Becca Ritchie - Kiss the Sky

 Not until now. She was scared. I saw the fear in her eyes at her office. It’s why she’s been regretting and remembering the past. And yet, I can’t pity her. I can’t wish her farewell.

I only hate that it took death for her to see her mistakes.

And I hate that it’s taken me the same to see mine.

I unlace my fingers from Rose, and I hold her one hand in between two of mine, just staring at them for a while. I call her stubborn, but in the past year and a half, I’ve been worse.

I meet those fierce yellow-green eyes. Even in the wake of my pain, she has this resilience that’s more beautiful than words can describe. It’s fire to my water. And I want her to burn me alive.

“You’re the only one who has ever loved me,” I confess, my chest heavy. “Not a mother. Not a father. Not a friend. Just you, Rose.” All these years, I never thought I’d need anyone but me to survive. My mother thought the same.

I was wrong.

“I don’t want to be sixty years old and wishing I opened myself up to the people I care about. I don’t want to look back and regret that I wasn’t a better friend or a better man to the woman I adore.”

She’s already crying. I haven’t even said it yet.

Tears fall down her cheeks, matching mine.

“And I can’t tell you how long I’ve been fighting the truth, but it’s been awhile,” I say.

The next words come from the core of my chest. Each word is like taking on water and breathing in oxygen—a paradox that I enjoy very much.

“I am so deeply in love with you, Rose.” I wipe her cheeks with my thumb.

She tries to smile but every time she does, more tears fall. I can tell they’re from a place of joy by the way her eyes light. And then she says, “Ca vous a pris pas mal de temps.” It took you long enough.

I said the same thing to her once. “How long do we have left?”

She finally smiles through the tears. “Forever.”

I draw her to my chest and kiss her strongly, not letting go.

I realize, in this very moment, that love was the only thing missing from my life.

And it’s the only thing that matters to me.

I can live with that.

As stupid as it may seem.

Connor reties the halter on my bridesmaid’s dress in the limo while I read an article to him off my phone. When I finish I say, “Well?”

“You shouldn’t fixate on a gossip columnist.”

“It’s not a gossip site. This is a news article, Richard,” I snap. “Did you not hear what they said?” I’m about to reread the part of the article where they condemn him for not being a real dominant in a dominant/submissive relationship. I didn’t even know there were standards that had to be met.

“There aren’t rules,” he says calmly. “We do what works for us, and if no one on the internet likes it, then they’re free to watch another porn that doesn’t star us.” He grins. “Although, they won’t be as good…”

I turn around and smack his chest. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he says, staring down at me with an intense gaze, like he’d love to consume all of me.

Love.

I smile. Yes, he loves me.

That never gets old.

“You need to stop reading all of these articles that dissect the sex videos,” he says in a low, husky voice. “It’ll spin your mind.”

“Maybe I like my mind to be spun.”

“I can find a much healthier way to do that.” His lips rise, and he leans close to kiss me, but the limo bumps down the cobblestone street, tearing my attention to the outside.

“We’re here,” I say, filled with a flurry of emotions.

Our limo ditches the rabid media behind the entry, and I roll down my window, hearing the helicopters buzzing in the air. I ignore them and focus on the palace looming ahead, taking in the stunning architecture and massive size. This really is a wedding fit for a queen.

I hope Lily is more excited than anxious today. I feel like I’m carrying nerves for the both of us. I’m not sure what to expect. Connor has taken the reins of the wedding, which means every detail is a surprise. He’s already confessed to changing the venue, no longer a church in the heart of Paris.

We’re a little bit outside of the city now. “I still don’t know how you booked the Château de Fontainebleau,” I tell him, stunned.

Connor wraps an arm over my shoulders and leans into my ear. “I have my ways.”

Connor and his ways. “You mean your connections,” I clarify.

“Those, yes,” he smiles.

I check the time on my cell again, and he slips it right out of my hand. I ignore his tactics to calm my nerves, and I hike up my bright pink bridesmaid dress to climb to the seat closest to the driver. “Excuse me,” I say in clipped words. “Could you drive just a little faster? We’re running behind.”

“We’re thirty minutes early,” Connor reminds me, his smile only widening.

“And I wanted to be an hour early,” I snap at him. “But someone spent fifteen minutes just choosing cufflinks. I don’t think Loren really cares that you put on your…” I glance at his wrists. “Are those real gold?”

His grin lifts to his eyes, which only makes me roll mine. And then I catch a peek out the window and my stomach dives. What the…fuck!

I grab at my dress again, bunching the pink fabric in my hand so that I don’t rip it. I move to the window and practically stick my entire head out like a dog. Not the most unladylike thing I’ve done. But it’s close. Connor’s hands land on my hips and pull me back in.

“There are cameras in the sky,” he says.

“And there are roses on the path!” I scream, my eyes bugged. “You changed the flowers to roses?!” Lily is going to kill me. This is so, so, so wrong. I chose orchids. Neutral flower territory.

Connor’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and he follows my frantic gaze. “That must have been a mistake.” He turns back to me and cups my cheeks. “Breathe. I’m going to text the wedding coordinator and have them change it.”

“You’re the wedding coordinator,” I refute.

He grins again.

“Hun, I’m the wedding delegator. I have one wedding planner and ten wedding coordinators at my disposal, which really are just glorified assistants.”

Of course he would delegate all of his duties. Now I’m really nervous. He has put trust into other people, whereas I’d rather kill myself by trying to do it alone. Check your pride, Rose. Right, my pride is not fucking up anything today. I go to look at what else has been ruined, but he keeps his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to stay.

“This is going to be a long day. I want you beside me, not crawling out of a window,” he tells me. “What do you say? You accept this challenge, Rose Calloway?”

I nod, willing to feed into his plans to calm my nerves.

Just this once.

* * *

“Where is everyone?!” My heels clap down the empty corridor that echoes. No one is here. I don’t understand. No Lily or Loren. No Ryke or Daisy. No guests or parents. I’m not stupid. It’s clear that Connor changed the time of the wedding.

“What’d you push it back to?”

“Four,” he says. “You wanted to be early.”

“Not three hours early.” Is he crazy?

I put my hands on my hips, but he sets his palm on the small of my back and leads me in a new direction.

“Where are we going?”

“Outside.”

“I need to call Lily. I need to find her and make sure she’s not hyperventilating.”

“Lily’s fine.”

“I’m sure she’s on the precipice of a mental breakdown,” I ignore his comment. “It’s my duty as the maid of honor to calm her.”

“Has anyone ever told you to stop and smell the roses?” he asks with an edging smile.

I roll my eyes. “Ha ha,” I say. “I’ve heard them all, believe me—” I’m distracted as soon as my heels sink into the manicured lawn. And then I look up and I become rooted to the earth. Connor waits by my side, his hand never leaving my back.

Cream, pink and red roses cascade along hedges, filling the gardens. But it’s not the gorgeous flowers that have me overflowing with emotion.

In the open courtyard stands Lily, Daisy and Poppy, wearing pale pink bridesmaids’ dresses, simple and light, unlike the one I’m smothered in. Almost like something I used to wear at ballet recitals.

“I don’t…” I shake my head as I take in their bright, glowing features. Lily is crying. And smiling.

Then I see Poppy’s husband and Ryke and Loren, all in tuxes, dapper and handsome. And then…

“Mother?”

My mom wipes a couple tears as she smiles. She has her hands to her chest, choked with emotion, her pearls gone for the day. I almost start crying at the sight. My father stands by her side with an equally heartfelt reaction towards me.

Connor gently leads me closer to them.

I add together all the pieces and I shake my head quickly. “Connor, Connor we can’t hijack my sister’s wedding.”

“I didn’t,” Connor says.

“We gave it to him a month ago,” Loren explains with a growing smile.

“What?” I look between all of them, incensed that they kept a secret from me at first, but then I absorb each face, each family member and friend.

Everyone is happy.

I imagined today as a brutal one. Yelling. Screaming. Tugging Lily down the aisle, praying both her and Loren would say yes. “But…” I stammer as I glance at both my mother and father. I haven’t processed what’s happening to me yet. “…Lily’s inheritance. You said she couldn’t get it back until she married Loren.”

“We’re still engaged,” Lily says, she sidles next to Loren and he wraps an arm around her waist. “We’re just waiting to get married like we wanted to.”

“And it’s okay,” my dad says with a nod. “We’re not making their marriage a stipulation to anything. They can do that on their own time.”

I look to my mother. She reaches to her collar where her pearls would sit, but without them present, she touches the hollowness of her bone. It’s her only tell, her only giveaway that she may not be one-hundred percent satisfied with this outcome for my sister. But her lips stay pressed in a thin line, not arguing. She’s accepting it now, and that’s a start. The reality show did repair more of Lily’s image than this wedding could have. People were given six months of footage to fall in love with her and Loren instead of a dozen pictures.

“It’s okay,” Lily says again. “This day is yours.”

“What?” My voice is lost to shock.

Connor takes my hand, and I face him. It’s quiet. The only noise from the fountain beside us and the birds flapping in the sky. The helicopters sound far away from the courtyard, like little insects in the distance.

“Rose,” Connor breathes. And then he drops to one knee. He takes the black box from his pocket and flips it open. “Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”

I don’t even look at the diamond. “Yes,” I say, not hesitating, not thinking. I just say the one word that makes the most sense because my heart tells me so. I’m in such a fog that I only realize he’s standing and kissing me when everyone claps around us.

I smile and hold onto his face, not wanting my lips to part from his yet.

He grins into the kiss.

I’m getting married.

Today.

Holy shit. He breaks apart, and Daisy approaches me first with a dress box. She opens it, and I see the gown I sewed folded neatly underneath plastic wrapping. “We had the bust altered so you’d fit in it and not Lily,” she admits. “I stole the gown from your closet.”

I run my fingers over the plastic. I designed my own wedding dress. I smile. The dress I know I’ll love. The material is delicate, as thin as a ballet recital outfit that’ll reach my collarbone, how I like my clothes. Connor, I realize, found better bridesmaids gowns to match what I had created for Lily.

“It’s perfect,” I say. I glance back at Connor and I shake my head. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me.”

“I know what you love,” he says, “I was happy to make this day ours.”

I breathe out slowly so I don’t start crying all over again. My sisters begin to trickle inside to get ready for the wedding…my wedding. Loren and Ryke follow suit. With Poppy’s husband and my father in tow.

Connor and my mother are the only two who linger in the courtyard.

My mother takes my hands in hers. “Rose,” she says with glassy eyes. “I love you, and I never thought you’d get married…”