Page 24 of Waiting for You

Something in me lurched toward him before I could stop it. For one delusional heartbeat, I was the girl in the white dress. I was the one walking up that aisle to meet him. The tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. Even in the safety of my own imagination, I couldn't hold onto the fantasy. The reality was already pressing down on me, the certainty that the bridge between us had burned to ash. The only scrap left to salvage was friendship. And I'd done it. I'd chosen that path. I'd drafted those toxic words, sealed that box, and made this nightmare my permanent reality.

Xavier handed Violet over to Simon at the altar. The couple clasped hands, the officiant began the vows, and the ceremony drifted on, but the whole time, my eyes stayed anchored to Xavier.

The reception roared into life, and Violet swapped her gown for something shorter, sleeker, built for the dance floor. The wedding coordinator had stripped me of my logistical duties, leaving me stranded at a quiet cocktail table with a chilled bottle of champagne and zero responsibilities beyond existing. I skipped the flute and drank straight from the green glass bottle. It was my best friend's wedding night, and I'd earned it.

Xavier reigned over the opposite side of the ballroom.

My eyes had been ping-ponging between Violet's smile and his broad shoulders since cocktail hour started. He moved through the chaotic crowd with a magnetic ease. I watched him fall into conversation with hyperactive kids, bored teenagers, and corporate executives I'd never met. I watched him crouch to whisper something conspiratorial to a tiny flower girl near the towering gift table. I watched him command a circle of older men and pull booming laughter out of them. With every exchange, I wondered what he was saying, what invisible gravity he had that made every person in the room turn toward him and open up.

He was charming, easy, impossible to ruffle, and he had all three in spades. He always had.

And I'd been his one flaw.

I tipped my head back and took another burning pull from the bottle.

Violet appeared in front of my table.

She eyed the bottle in my fist, scanned my carefully neutral expression, and said, "Get up. Dance with me."

"My feet are literally bleeding," I deadpanned.

"I don't care."

"This silk dress is a structural hazard on the dance floor."

"I don't care."

"It's your wedding night, Violet. You should be out there with your new husband."

"I'm dancing with you first." She thrust her hand at me. I sighed and took it, because it was her wedding day and there was no demand she could make tonight that I'd turn down.

She hauled me into the center of the floor and twirled me under the spinning lights. We locked into the upbeat rhythm, uninhibited laughter spilling out of both of us. Her hands gripped mine, her face tilted up toward the ceiling, her eyes lit with pure joy. She glowed with it. And so did I, with no performance required.

Spinning her back in, I yelled over the music, asking how it felt to finally be a Beckett.

She froze mid-step.

She stared at me, her chin dipping, her lips pressing into a tight line before she answered.

"Simon's taking my last name," she said.

I stopped moving.

She stood still, letting the dancers blur past us.

"He told me," she started, her voice shaking as she fought to keep it steady, "that the only person with my last name I’d ever loved was Xavier. And he said he wanted to be another person I loved who carried that name."

I stared at her, speechless.

She gave a jerky nod, her eyes filling. I lunged forward and pulled her into a tight hug. She buried her face in my shoulder, and we stood there, anchored together in the dead center of the dance floor, both of us openly crying. Her toxic parents had cursed her with that surname and given her nothing else worth a damn. But Simon wasn't trying to erase her painful origins. He was repainting them. He was telling the whole room he'd be her permanent family, rewriting the legacy of the name she carried.

When my chest finally stopped heaving, I pulled back and framed her flushed face between both my hands. Her eyes were swimming, her chin trembling, her expression more open and unguarded than I'd ever seen it.

"You found one of the rare good ones," I whispered.

"Now it's your turn," she shot back, a watery smirk touching her lips.

And she tilted her chin toward the space behind me.