TILL DEATH DO US PART | JENLISA

PART III: NINETEEN

JENNIE

***

Promises

August 12th, 2016

(14 years left)

***

The night air is balmy and heavy with salt. I breathe it in, long steadying breaths that seem to be my only link to reality. I pace back and forth through an unfamiliar, long dining room. Its billowing curtains, French doors, and dark wood floor, elegantly stream past my view in the meager light around me. It feels like a dream as I weave in and out of the long races of white material, waiting. I stare at my feet, at the sandals that wrap in a crisscross up the top of them and peek out from my under my dress with every step.

Far away, just over the sound of the tide and the twinkle of a wind chime, I can hear the musicians tuning their instruments. It makes me stop, and I hazard a look outside, my gaze racing past the veranda of the beach house and further to where I can see people milling around on the sand in lantern light. There’s an archway with white flowers backlit by hurricane lamps, and for a moment I get dizzy thinking about the fact that all those people will be watching as Rachel and I say our vows beneath it.

My hands hold me upright in the middle of one set of doors as my eyes catalogue the image and memory of it. It makes me feel very exposed, because before...well, before was very different. I had married Lisa at a ceremony at the civic center on the fly. It was the very cold December of 2020, and taxes were really gonna hurt that year if I didn’t have a write off. So we went on a whim, held up our hands and attested that we were who we said we were, and tied the knot in front of a Justice of the Peace.

It saved me twenty thousand dollars in taxes, but it wasn’t the priceless moment that every girl dreams of, and after waiting eight years to get married, four years more than even now, it certainly wasn’t what we deserved. To be honest, it was probably the most unromantic moment of our lives together and the second biggest mistake I’ve ever made aside from letting her leave my office our last day together.

I stare across the room at my reflection, at the cream dress that loops at my shoulders and spills in shimmers down the length of my body. Even under my withering inspection, I like what I see, the curves and dips, the long lines of my body honed through Lisa’s galvanizing touches. I look more like the woman I thought I would become, than I actually was. I can see it in my eyes, where the hazel burns brighter than I’ve ever seen before. Though it feels like I carry more responsibility and weight than I ever did before, it doesn’t touch the depth of the green that sparkles back at me from my reflection.

I look back outside, at the countless figures shifting in the light. It’s more Lisa’s thing to have hundreds of eyes on her, but I can’t really find complaint in exposing myself because I love her and she loves me.

I’m okay, sharing that with everyone.

I hear a loan violin’s tremulous voice in the shifting shadows, and I close my eyes as it makes my heart race.

“Jennie?”I flinch when Hiramopensthe door behind me. “I’ve got it. All proper wedding superstitions are now accounted for.” He comes in, and then stops short when his eyes fix on me. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just happy.” I put a hand to my stomach when I turn to him. “I’m just nervous, too.”

He smiles easily. “You should be nervous. It’s your wedding.” He unwraps his handkerchief wrapped package. “Here. This is your something borrowed. It also counts for something blue. You already have old and new, so I think we have it all.”