Cleave

“Micah, wake up, man,” I heard from beside me as I felt my shoulder being nudged forcefully. I groaned and tried to roll over and go back to sleep but whoever was trying to rouse me wouldn’t let me. “Come on! It’s today, dude, you need to get ready!”

It took me a few seconds to realise what he meant, and when I did, I finally opened my eyes to see James staring back at me. He was wearing casual clothing – jeans and a t-shirt – but I knew that before long he would be standing next to me wearing a charcoal grey suit and fancy shoes as I married the love of my life.

“Today,” I mumbled, struggling to sit up in bed and hearing all my bones crack back into place. “God, I’m getting old.”

“Oh shut up. You’re only 20,” James said, offering me a hand to help me get the rest of my way out of bed. I winced as he pulled me to my feet. I still had a bit of trouble with my pelvis in the mornings, even two years after the car crash. It sometimes took a few minutes for me to get enough feeling in my legs to be able to walk without falling over.

“What’s the time?” I asked James after a couple of seconds of stretching out my muscles.

“9 o’clock,” he replied. “We have breakfast at 9:30, then a couple of hours to chill out until we have to get dressed. Then at 2:30 we’re leaving here to make sure we’re at the beach by 3.”

I nodded, and absentmindedly reached for my phone, which was sitting on my old bedside table at my parent’s house. I opened up the phone and went into my messages, but when James peeked over my shoulder and saw whose name I had clicked on, he quickly snatched the phone away from me.

“Hey!” I protested, reaching for the phone. He dodged out of my way and hid it behind his back.

“No, Micah. You both agreed, no seeing or texting each other before the wedding,” James said.

“But, just one couldn’t –”

“No!”

I pouted. “Fine.”

“Get dressed. I’ll meet you in the kitchen in five minutes,” he said as he left my room, taking my phone with him. I rolled my eyes, but got moving anyway, picking out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt for the day. I quickly changed into them and then headed out to the kitchen, where James, my dad and my sisters were waiting. Looking around at the group, I figured out that I was the last person up.

“How do you feel, MJ?” Elise said to me with a huge smile on her face. “You’re getting married today!”

“I know… I still can’t quite believe it. Can somebody pinch me?” I replied, quickly swatting James’ hand away from me as he went to actually pinch me. It was so weird to me that in only a couple of hours, I would be a husband.

“When your mother and I got married, I was a nervous wreck,” Dad commented as he placed a plate of freshly cooked bacon and eggs on the kitchen island, which was immediately snatched up by Elise. “I nearly forgot when I had to say ‘I do’. So make sure you pay attention to the celebrant and you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks Dad, I think,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Did you talk to Mom at all?”

Dad frowned. “I’ve tried to talk her into coming today, but I don’t know if she will. She’s very stubborn, and you know that she was never happy that you and Angel got back together.”

“Yeah, I know. She barely tolerates me speaking about him half the time.” I sighed. Since I got engaged, my mother and I had been constantly at war about my relationship. I had thought things had been getting better between my mother and I after I got out of the hospital but as soon as the engagement ring went on my finger, it was like all that progress went out the window and she was just as homophobic and opinionated as before and I stopped being invited for Sunday family nights. When she found out that my dad said I could stay at my parents’ house the night before my wedding, she refused to be there, instead opting to stay at a motel for the night. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise that she didn’t want to come to my wedding. I had still given her an official invitation though, in case she changed her mind.

“Mics, don’t worry about her. This is your day. You’re going to get married to Angel and you’re going to start your lives together and it’s her choice if she wants to be a part of that or not,” Georgia spoke up, coming to stand next to me and wrap her arm around my shoulders.

“Yeah, man. We’re all here for you, we’re excited for you. You don’t need negativity bringing you down,” James said. “This is supposed to be the happiest day of your life, and we’re all going to do the best we can to make sure it is. This reminds me, we need to get going if we’re going to make our booking for breakfast.”

I nodded. Georgia squeezed me a little before letting me go, and then James and I headed out. We were meeting Mason (yes, that Mason – he, Alex, Kyle and Angel met a few months after we got engaged after I decided I would like them to come to the wedding. It was slightly awkward at first given my history with Mason but eventually they became friends and Mason was a groomsman in my wedding party) and Isabelle, my maid of honour, at one of my favourite cafés to have my ‘bachelor’ breakfast. Angel and I had decided not to do traditional bachelor’s parties because it would have had to be a joint one since all our friends are the same and it would have defeated the purpose. In fact, there wasn’t much that was traditional about our wedding, as you may have noticed with who was in my wedding party. Angel’s was much the same, with Drew as his best man, Braden as his groomsman and Rochelle as his maid of honour.

“Micah, we’re here,” James said from beside me in the car. “You were daydreaming again.”

I snapped out of my reverie and got out of the car, James following my actions and we both walked into the small café. There, we saw Isabelle sitting by herself at a four-seater table. She was staring at her phone looking bored until James walked up to her and touched her shoulder, making her jump.

“Oh! Hi, I was just about to text you,” she said, standing up and giving James a quick peck on the lips and turning to give me a big hug. “How are you feeling? Excited? Nervous? Both?”

“Both,” I agreed, hugging her back for a second before pulling away. “Mason not here yet?”

“He is,” a voice came from behind me, startling me and I turned around to see that he had just arrived and was still wearing his sunglasses. “And right on time, too.”

“Hi,” I said, pulling him into a brief hug. He kissed me quickly on the cheek and released me before shaking James’ hand and offering Isabelle a friendly smile. “Take your sunglasses off, you look like a douche.”

“Thank you,” Mason said sarcastically, but took the glasses off nevertheless. We all took our seats at the table and soon after, a waitress came over to give us menus to look over.

The four of us spent a few minutes deciding what we wanted for breakfast before the waitress came back and took our orders. While we waited for our meals to come, we chatted about random things – steering clear of the wedding, since that had already been discussed about a million times before – until Isabelle went to the bathroom and Mason decided to put James on the spot to answer a question that I had also been wondering about for some time.

“So, if Isabelle catches Micah’s bouquet today, is that going to motivate you to pop the question, James?”
The question clearly caught him off guard because it took a good few seconds for him to speak.

“Uh… well, first off, since when is there a bouquet being thrown? Micah isn’t a bride,” James said.

“Stalling,” I muttered under my breath. Louder, I said, “That’s true but you still didn’t answer the question. You’ve been together for years now.”

“I know that. I love her but I’m just not ready to get married so young. I want to marry her, though, just not yet. We have discussed it, by the way, and she’s not ready yet either. So there,” he finished, childishly sticking his tongue out at me and Mason.

“Fair enough,” I said simply. “Just don’t keep her waiting for when you are ready to tie the knot.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

“Won’t what?” Isabelle said, as she returned to her seat.

“Drop the ring when he gives it to Micah,” Mason lied easily.

Isabelle nodded seriously. “Yeah, don’t do that, James.”

“I wo –”

“Okay,” said the waitress as she came over carrying two plates, cutting off James’ protest. “I have two smashed avocado on toast with poached eggs and bacon?”

“One here,” James said, pointing in front of him, “And the other is hers, thanks.”

The waitress left the plates and went back to the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with a bowl of berry granola for Mason and a ham, tomato, olive, Spanish onion and mushroom omelette with hash brown on the side for me.

The four of us dug into our meals without further ado and after about twenty minutes of rigorous eating (and drinking, when our coffees arrived), we were finished our meals and had only the rest of our coffees to finish up. We took our time with them, savouring the taste and relishing in relaxing environment. Eventually, they were finished as well and we paid the bill before leaving to head back to my parents’ house.

It was about 11:30 when we got back, meaning that we still had a couple of hours to kill before we needed to get ourselves ready, so James, Mason and I played video games while Isabelle painted her finger and toe nails and curled her hair in preparation for later. The boys and I were so caught up in our game that it was only when my dad came into the room already dressed in his suit that we realised that we should probably get ourselves dressed as well. Isabelle went into Georgia’s room to do her makeup and put on her dress while I went into my room with James and Mason to dress in our suits. Theirs was a charcoal grey suit with a black shirt and tie, while mine was black with a white shirt and silver tie. After, in the bathroom, I straightened my hair, brushed my teeth and checked to see if I needed to shave my face (I didn’t; at 20 I had still yet to grow anything that resembles real, noticeable facial hair) and then all I needed to do was put my shoes on and make sure I had the piece of paper with my little speech on it in my jacket pocket and I was ready to go. Half an hour before we had to leave to get to the beach, my wedding car, a Lamborghini, arrived, which was going to take me, James, Isabelle and Mason, and then my family was going to follow behind in my dad’s car.

While we waited for the girls to finish getting ready, reality hit me hard. I was getting married. In a little more than half an hour, I was going to stand in front of my family and friends and pledge my love and life to Angel Jerome. And I couldn’t wait. Sure, I was nervous as hell, but I was also so excited. I loved Angel more than I could possibly have imagined when I first met him and now here I was about to marry him.

My father’s hand on my shoulder startled me out of my thoughts. I looked up at him and saw the smile on his face. “Are you ready, Micah?”

“Yes,” I replied softly. I smiled back at him. “Let’s do this. Are the girls nearly ready?”

“We’ve been out here waiting for you to wake up for like five minutes, MJ,” Elise said, and sure enough, when I looked around the room, my sisters and Isabelle were all there. Isabelle and Rochelle’s dresses were the same silver as mine and Angel’s ties and were long and flowy with thin spaghetti straps. Isabelle looked stunning in hers and I knew Rochelle would as well. My sisters also looked amazing all dressed up with their makeup done. “So are we going now?”

“We’re going now,” I agreed, and headed out the door and down to the Lamborghini. The driver was leaning against the side of the car on his phone but as soon as he saw us exit the house, he snapped to attention and became very professional. My wedding party and I got into the car and soon we were off to the beach in style. The cars were pretty much the biggest cost of the day, and were the only things besides the suits and dresses that we splurged on. Everything else for the wedding was pretty simple, including the reception, which we wanted to keep small and intimate, with only our closest friends and family.

Before I knew it, we had arrived. There were quite a few people there – it looked like pretty much everyone we had invited showed up – including my cousins Hallie and Jeremy and a heap of mine and Angel’s friends, as well as the celebrant that was going to be marrying us. There were also a few people that I didn't recognise but I assumed they were here for Angel.

As I said before, there wasn't much that was traditional about our wedding and that extended to the fact that, instead of one of us waiting at the end of the aisle, we would both walk down it together, following our wedding parties, so James, Isabelle, Mason and I had to wait at the car while my father and sisters headed down to the gathered crowd. As I looked at everyone who had turned up, my heart sank a little bit when I noticed that my mother hadn't turned up. To be honest, I wasn't expecting her to, but I found that I was still a little disappointed to not see her there.

The celebrant came up to where we were waiting and spoke to me a little about the ceremony, but I was only half paying attention. The other half of me was wondering where Angel was because he was late. Not very late, but still late nonetheless and thoughts like ‘maybe he changed his mind’ wormed their way into my head. The celebrant soon realised that it was useless trying to talk to me while I was so distracted and left me alone to worry quietly to myself, and it was only when a shiny white Maserati came speeding down the road toward the wedding venue that I allowed myself to breathe freely again. Almost as soon as the car cut its motor, the doors opened and out jumped my husband-to-be, Drew, Rochelle and Braden and they made their way over to us. The celebrant left to stand at the end of the aisle and we organised ourselves to join her.

The girls joined arms, Mason and Braden, and James and Drew stood next to each other and Angel and I finally got to see each other for the first time since I went to my parents’ house the afternoon before the wedding, and he took my hand in his. The music started, and then the eight of us started our processional down the aisle.

“You were late,” I whispered to Angel as we walked.

“The bride is always late. It's tradition,” he whispered back, making me snort quietly with laughter.

“You're no fucking bride.”

“Okay, Princess, you can be the bride then.”

“I think the point of a marriage between two men is that there is no bride,” I pointed out. Angel shrugged, grinning at me and making my heart beat faster. His smile lit up his entire face and I couldn't believe that someone so attractive wanted to marry me. Did I mention that he looked absolutely phenomenal in his suit and tie? Because he did.

“Family and friends,” the celebrant said once we had arrived at the front and stepped onto the platform. “We have come together today to witness the marriage of Angel Jerome and Micah Gerard, two young men who have found happiness and love in each other. Today, they are taking the first step of their new life together, and we share with them their delight in finding love with each other and support their decision to be together from now until the end of forever. Angel and Micah, I remind you that marriage is a precious gift, a lifelong dedication to love and a daily challenge to love one another more fully and more freely. I would now like to invite Angel to speak.”

Angel hadn't taken his eyes off me the whole time the celebrant was talking and that didn't change as he started to speak.

“Micah. My wonderful, amazing, gorgeous friend. I never knew how much I craved love before I met you. Not just being loved, but loving someone as well. When I first met you, I didn't think I would end up here with you; dressed up in uncomfortable suits and surrounded by our family and friends. I was so set in my ways that when we met in drama class at school, I didn’t even see a relationship with you, but after getting to know you, everything changed and you were all I wanted forever. Despite all that we've been through together and apart, I never stopped wanting to be with you, I never stopped loving you and I never will. You're stuck with me now, because I don't ever want to let you go.” Angel smiled at me as he reached up to wipe under my eye where tears had formed. Only to me, he whispered, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” I whispered back, sniffling a little, but smiling as well.

“I would now like to invite Micah to speak,” the celebrant announced and my palms immediately went sweaty. I always hated public speaking, which was why I had to write down everything I wanted to say tonight. I pulled out the paper that I had in my jacket pocket and started to read, occasionally looking up to see Angel’s smiling face.

“You changed the way I see the world. Up until I met you, there was a lot of stuff I believed that you changed my opinion of – the big one being about two guys being together. But you drove me insane when we first met,” I began, and paused while Angel and a lot of the guests laughed. “With all your cheesy pick-up lines and constant flirting, half the time I was ready to kill you just so that you would leave me alone. But then we got paired up to research the male reproductive system. We had to spend a lot of time together, and I slowly went from wanting to kill you to wanting to kiss you. And it confused me and scared me but I… I couldn’t help but want to be with you. You helped me grow, you helped me heal. You made me love you, and I will always love you,” I finished. I carefully folded my notes and returned the paper to my jacket pocket before I took Angel’s hands once more as the celebrant moved on to the vows.

“Angel, if it is your desire to become the husband of Micah, please repeat after me. I, Angel Jerome…”

“I, Angel Jerome…”

“Take you, Micah James Gerard, to be my husband…”

“Take you, Micah James Gerard, to be my husband…”

The celebrant continued on, pausing occasionally to wait for Angel to repeat her words: “In this moment, I promise before these witnesses to love you and care for you all of our days. I accept you with all your faults and your strengths, even as I offer myself with my faults and strengths. I promise to support you when you need support and turn to you when I need support. I choose you as the one with whom I will spend my life.”

When it was my turn, I repeated the vows the same way.

“Angel and Micah will now exchange rings. Angel, do you take Micah to be your husband, to share your life openly, standing with him in sickness and health, in joy and in sorrow, in hardship and in ease, to cherish and love forever more?”

“I do,” Angel said, receiving a ring from Drew and sliding it into my finger. “Especially in sickness.”
I laughed quietly while the celebrant asked me the same.

“Micah, do you take Angel to be your husband, to share your life openly, standing with him in sickness and health, in joy and in sorrow, in hardship and in ease, to cherish and love forever more?”

“I do.” James handed me the ring for Angel, and, with shaking hands, slid it onto his finger.

“I now pronounce you partners for life. You may now kiss,” the celebrant said, and we wasted no time in obliging.

Angel pulled me into him and placed a hard, passionate kiss on my mouth, which I returned with just as much passion. His tongue forced its way past my lips and explored my mouth while my hands tangled in his hair and held him close, and it was only when James cleared his throat quietly behind me that I remembered we were surrounded by people and reluctantly pulled away. I could hear a few people snickering in the crowd and blushed lightly, looking away from Angel shyly.

“The grooms and witnesses will now sign the registration,” the celebrant announced, and Angel took my hand and led me to the table that was set up to the left of the platform where we were just married. The two of us signed the paperwork binding us legally together, and then we moved away so that James and Drew could do the same as our witnesses before our photographer wanted one of the four of us at the table together. Angel and I sat down in the chairs while our best men stood beside us and we had a couple of photos taken. After one where we were photographed looking as if we were still signing the paper, I looked up past the photographer and caught the eye of someone I didn't expect to see.

“Mom?” I said, even though there was no way she would have been able to hear me from where she was standing at the back of the audience. Angel looked up and saw her as well, and then glanced at me, probably to make sure I was okay. I had no idea how long she was standing there for, and I didn’t know if she was there to celebrate or to cause drama, which made me nervous. I wanted to get up and speak to her but I didn’t know if I should. It seemed that Angel read my mind, because he nudged me gently.

“Go on,” he said quietly. “Go talk to her.”

“But what about –”

“Don’t worry about the order of ceremony. It’s your wedding, babe, you can do what you want,” he said, giving my shoulder a slight push.

I walked down to where my mother was standing and stood in front of her and waited for her to speak. The first words out of her mouth made my heart sink.
“I don’t agree…”

“But then why are you –” I stopped talking when she raised a hand to indicate she wasn’t finished. I let her continue.

“I don’t agree, and I will never understand… but I can see how happy he makes you. And how much you love each other. This isn’t going to be easy for me, you understand that Micah? But I don’t want you not in my life. You’re my only son and I love you, even though I don’t love some of the choices you’ve made. So, I think you should… you should introduce me to my son-in-law,” she finished, showing me a small smile.

I wrapped my arms around her in a quick hug, before I turned to see Angel and a lot of the guests watching our exchange. I waved Angel over.

“Mom,” I said once he got to us and wrapped an arm around my waist, “I would like you to meet my husband, Angel. Angel, this is my mother.”

Angel reached slowly out in front of him in an offer of a handshake, and my mother took it, shaking twice and then separating their hands.

“It’s good to meet you, Mrs Gerard.”

“Same to you. Please look after my son,” Mom said, smiling a little, though it looked forced.

“I will. You have my word,” Angel said sincerely, before raising his voice to the other guests. “Okay, everyone, Micah and I are gonna party it up at the reception, so if you want to come join us, I suggest you start heading there now!”

He then scooped me up into his arms bridal-style and walked us slowly to the Maserati that was still waiting there to take us to the reception hall.

“I can’t wait to get you home,” Angel growled in my ear as he walked. “I’m gonna make love to you so hard you won’t be able to walk for a week.”

“Wow, romantic, babe,” I commented, laughing.

“That’s me. King of Romance, right here. You know I had you from the first pick-up line.”

“’I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling myself today. Can I feel you instead?’” I quoted, remembering the first day we met. “You’d better come up with some better lines if you want to keep me around.”

“We’re married. You’re stuck with me, remember?”

“Yeah, I am,” I said and I kissed him. “I think I can live with that.”