Falling

Epilogue

Carson Hughes

5 Years Later

"Let's just get started without him," Logan said with a sigh, eyeing the door as if he could manifest Vinny appearing through it.

We had been waiting at the tux rental place for at least fifteen minutes now, waiting for Vinny to show up for the final fitting. With him being Logan's best man, Logan had wanted to wait for his brother before we started with the fitting, but we hadn't heard from him and he wasn't here.

This delay of the inevitable had made me even more nervous to see him. I knew I would have to see Vinny here and at Logan and Dana's wedding, and I wanted to just rip off the bandaid and have him be here. But of course, he was late.

I hadn't seen Vinny since January, over winter break. We had gotten in a fight then and hadn't spoken since. It was now September, and Logan's wedding was this coming weekend. I hadn't seen him for any of the other fittings and Logan didn't want a bachelor party, so this was the first time the two of us would have to see each other since our fight in January.

I didn't have to wait much longer because a moment later, Vinny burst through the door in a rush and made his way over to where the rest of us stood. He didn't even look at me.

"Sorry," he muttered, running his fingers through his hair. He had let it grow out since the last time I saw him. "My car wouldn't start. I had to wait for a ride."

"I would have picked you up," Logan told him.

"Is this everyone now?" the worker asked Logan, and he nodded. It was just a small group of us. Logan's groom party consisted of Vinny, Archie, Isaac, two of his friends from work, and me.

The worker brought Logan to the back to be fitted first, leaving the rest of us out front. Archie had started lively conversation with the rest of the group while I looked over at Vinny, who was staring down at his phone.

The months we had been apart were good to him. His hair was longer and lighter on the top like he had spent a lot of time in the sun. His skin was golden and he had bulked up some, the evidence in the way his shirt hugged his chest and upper arms. He was still my favorite thing to look at.

It seemed that no matter how long the two of us were apart, my feelings about him stayed the same. I missed him, and now that I had moved back into town after graduation, we wouldn't have to be apart. If we hadn't messed everything up all those months ago, the two of us could have finally really been together by now.

Our relationship since high school had always only been during school breaks. He didn't want long distance, even though I had tried to convince him our sophomore year of college we could handle it, he disagreed. So, we kept our relationship as something that happened in the summers and over winter break.

It wasn't until the summer between junior and senior year of college that it changed. I had gotten a summer internship and stayed in my college town for the whole summer. I hadn't seen Vinny that whole time. Then, our last winter break together, everything went to shit. And now here we were, seeing each other for the first time since then, and not even saying a word.

A few minutes later, Logan came out in his tux and looked in the big mirrors off to the side. The worker helping him straightened out the jacket and started talking to him about the fit.

"How does it look?" Logan asked, turning around to face us.

"You look smokin'!" Archie said, adding a whistle.

Logan rolled his eyes, but laughed anyway.

After the worker was done fitting Logan, it was Vinny's turn. He left to go to the changing room, and that was when Logan and Isaac turned to look at me.