A Night to Last a Lifetime

I woke up on the morning of my wedding day with the best feeling in the world. I rolled over and looked at Gabriel, who was still sleeping. I couldn’t help but smile, thinking about how today was the day I was going to marry the love of my life. A few minutes later there was a light knock on the door. “Come in!” I said, as Gabe started stirring.

In walked Beatrice. “Happy wedding day!” she yelled as she walked in. “Time to get up! Gabe, you gotta go get in the shower. I wanna have a chat with my sister-in-law to be!”

“Ugh, Bea. Come back in two minutes. Let me at least wake up, please,” Gabe whined.

“Fine. But hurry up. This is an important chat.”

She shut the door behind her and Gabe rolled over. “Good morning, Mrs. Landeskog,” he said, grinning like a fool.

“Not yet…” I said with a little smile, leaning down to kiss him. “Go get in the shower. I need to get in so I can do my hair.”

“God you girls are bossy today. If I didn’t love you I’d probably call this off.”

“You wouldn’t be that stupid,” I said with a wink. “Now go!”

He climbed out of bed and pulled on some clothes. “See you in a few hours, I guess!” he said excitedly. We weren’t going to see each other anymore until the actual wedding.

“I’ve never been so excited,” I replied, with a huge smile on my face.

As soon as he had shut the door Beatrice was swinging it wide open, running in and jumping on the bed. “You’re getting married today!” she exclaimed. “I just wanted to tell you that I can’t wait for you to officially be a part of this family, Sophie. Honestly – you’re the sister I’ve never had and I’m so excited to finally be able to call you that.”

“Awe, Bea. That’s so sweet! I’m excited too! I love your family and I’m so excited to finally be called Mrs. Landeskog. We’ve been waiting way to long for this,” I replied, pulling her into a hug. “I also wanted to say, I’m really sorry I didn’t ask you to be in the wedding party. We wanted small and we decided that a simple maid of honour and best man was all we wanted…”

“Oh, my God! It’s fine, Sophie! My whole family understands that decision. We’re just so happy we get to be here and see you guys finally get married!”

“Oh thank God! I still want you to be involved though – I’m going to need help with my hair and make-up. Tori said she’d do it but we all know they’ll show up late. I’d love your help!”

“Of course!” she replied. “Go get in the shower. We’ve got 2 and a half hours until the ceremony. I’ll get you all fancied up and hopefully be out before Tori shows up, so you guys can have your moment,” she said, smiling.

“Sounds perfect!” I explained, standing up. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I’m getting married today!”

I quickly showered and pulled on some pajamas. Beatrice then helped me style my hair and do my make-up. I was ready with an hour to spare before I had to have my dress on. She left me to be alone in my room, expecting Tori any minute. I decided to go on my laptop for a while, to waste some time – I was so excited and that made time go super slow. I checked my e-mail and noticed that Gabriel had mentioned me in a Tweet.

“Well, today’s the day I marry the love of my life @sophiejones!” He had also attached a picture of his tuxedo hanging on the closet door. I quickly favorited it and hit reply.

“@GabeLandeskog92 Finally! I can’t wait to be Mrs. Landeskog. :)”

I smiled to myself and moved on to other sites – not really paying attention to anything other than the time. “I wonder where Tori is…” I whispered to myself. At that moment she burst in through the door, yelling apologies and trying to catch her breath. I calmed her down and we had our emotional sister-to-sister conversation. I couldn’t help but cry when she told me she was moving to North Carolina. I was so proud at how much growing up she had done throughout the last year and it made me so happy that she had decided to go back to school and make something of herself. It was hard to think, but it occasionally crossed my mind that maybe everything had happened the way it was supposed to. I knew in my heart that she would have another opportunity to be a mother – be it with Jeff or someone else. For the moment, I was ecstatic that she and Jeff were working out so well and so was Gabriel.

We got me situated in my dress and applied final touches to our hair and make-up. We were ready just in time, as Mom came bursting in through the door telling us it was time to get the show on the road.

Walking down that aisle and seeing Gabriel standing at the other end was the happiest moment of my life. I was unbelievably happy and also proud that we had been able to make it through everything the last – close to four – years. The whole ceremony moved way too fast and before I knew it, I was kissing my new husband and we were walking back to my house hand in hand. The focus for the rest of the day was the party. After the stress dealing with losing Casey and planning a wedding, it was so nice to finally be able to have some sort of celebration at which everybody was simply happy.

During our “first dance”, Gabriel leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Well, it’s official, Mrs. Landeskog.”

I looked up into his eyes. “God. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever to hear those words,” I replied.

The night went so fast. Everybody was having a blast – drinking, eating and just plain having fun. I noticed Tori and Jeff having an incredible time together and I couldn’t help but point them out to Gabriel.

“They’re doing really well,” he said, smiling. “I think she’s good for him. He’s settled down a lot and seems even happier than before everything that happened, honestly.”

“I can say exactly the same thing about Tori. At least something good might have come out of this, you know? Even if they don’t last, I think they’ll always have something. I’m really happy they can be good with each other.”

“Who knows? Maybe they’ll even last,” Gabe said, raising his eyebrows. “We could be dancing at their wedding soon enough.”

“That almost feels like some sort of incest…” I said laughing. “It’d be like, the same wedding with a different twin in the dress… That’d be weird. But, you know. If it makes them happy I guess.”

We both laughed and then noticed a lot of the guests had left or were too drunk to function.

“Let’s go to my room,” I said, grinning.

“About fucking time!” Gabriel said, grabbing my hand and pulling me up.

It wasn’t long until I had lost the dress and he had lost the tuxedo. We stayed awake until 6 AM, talking about our future in between having sex – hey, it was our wedding night. It’s expected.

Once the wedding was over, all that was left to do was get packed up and head back to Colorado. It was almost September and we had to get back and settled so Gabriel could get back into hockey. We were back and settled for about two weeks when Tori called, letting me know she was in North Carolina and Jeff was helping her move all of her stuff in. “Sis, I need to tell you something too,” she said.

“Uh-oh… That doesn’t sound good, Tori,” I replied.

“No, it’s nothing like that. Jeff and I were just talking about how happy we were that you guys are married and the topic came up about, you know, you guys having a family. It might be a selfish thing to say but I wanted to tell you that we want you to have babies. Like, soon. I know you want a family more than anything and I wanted you to know that we’re okay with that. We don’t want you guys to hold back and wait until you think we can handle it. I really want to be an aunt, and you having babies just makes sense. We’ll be ecstatic and there with you guys the whole way.”

“Thank you, sis,” I said, choking back tears. “I’m so happy you told me that because I was so afraid. I’ve got some news… I went out and picked up a pregnancy test this morning. Tori, it was positive.”