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“Good.” She nodded and stepped back. “See you out there.”
“See you.” I rushed to catch up with the groomsmen.
We went through the door, lining up the way we’d practiced the night before. The bridesmaids came down the aisle, one by one. Then, it was Ciara’s turn.
As the doors opened at the end of the room and everyone stood up, I watched with bated breath. Ciara and her dad were waiting at the other end of the aisle.
Mack was right; Ciara did look like a princess. Instead of donning the traditional white gown, Ciara opted for an ice-blue one. It looked sleeveless from afar, with white flowers delicately trailing down her arms, but I assumed the sleeves were transparent. The body of the dress glittered in the sunlight streaming through the windows, and the back of the dress seemed to trail forever behind her, along with the veil. Her high bun reminded me of our earlier days in that it was neat, not a hair out of place, and it helped to hold the tiara in place.
When she and her father reached me, I found her eyes through the veil. Impatient to see her face unencumbered, I lifted the veil up and away, repositioning it the way Mack had taught me the night before, at rehearsal.
“Hey, pretty girl,” I murmured.
She smiled. “Hey.”
“Who gives this woman away?” the minister intoned.
“I do,” her father said.
He turned to me, placing Ciara’s hand in mine, and smiled. “Take care of my baby girl,” he said.
I nodded once, trying to hold back the tears. “I will,” I said, the most I could muster without letting the tears fall.
Ciara’s dad stepped back, walking over to join my father.
“You all may be seated,” the minister said.
The ceremony droned on for what felt like forever, and if anyone asked me what was said, I wouldn’t be able to recall. I only had eyes and ears for my wife, who was a vision in blue.
When it came time to exchange rings, Ciara turned to get mine from Brooklyn, and I got hers from Harold. We put them on each other’s fingers, saying the words that bound us together as man and wife.
When I had initially asked Ciara to join me in this scheme, I never could have imagined that I would want to stay with her the past six months. But now, as we exchanged the traditional vows, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Finally, we got to the end of the ceremony. “By the power vested in me by the state of Massachusetts,” the minister said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. Nathan, you may kiss your bride.”
I turned to Ciara, grinning. I slipped my hands underneath her veil, cradling her head. Before I brushed my lips to hers, I whispered, “I will always love you, Cinderelly.”
Her response made my heart sing. “And I, you, Nathan Hemingway,” she said. “Forever and ever.”
With that, I lowered my lips to hers among the cheers of our family and friends. And we were officially married.
CIARA
If someone had told me ten, five, or even two years ago that I would be married to Nathan Hemingway in my dream dress, in front of hundreds of people, I would’ve laughed and continued folding the sweaters at the Hemingway College Bookstore. Never in a thousand years could I have predicted or known that I would be in the position I found myself in.
But such was the bitter agony of life: I’d found my dream man, only to have to let him go.
When I confirmed my spot at GWC, they sent me a confirmation email, along with a personalized email from the program Chair. The Chair said that, based on my grades in undergrad and the length of my time away from college, I qualified for a summer program that would get me reacclimated to college life. I would take three classes with a cohort of students, giving me a head start in the program but also allowing me to find and make friends among like-minded peers. The only catch, the Chair said, was that it would start in May.
The Monday after the wedding, in fact.
The Chair explained that it wouldn’t give me much time to pack and that I wouldn’t have a summer vacation. I jumped at the chance to enter the program, though. As the Chair had highlighted, I had been out of school for some years, and it couldn’t hurt to have a head start—and to make friends. After all, come October, I would be starting the official divorce process and would be losing Nathan.
I hadn’t told Nathan about any of the decisions I had made over the course of less than twenty-four hours because I wanted to hold off that fraught moment for as long as I could. Besides, he seemed so happy; I was loath to break his heart.
But it was the best path; after all, it was what we agreed to, in the beginning. I was simply sticking to the agreement, remembering my place, like Zeke’s wife said.
The truth of the matter was that, when it came down to it, I was no one special. I suspected that the novelty of the situation, the tension of having to get married quickly and in a believable way, was what fueled Nathan’s love for me. It wasn’t me that he loved; it was the rush of adrenaline, the success he felt when we got away with our scheme. But when the smoke cleared and he was just left with me, I knew that he would see what I see every day when I looked in the mirror: a twenty-five-year-old woman who was content to live a boring life in her tiny hometown, day in and day out. A nobody who was content to be a nobody.
