Page 116 of False Start

I wanted to laugh. I wanted tocry. I could feel how big this moment was before it even happened.

My feet moved me forward, my brain too sluggish to keep up until I was standing a couple feet in front of Riley and Zeke. Zeke held a candle and wore a comforting grin, and Riley handed me the card in her hands.

On the front, in Kyle’s handwriting, it saidI loved you then…

Tears pricked my eyes as I tore the envelope open, and then I laughed, pulling out an old, origami folded note that we’d passed back and forth in high school. The pencil marks on it were faded, but I could still make out the words, from where we just talked about our weekends to where we shamelessly flirted and made promises of making out when we got alone.

It broke my heart as much as it healed me to see that again, to remember what it felt like to be that version of myself with Kyle.

We were so young, so innocent, so hopeful of what the future held.

With encouraging looks from Riley and Zeke, I continued walking along the flower path around the pool, coming to Clayand Giana next. Giana held the candle, her eyes brimmed with tears, and Clay handed me another envelope.

I loved you from afar…

My shaking hands covered my mouth again when I saw what was inside — a flash fiction narrative I’d had published inSmokeLong Quarterlyshortly after graduating high school.

He’d read it.

He’dprintedit and kept it.

When Giana saw my first tear fall, she broke her composure, shoving the candle into Clay’s hand and wrapping me in a fierce hug. I chuckled and held her to me, the heaviness of this moment settling into my bones.

The song changed as I made my way toward Julep and Holden, and now, it was “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran — another song that played that night all those years ago.

Julep handed me the third envelope.

I loved you when I tried to hate you…

I laughed at that, thumbing the matchbox fromRainswhere we’d eaten that night I decided to take him on as a client. It felt like just yesterday, and yet like it was years ago, as if we’d lived an entire lifetime already just this summer.

The last envelope was in Leo’s hands, and he crooked a grin at me before handing it over.

And I love you now. Still. Always.

I couldn’t fight back the tears any longer when I opened this one and found a photo of me, Kyle, and Sebastian. It was one Kyle had snapped on his phone when we’d set up the sprinkler in the backyard and made a day of running through it and tossing water balloons at each other. Droplets clouded the camera and smudged our faces, but Sebastian had his arms around my shoulders and the biggest, toothy grin on his face.

We looked like a family.

In so many ways, we alreadywere.

Leo nodded at me when I looked up at him, his gaze shifting to where Kyle waited for me.

My legs felt heavy and sluggish as I walked those final steps, but Kyle stood tall and sure. His fiery blue eyes seared into mine, sealing every promise those envelopes had whispered.

When I reached him, he gathered the envelopes from my hand and set them aside so he could hold onto me properly. Then, he lowered to one knee.

“Madelyn, I knelt before you just like this only hours ago, but it was in haste. It was in desperation to protect you, to assure you that you weren’t alone, to prove that you had me by your side.” He shook his head. “And while all of those things are true, they’re nowhere near the top of my list when it comes to why I want to make you my wife.”

His wife.

I nearly melted right then and there.

“In this life of mine, I have only loved you. Even when I wanted so desperately to hate you, it was impossible. You have known me, the true core of me, since I was just fifteen years old. We grew up together. We grew apart. And somehow, in a crazy turn of events, or maybe… fate,” he said with a wry grin. “The universe brought us together again.”

I sniffed, squeezing his hands where they held mine.

“I love you, Mads,” he breathed, and when his jaw flexed with those words, when emotion made him swallow — it nearly broke me. “God, I love you fiercely. I love you in a way that would kill me if I wasn’t allowed to act out this love every day of my life. I love your passion and your heart. I love your fight. I love your determination. I loved you as a friend, as my first love, as my first…everything. And I love you even more now, as a mom, as a woman who has worn the weight of the world on her shoulders.”