A Night to Last a Lifetime

“Babe, can you come zip me up?” I called out to Jeff.

“Coming! Hang on,” I heard him stumbling around. “Ow! Fuck!”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I banged into the wall. I’m trying to tie this stupid tie and it’s not working,” he said, pouting. "You'd think I'd have this figured out by now..."

“Oh stop. I’ll do it. Just zip me up! We’re running late!”

“Oh, wow. You look incredible…” he said slowly, coming up behind me in the mirror.

“Well you don’t look too shabby yourself, Mr. Skinner,” I said with a smile.

Jeff and I had been officially dating for a little over four months. Things had been interesting – we were trying to deal with all of our grief as well as simply trying to get to know each other – but things had been going surprisingly well. He really was an incredibly nice guy and he wasn’t pushy at all. We both had our issues with getting close – after what had happened we had yet to go any further than making out. And honestly, that was alright with us. We wanted to be sure before we went there again because there was a lot of pain involved.

As of right now, we were struggling getting ready for Sophie and Gabe’s wedding. After a ton of planning done by Sophie and I throughout the summer, today was finally the day. And, as maid of honour and best man, me and Jeff were supposed to be there about 30 minutes ago. But, no surprise, we had slept in and were now in a mad rush.

“Stoppp,” I whined as Jeff wrapped his arms around my waist. “Hun, we really need to go! Just zip me up!”

“Fine,” he said sourly, finally giving in. “Now, tie me up,” he said with a mischievous grin.

“Shut up,” I said laughing. “They’re going to fucking kill us.”

I turned around and quickly tied his tie. Then I grabbed his hand, “Come on!” I pulled him towards the door, grabbing my clutch along the way. “Thank God we went there last night and set everything up or this thing definitely would not be happening right now.”

We jumped into the new car I had bought with the money I had saved from Florida and rushed over to the house – Sophie and Gabriel had decided on getting married in our backyard seeing as they weren’t exactly church people and our backyard was beautiful.

“Go find Gabe! Make sure he doesn’t have cold feet or I’m going to fucking kill him,” I told Jeff.

“He’s not running away from this,” Jeff laughed. “He’s been waiting for this for almost 4 years.”

I ran up to Sophie’s room, bypassing all the guests. “Hey, sis! Sorry. We slept in,” I panted.

“It’s fine! Everything’s on time. We’ve got a half an hour before I need to be down there. Hair’s done. Make-up’s done. All that’s left is the dress,” she turned to me with the biggest smile on her face. “I can’t believe I’m getting married!”

“I can’t believe my baby sister is getting married!” I said, starting to tear up.

“Shut up. You’re older by like two minutes,” she said laughing.

I smiled at her. “You look stunning. Even in your pajamas,” I said, really fighting tears now.

“Don’t make me cry!” she whined, as her eyes started to fill. “You look beautiful too, sis. I couldn’t think of a hotter maid of honour.”

“Oh stop,” I said laughing. “Your whole wedding party is pretty hot if you ask me…”

“Don’t make me puke. You and Jeff still going good? WAIT! The deadline was today wasn’t it! What’d you decide?”

“Well, I sent in the letter last week, I just didn’t mention it…” I said, smiling. “I accepted. Looks like I’m moving to Raleigh!” After Jeff and I hit the two month mark, I had to start really thinking about what I was going to do come September. So, I had started looking into North Carolina State and Jeff took me down for a weekend to look around and see about enrolling. I ended up having the marks for it so I went through the application process. I had found out a few weeks prior to the wedding that I had gotten accepted so, after a serious conversation with Jeff, we decided that we wanted to try it out – on one condition. I had my own apartment. We found a nice one close to campus with very reasonable rent so I signed the lease. It felt good knowing I would have my own space and it made me really happy that Jeff and I weren’t completely rushing into things. Besides, he was going to be really busy with hockey when the season started up and I was simply excited to start rebuilding my life after the madness of the last year.

“Sis, I’m so happy for you. You’ve handled all of this so well,” Sophie said, starting to actually cry. “You’ve grown up so much in the last year and I want you to know how proud Gabe and I are – of both you AND Jeff.”

All I could do was smile as I started to cry. “Thank you,” I whispered as I pulled her into a hug. “It’s been a tough year but listen, today is one hundred percent you.” I let her go and looked her in the eyes. “Let’s get that dress on, shall we? Gabe is going to drop dead when he sees you in this.”

I helped Sophie put on her dress then we cleaned ourselves up and put on the final touches of our make-up. Once we were finished, our mom knocked on the door. “Come on girls,” she said as she came in. “It’s time to – Oh, Soph. Honey, you look beautiful!” she exclaimed.

“NO CRYING!” Sophie and I yelled at the same time.

“I know, I know,” Mom said, fighting it off. “There’s no time for that. Come on!” she finished, pulling us both out of the room.

Mom left us at the top of the stairs, saying that as soon as we heard the music start, I was to help Sophie down the stairs then walk out myself. As soon as the music changed, Sophie was to walk out. Luckily, the whole situation went really smoothly and before we knew it tears were flowing (from both Sophie AND Gabe), ‘I dos’ were said and the first kiss as husband and wife was given. Then, it was on to the party.

Since the incident when Gabe and Jeff had gone out, both Jeff and I had avoided alcohol. We had decided that numbing ourselves to whatever we were feeling probably wasn’t going to work out so instead of drinking, we’d talk to each other. Tonight, though, we were the happiest we had been in months and we jointly decided that a few drinks each would be alright. So, as soon as the music started and the champagne was being poured we started drinking. It wasn’t long until it was clear we were both feeling pretty good so we cut each other off and decided to dance instead. We danced, talked and laughed for hours, until we had both sobered up and most of the guests had either left or were so drunk they could barely stand anymore.

I looked up at Jeff and said, “Let’s go home.” He looked confused for a minute and it occurred to me that I had just referred to his apartment as ‘home’. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said in a bratty tone. “I’ve basically lived there for the last four months.”

“Very true…” he said smirking. He grabbed my hand, “Come on.”

We slowly walked home, taking our time because we really had nowhere to be. When we got in the apartment I closed and locked the door behind me. I turned and leaned back on it, then sunk to the floor. “Jeff?” I whispered.

“What?” he said worriedly, quickly turning around.

“I was actually happy for like, the whole night,” I replied, looking up at him. He came over and sat down across from me.

“I think that’s okay,” he whispered. “I was too.” I leaned forward grabbed one of his hands.

“Yeah…” I whispered, starting to stand up. I pulled him into a standing position and leaned up to kiss him. “I think it’s okay too.”

He leaned down and kissed me and started pulling me towards the bedroom. As soon as the door closed I started untucking his shirt as he started unzipping my dress.

“Wait,” he said, pulling away. “Are you sure?”

I looked up at him and nodded. “I think we’ve waited long enough.”