It Was Us (18 page)

FORTY SIX

WEST

“You think this looks alright, right?”

Griffin's gaze flickered over me. “Yeah, man. You're good.”

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. “You sure, man? I feel like a monkey.” I tugged at the collar of the shirt I was wearing.

“You sorta look like one.”

I frowned at his reflection in the mirror. He was wiping hair gel through his long blond hair, trying to style it. Instead, he looked more like he'd forgotten to wash it.

“You sure you're doing the right thing?” he asked, his fingers still combing through his hair.

“What the fuck kind of question is that?”

He raised an eyebrow. “The way you're freaking about your clothes, I'm sorta wondering if you're marrying the right gender. And, hey, man, I'm totally cool with doing gay marriage ceremonies, too.” I elbowed him in the kidney and he made a face. “Jesus. That hurt, West.”

“Stop fucking around.”

He rubbed his side with his gel-free hand, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Someone a little nervous?”

“No,” I said shortly.

His smile grew. “Whatever, man. It's not like you're making a huge decision that will change the entire course of your future. Oh. Wait.”

I lifted my elbow to jab him again but he sidestepped me and laughed. “Chill the fuck out, man. It's Abby. She isn't gonna care what you're wearing or what you look like.”

I took a deep breath and tried to steady the nerves that were building in my gut. I knew I wanted to marry Abby. Knew it without a doubt. So why the hell was I so goddamn nervous?

I checked my reflection one more time. I'd gone shopping a few weeks before, tried on more combinations of clothing than I ever wanted to experience again. I didn't know what to wear, which was sort of  a problem since it was my wedding. Abby had told me that her dress was simple. White and feminine, she'd said. Which gave me absolutely nothing to go on. So I'd tried on a tux. And a suit. And dress pants with a vest. And tried not to gag each and every time I looked at my reflection in the dressing room mirror. Finally, I'd decided to go with something simple. She knew me, knew I wasn't someone who was gonna try to be something I wasn't on my wedding day. So I'd found a fitted white dress shirt and a pair of khaki pants and held my tongue as the cashier rang me up and gave me the total. The two pieces of clothing cost almost as much as my first surfboard.

“Roll up the sleeves,” Griffin said.

I looked at him. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He stripped his shirt off his head and stepped out of his shorts.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He stood there, ass naked, and leaned over to turn the faucet on in the tub. “Showering this shit out of my hair.”

FORTY SEVEN

ABBY

“There,” Tana said, putting the last bobby pin in place. She stared at me, her brow furrowed.

“What? What's wrong?” I asked, my hands instantly flying to my hair.

She swatted them away. “Don't touch it!”

“Give me a mirror. I want to see.”

She picked up the bottle of hairspray sitting on my desk and sprayed. The fumes went up my nose and clogged my throat and I coughed, my eyes beginning to water.

“Stop it,” she ordered. “I've already done your make-up. You're gonna make your mascara run.”

“Well, stop trying to kill me with the hairspray.”

“So dramatic,” she said, shaking her head. “You'd think you were PMSing or something.” She eyes my stomach. “Which clearly could not be possible.”

It was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and we'd spent the last two hours getting me ready for the wedding. She'd come over after lunch and had gotten me dressed and done my hair and make-up. She was in finishing touches mode, because we were supposed to be out the door in five minutes.

“Do I get to see myself or not?” I asked.

She touched my hair, tweaking a few strands. “Yeah, yeah. Hang on.” She leaned close, her nose inches from mine. She stared at me and I could smell peppermint on her breath.

“Well, this is awkward...”

She grinned. “Shut up. I'm just checking your make up.” She straightened and disappeared and then brought me me the hand-held mirror from the bathroom. “Here,” she said. She thrust it in front of me.

I couldn't help it. I smiled. Tana hadn't transformed me into someone else. She'd made me better. Soft, pretty make-up, pink and rosy and smoky eyelids that somehow managed to bring out the blue in my eyes even more. She'd curled my hair and swept it up on the sides and top, securing it so there was a cascade of brown curls down my shoulders and back.

“Wow,” I managed to say. Through the mirror, I saw her nod in satisfaction.

“Now you need to see the whole package. You in the dress.” She motioned for me to stand and, when I did, she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the floor-length mirror mounted on the inside of my closet door.

The dress was still perfect, even two months after buying it. And even though my stomach had grown, I hadn't entered 'beached whale' territory. The empire waist pushed my breasts up and the darts in the fabric softly showcased my growing tummy.

“Here,” she said, rummaging through her purse. She withdrew a small velvet pouch. “I almost forgot.”

She opened the pouch and handed me a pair of earrings. They were beaded, dangling earrings. “Something borrowed,” she said. “I thought they'd go nice with the neckline.”

I felt my eyes well up with tears. “These are yours? Thank you.”

“Well, I saw them in the store and thought they'd look perfect,” she said. “I haven't worn them yet, but technically they're mine so they can be your something borrowed, right?”

I nodded, my eyes wet.

“And do
not
cry,” she ordered, even though her own eyes glistened with tears. “Because I don't have time to fix your make-up if you do.”

I laughed and blinked several times, trying to stem the tears. “I'm not.”

“Good,” she said, nodding her head vigorously. She looped her purse over her shoulder. “Because this is no big deal. I mean, it is. But we're still best friends. Marriage and a baby isn't going to change any of that.”

She sounded like she was saying it to convince herself, even though we both knew she was wrong. Our relationship had already changed, the minute we'd graduated and I'd met West. And then she'd gone to San Luis for school and we suddenly had five hours between us instead of five minutes. We were all too familiar with how life changed—sometimes when you didn't want it to and sometimes when you least expected it. But that was the thing. Life was supposed to change. Friendships were supposed to change.

And I knew ours had—and would continue to—change for the better.

Because Tana would always be my best friend.

FORTY EIGHT

WEST

“You're gonna wear a path to China if you don't stop pacing.”

I stopped and looked at Griffin. “What?”

He grinned at me. “Chill out, bro. She's coming.”

I smiled back but, inside, my nerves were all shot to hell. I was standing on the sand at Swamis, trying not to stare at the zig-zagging steps leading up to the top of the cliffs. Griffin had a book in his hands and was thumbing through it, his lips moving as he silently read the words to himself. He wore a blue and white Hawaiian shirt and a pair of matching blue board shorts. His hair was gel-free after his shower and stuck out at all angles from his head.

I turned to the only other person waiting with us on the beach.

“You didn't have to come,” I said.

My mother looked at me and smiled. “My only son is getting married and having a baby. The least I could do was come back to San Diego to be a part of it.”

I nodded. It had been three years since I'd seen my mom. Dad heading off to the slammer and me moving out had sort of sealed the deal for her; she wanted no part of the town that had torn her life apart. I hadn't been great about staying in touch with her. First, because of the anger, but as the months passed and she didn't try to contact me, it was more hurt that fueled my continued silence. And then, as months drifted into years, indifference. Abby had been the one to convince me to reach out to her, to let her know what was going on, to extend the invitation to be a part of our simple wedding ceremony. I hadn't expected a reply to my email and I certainly hadn't expected her to say yes.

And yet here she was, standing next to me.

“Look,” she said, folding her arms tighter over her chest and looking at me. I had her eyes. “I don't have an excuse for how I handled things after your dad
—“

I cut her off. “It's fine.”

She shook her head. She had reddish hair and the late afternoon sun glinted off it, making it look like a fireball of red and orange waves on her shoulders. I'd always loved her hair. “It's not fine. I was hurt and I was desperate. I had no money, West. And I had to make some tough decisions.”

I put up a hand to stop her. “I get it.”

“But I want to explain.”

“
Now's not the time.” I didn't want to add that I wasn't sure there would ever be a time that I'd want to hear about it. It was the past and I was standing on a beach, waiting for Abby, ready to begin my future. My past had no place there.

She took a deep breath, then nodded. “Fine.” She uncrossed her arms, then crossed them again. “Well, I'm just happy to be here. For you. So thank you.”

I nodded. A movement on the stairs caught my eye and I whipped my head fully in that direction, expecting to see Abby.

Instead, a girl nearly identical in looks descended the stairs, gingerly navigating the steps in her stiletto heels. Even from a distance, I could hear Annika complain.

“Jesus, are they trying to kill all of the wedding guests?”

I wasn't sure who she was talking to since she was alone. But then her parents appeared at the top of the steps and began their own descent. Abby's mother held on to her husband's hand as they walked down, taking the steps one at a time, her mother leaning heavily against him. I swallowed as I watched her, worrying that maybe we'd chosen the wrong spot to get married, that maybe the steep terrain would be too hard on her weakened body.

“Is that Abby's parents?” my mother asked.

I nodded again.

“And she has cancer?”

I nodded again. “Started out as breast cancer. She's being treated for uterine cancer now. It spread.”

My mother made a sympathetic face. “That must be hard for you. For you and Abby. What have the doctors said about her chances?”

I shrugged. “They're always optimistic. She had a hysterectomy and they're pretty sure they got it all. She's going to do some chemo as part of her treatment plan.”

I thought about the quick turn of events, how shortly after the 4
th
of July she'd received a request from her doctor to come back in. There'd been a spot on the PET scan that the doctors had somehow overlooked. She'd gone in for another scan and more blood work and that was when they'd discovered the cancer in her uterus. It was small, only Stage One Abby had said, but they weren't taking any chances. She'd gone in almost immediately for a full hysterectomy.

Abby's inclination had been to postpone the wedding but her mom had been adamant. Keep the date. She'd be there, regardless. She'd talked about all of the reasons to go ahead with the wedding. She'd be healed from her surgery by then. She could postpone chemo treatment until right after the wedding. If they waited until after the baby was born, it might actually be harder.

No one voiced the other worry weighing on everyone's minds, the worry that went without saying.

Do it now. Because she might not be around to witness it if we waited.

My mother excused herself and walked toward the stairs, presumably to introduce herself to Abby's parents. Annika made her way toward me, her heels still strapped to her feet, kicking up an insane amount of sand as she approached.

“
Who's idea was this, anyway?” she asked, lifting her sunglasses and staring at me.

“
The wedding? Uh, both of ours.”

She shook her head. “No, you idiot. The beach.” She pointed to her shoes. “How the hell am I supposed to walk through sand in these?”

“Take them off?”

Her mouth dropped open. “And ruin my outfit?” She put a hand on her hip and pouted.

I glanced at what she was wearing. A white skirt that barely covered her ass and a silky white tank top. Her heels were white, too, studded with rhinestones or something.

She noticed me looking and smirked. “I wore white just for you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “For me?”

She nodded. “Uh huh. In case my sister doesn't show...”

“Yeah, when hell fucking freezes over.”

Her pout returned. “Now, that's just hurtful. I was kidding, you nimrod.” She surveyed the beach and wrinkled her nose. “Is this it? No one else is coming?”

“Nope.”

We'd kept the guest list ridiculously small. Her parents, Griffin and Tana and, at her insistence, my mother. Annika had been added at the last minute.

She shook her head again. “Seriously. If my sister and I weren't identical, I would question our relationship to each other.” With that, she lowered her sunglasses and teetered off in her heels.

“
How you could have ever confused her for your girlfriend is beyond me,” Griffin said under his breath.

“
Shut up.”

“
Just sayin'. What a fucking piece of work.”

I turned toward him, my fist curling so I could fake punch him, when he let out a low whistle. “Wow,” he said, his eyes not on me but focused on the stairs.

I whirled around. The stairs were still there and so were the palm trees that sprouted along the cliffs. But my future wife was there, too, a vision in white, her hand on the wooden rail as she slowly made her descent, her eyes on me.

Smiling. Radiant. Beautiful.

And all mine.