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He only laughed louder as I rolled my eyes, settling into him. We watched the horizon in silence for some time, though I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at the ring. Every time I looked at it, I instinctively got a little closer to him. He brushed his fingers through my hair and would occasionally press his lips against my cheek, or my ear, or the side of my head.
“We should probably go,” he whispered long after the sun had fully risen.
“Why?” I asked.
I’d been laying against his chest, so I felt all of it rumble when he laughed. It almost sounded nervous. “Well... I kind of gave our parents the heads up. And… they all flew out. They rented a house about twenty minutes from here. My mom is there too.” He looked at me with an expression that was almost sorry. “They’re expecting us.”
A half hour later we were walking through the front door of a beachfront house that was clearly large enough for both sides of the family. I was practically tackled by our sisters as they begged to look at the ring. Easton was making mock threats to Carter. All the moms were asking how it happened and whether or not it was romantic, and Tom was telling them it couldn't have possibly been since Carter planned it all himself.
When my dad hugged me, he whispered, “When he was nine years old, he asked me if he could marry you and I told him to ask again in twenty years. Here we are, only nineteen later.”
My tears flowed again.
Our family was loud and excitable, and in that chaos, I had never felt more grateful. In that moment I realized the only thing I’d truly wanted in my entire life was to feel I belonged. To feel love and comfort, and to find a place to call home. Once I allowed myself to face those needs head on, and allowed myself to believe I deserved them, I somehow found that they had been in front of me the entire time. So maybe it was true after all. When you want something with all your soul, the Universe will work its magic to help you find it.
And when we married a little over a year later in a small, intimate ceremony on the beach of our hometown, we didn’t end our vows with, ‘til death do us part, because we already knew that wasn’t enough for us. We simply vowed:In every lifetime.
