed, Hattie finishes my simple makeup. She sticks a long veil into the ponytail of my half-up hair-do. I step into my short, satin, thick-strapped white dress. Lori and my mother cling to each other, teary-eyed.

"Please stop," I groan. "We almost didn't invite you all because of this."

"Let us be emotional!" my mother cries.

Lori adds, "This is thirty years in the making."

"I hope this was not the plan for your infant children because that's kind of creepy." I grab the bunch of flowers Serena hands to me.

"How is that creepy?" My mother clicks her teeth. "Everyone starts off as babies. And you two ended up exactly where we wanted you, so there ."

I laugh. "You did not want us here. You tried to keep us apart for the entirety of our teenage-hood."

"We did want you here," Lori says, pulling her phone down after taking my picture. "We just didn't want you eighteen and pregnant."

"Okay, okay." I ask, "So are we ready to go? Who's driving me?"

Hattie drives me in my car with my friends. My parents take Gracie and Lori in their rental car.

As I sit in the passenger seat, looking out at my new neighborhood, the streets Tucker and I walk down together, I feel a strange nervousness. I'm getting married. To Elijah Tucker.

I don't know why I'm nervous, but I am.

Maybe it's not nervousness, but anticipation. Excitement.

Serena calls out from the backseat. "Oh, Ella, I found this on your windshield." Her eyes focus on her phone, her hand holds out a folded square of paper.

I take it and read.

To the love of my life. Ella, I love you. I've always loved you. There's nothing I want more in this world than to love you and be around you and fuck you and make you frustrated and be frustrated by you.

You're my favorite person. Today is the second best day of my life. The best, best day was the day you called me and told me you loved me back. Because everything since then has led to this. I have my dream. I have you. Most of the plans we made on the phone that night have come true all ready and the rest will. Because there's nothing we can't do together. All I need is you. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

I love you. I can't wait to marry you. I'll see you soon.

I wipe a tear and Hattie complains that I'm messing up my makeup. I don't care. I'm realizing my dream. I'm allowed to cry happy tears.

"I'm dropping you off, right?" she checks.

"Yeah." We reach City Hall. "I'm meeting him outside."

The car pulls up to the concrete steps and my eyes blur out the statues and the flags and the gold detailing. I see only the Tucker's wide, tall back, his black suit clean and sharp and perfect. He turns around and sees me inside my car.

He breaks into a smile. His emerald green eyes crinkle. His golden cheeks pinch.

I smile in return, my heart full and my stomach fluttery.

I'm not nervous anymore.