Kat is seated next to Mia, holding little Sophia—the latest addition to the family, all of six months old and already the center of everyone's universe. Ollie is trying to wrangle three-year-old Annie, who's wearing a flower crown and attempting to eat it while simultaneously refusing to stand still long enough for anyone to explain what walking down an aisle actually means.
Camilla and Jay are in the second row, her hand resting on her stomach in that unconscious way pregnant women do, even though she's only just started showing.
Julian and the rest of the band are scattered throughout, looking uncomfortable in formal wear but here anyway because that's what family does.
Mom and Dom are sitting together near the front, his handcovering hers in a way that still makes something in my chest settle every time I see it. Proof that second chances don't have expiration dates, that it's never too late to claim the life you were supposed to have.
It's small and intimate and perfect in a way that has nothing to do with planning and everything to do with the people filling these chairs.
A string quartet plays something soft and Spanish as I take my place at the front, Nick standing beside me as my best man.
The ocean crashes against the rocks below us, steady and eternal. The air smells like salt and citrus and the kind of possibility that only exists when you're standing at the edge of something that will change everything.
My heart pounds hard enough that I can feel it in my throat. My palms are damp despite the breeze coming off the water.
Then the music shifts and everyone stands.
And there she is.
My Nora.
Walking down the makeshift aisle on Ollie's arm, and I forget how to do anything except stare.
She's wearing a simple dress—cream-colored, flowing, catching the breeze off the ocean in a way that makes her look like she's floating. No veil. Hair loose around her shoulders the way I love it, with small white flowers woven through that I know she picked herself this morning.
She's smiling, and it's the kind of smile that reaches all the way to her eyes and makes everything else in the world fade to background noise.
She catches my eye halfway down the aisle and her smile widens impossibly further, and I have to blink hard because my vision is already blurring and we haven't even started yet.
I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life than my future wife walking toward me, barefoot on warm stones, looking at me like I'm the only person in the world who matters.
Ollie brings her to me and places her hand in mine with asqueeze that says everything he can't say out loud in this moment. Then he whispers something I don't quite catch because all I can focus on is the warmth of her palm against mine and the fact that this is real.
This is actually happening.
After everything—after all the years and the silence and the almost-but-not-quite and the building and the waiting—this is actually happening.
The officiant—a local woman Camilla found who speaks perfect English with a slight Spanish accent—begins talking about love and commitment and choosing each other every day even when it's hard, especially when it's hard.
I hear maybe half of it because I'm too busy looking at Nora, memorizing this moment, this version of her, this feeling of standing in the Spanish sun about to promise forever to the person who's already been my always.
Her eyes are bright with unshed tears. She's biting her bottom lip the way she does when she's trying not to cry in public, and it's so completely her that my chest aches with how much I love her.
"Nate?" The officiant's voice breaks through my thoughts. "Your vows?"
Right. Vows.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the folded paper I've been carrying for weeks, the edges soft from how many times I've taken it out and read it over, trying to make sure I got it right.
I look at the words I wrote and rewrote and agonized over for days, and suddenly they feel inadequate. Like no combination of sentences could possibly capture what I need to say.
But I try anyway.
"I read something once," I start, my voice rougher than I intend. "About the difference between the love of your life and your soulmate."
I look up from the paper and see her staring back at me withthose green eyes that have always seen straight through me, and I almost forget how to breathe.
"One's a choice, and one is not. And I think our souls fell in love long before we ever knew what love was supposed to mean."
