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Me.
In the dress.
The Marion by Vera Wang—the kind of dress that looks like it was spun from stardust and stories. The softest gold, like the sky before dusk kisses the day goodbye. The illusion bodice hugs my ribs, delicate as breath, with sheer sleeves that shimmer like I’ve been dusted in moonlight. Tiny buttons trail down my spine like a secret. The skirt billows around me in layers of tulle so light they move when I so much as think about moving.
I am glitter and grit and all the galaxies in between.
And I’m getting married today.
“Don’t move,” Reese hisses from behind me, waddling like a very angry, very glamorous duck as she grabs a beauty blender from the vanity. “If you cry now, I swear to God I’ll lose what little patience I have left—and this baby might be born in your bathtub.”
“I’m not crying,” I say. Lying. Totally lying.
Because the second my dad walks in… I nearly break.
He freezes in the doorway like someone hit pause on the world. One hand still wrapped around the doorknob, his mouth parting just enough to let the silence seep in. And for a second, I’m six years old again. Standing on a kitchen chair while he laced up my sneakers, calling me bug and brushing a crumb off my cheek like it was sacred.
His eyes shine now—glassy, fierce, full of too many feelings for a man who’s always kept them locked up like fine china.
“Kid,” he breathes, rough and reverent. “Jesus. Look at you.”
“I know,” I whisper. “It’s a lot.”
“It’s perfect,” he says, voice cracking. “You’re perfect.”
“Nope,” Reese cuts in, lifting her chin like a general about to declare war. “You are not allowed to cry. I just did her lashes.”
Behind her, my mom dabs the corners of her eyes and mutters something about how much my hair looks like hers did on her wedding day. Isabel, in a satin rose dress that matches the florals, fans herself with a program. Sofia snaps a photo, pretending she’s not also blinking too fast. We’re a mess. A glossy, glammed-up, mascara-on-the-edge mess.
But this? This is the family I fought for.
“I’m proud of you,” my dad says, stepping forward. His hand lands over mine, calloused and warm. “I mean it, Mya. Everything you’ve come through… to be standing here now. You didn’t just survive—you rose. And he’s a lucky man.”
“He’s the right one,” I whisper. “Finally.”
Because Fletch didn’t save me.
He found me in the wreckage, handed me a hammer, and built a life beside me brick by brick. And when I broke? He didn’t flinch. He stayed.
“I’ve got the twins,” Reese says as she waddles toward the door with a maternal sort of smugness. “They’re both dressed. One tried to eat the boutonnière, and the other’s diaper exploded, but we’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
“We’re not fine,” Isabel grumbles. “We’re forty-five minutes late.”
“Fashionably,” Sofia clarifies.
“Divinely,” Reese says with a smirk. “She’s walking down that aisle looking like a golden hour fever dream and that man out there—” she jerks her thumb toward the window, “—he looks like he’s about to cry just waiting for a glimpse of her. So yeah. We’re good.”
My heart skips, stutters, sprints.
Because Fletch is out there. Probably pacing, fingers through his hair, dressed in that tailored navy suit he swore he didn’t care about but tried on six times. My boys are in their tiny suspenders and bowties, probably stealing snacks and causing chaos. The band is set up under the twinkle lights strung across the big oak. And everything—the table settings, the flower arch, the carefully mismatched chairs—looks like it was plucked out of a dream Reese and I conjured over chai lattes and color swatches.
It’s small.
It’s perfect.
And it’s ours.
The breath I take is soft but heavy, catching in my throat as the cottage door opens behind me.
