Page 51 of Sunny Side Up

twenty-six

Time stopped. The live music, luckily, did not, possibly either because the string quartet hadn’t noticed yet, or they had , and they knew it was best to keep playing in hopes of drowning out the sounds of people’s reactions.

As I got up, I did the human thing of looking behind me to see what had tripped me with a face that said “Who put that there?!”

I wanted to die.

But in an instant, almost as soon as my body hit the ground, there was another person beside me, an arm around my shoulders, a hand grabbing my own.

“Oh my god, Sunny, are you okay?” I heard him whisper.

I looked up, and despite the totally, colossally embarrassing scene I had created, I was looking up into those blue eyes.

Dennis.

He helped pull me up, standing me upright again on my feet.

Dennis was here.

I just gaped at him. “I’m okay,” I said, starting to laugh.

“Thank you,” I whispered back to him. “What are you doing here?” He smiled.

The musicians were still playing, harping the same notes on repeat, and the crowd was still looking at us, waiting for me to keep up the procession.

I knew I had to get back to the ceremony, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself away from him, to let go of his hand.

“I think you should keep going,” he whispered back. “We’ll talk after, okay?”

I nodded, dazed, but righted my shoulders.

Dennis squeezed my hand, then kissed me on the cheek.

The cellist started playing louder, a cue for me to keep moving. I saw the coordinator behind me, face red and waving her hands as if that could magically allow her to push my body down the aisle. But behind her, I saw my family.

My dad was grinning from ear to ear. My mom’s eyebrows were raised with budding yet supportive curiosity, surely wondering who that man was. Michael was giving me a thumbs-up.

Dennis was here.

I couldn’t wait to tell them everything.

I couldn’t wait to talk to Dennis, to explain everything, to apologize.

Putting on my biggest, brightest smile, I pivoted around and walked down the aisle, as if nothing at all had happened.

When Michael and Ellie had prepped me on the day’s run-through, I had honestly been kind of annoyed that Michael had set it up so that I would be walking down the aisle alone.

Couldn’t I just start seated? Or, at the very least, walk down with my dad?

But Michael insisted that I open the ceremony, that I would be the best welcoming first face for the guests to see.

Now, I didn’t mind that I was alone. I didn’t need a man’s elbow to hold.

I felt proud to be here, standing tall, on my own. I didn’t want to hide, or suck in my stomach, or do any of the other things I usually did when I realized the spotlight was on me. Instead, I smiled. I let myself be seen.

While the morning rush had moved by in a blur, the ceremony was like molasses.

I’ve never heard an officiant talk slower, or a couple make longer (though quite tear-jerking) vows.

Okay, maybe it was a totally normal ceremony and I was simply biased, impatiently making eyes with the hot mailman in the back of the room, but it definitely felt like the longest half hour of my life.

I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

When the exit song finally played, I exhaled a “Hallelujah!” I couldn’t wait to get to Dennis.

Family photos came next, which took another agonizing hour. It was almost nauseating, the excitement of being in the same room as Dennis again, mixed with adrenaline, mixed with nerves. Hopefully I made enough semi-normal faces for the pictures.

Finally, we were released. I walked as fast as I could without tripping on my dress again into the reception area, and began scanning the room. My heart was beating so fast, so loud, I worried it might explode. What if he left? Did he leave? Was he gone?

Of course not. There he was, next to one of the bars, laughing hard with one of Michael’s college friends, holding a drink and a mini-taco.

Dennis spotted me as I entered and excused himself from his conversation, making his way to where I was standing on the side of the room, near the oversize windows.

I watched as he hesitated, clearly trying to figure out where to put the drink and mini-taco.

Why was it that everything he did made me want to cover him in kisses?

I had so many things I wanted to say, apologies I’d used again and again in my emails and voicemails and texts. But when Dennis stood beside me and gave an adorable little wave, I was suddenly speechless.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he said back. He was more handsome than I remembered, which felt impossible.

He wore a perfectly tailored midnight-navy suit with black Belgian loafers and a blood-orange knitted silk bowtie.

Someone in my life had obviously helped him get dressed.

I was going to have to find out who and send them a cookie.

My dad was going to be so proud. It was the most dapper I’d ever seen him, and I was finding it hard to keep my heartbeat even.

I shook my head. “So… you’re here.”

He smiled. “I’m here.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Avery is very persistent,” he said.

Then he did something that made my heart stop. That made me feel like I’d fallen straight out of a movie.

He pulled a crinkled piece of paper from his pocket.

It was one of the final paragraphs of my last Sunny Side Up post, the one that began with “I fell in love,” followed by “then I fucked it up.” At the bottom of the paragraph, in about size 100 font, all caps, red text, were the words: “READ THE LETTER SHE WROTE YOU. IT’S IN HER MAILBOX.”

“Did Avery email that to you or something?” I asked.

He laughed. “Or something. She papered them along my route. I spent half of yesterday’s morning shift taking these things down. There’s a stack of about fifty, but I only brought the one,” Dennis said. He was grinning. “Honestly, it was pretty hysterical.”

“Wow,” I said, stunned. I hoped that someday I’d have the chance to make Avery’s life as spectacular as she had made mine.

I didn’t want to be anywhere other than where I was in this moment, with Dennis, but I also couldn’t wait to hug the shit out of her, then buy her some extravagant, financially irresponsible gift, like a mini handbag from Chanel.

“She is relentless, but she’s a romantic, I’ll give her that. ”

“Two of the best qualities to have,” Dennis said.

“Avery left her number on the back of your letter, and she helped me arrange my flight to get to the wedding in time. She also got me this cool outfit,” he said with a sly smile.

“But Sunny, I was going to call you, even without all of that. I just needed a minute to figure it all out, what I wanted to say.”

“You were?”

Dennis ran his hand through his hair and my heart skipped faster. “Sorry, I’m being awkward. I rehearsed some lines on the plane, but I can’t remember them anymore.”

I laughed. “I’m being awkward, too.”

“We’re a real pair,” he said. My heart leaped at that. Were we a pair?

“Wait. So you didn’t change your route? Why didn’t you take my letter?”

“What? No. I took the week off for my cousin’s bachelor party. We had the whole boy’s spa weekend/horse racing thing planned in Saratoga, rememba?”

“Kind of,” I said sheepishly, although now it was coming back to me. Hard to forget a “boy’s spa weekend,” which was just… extremely Dennis.

“Also, you know you forgot a stamp on that letter, right? Janine, who covered my route for me, called me. She said it was addressed to me—she was so confused. I told her to just leave it there until I was back.”

“I, uh, wow, good one, Sunny,” I said, shaking my head. “I was kind of a mess when I wrote that.”

“It was perfect,” he said. “Pulitzer-winning.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, setting every pore on my skin aflame. “No, for real. It was everything I needed to hear. Sunny, I’m sorry for leaving the launch like that, for texting you instead of coming to you in person, for going MIA—”

“It’s not your fault, Dennis. I’m sorry, for everything.

For being afraid, for lying when I said I wouldn’t hurt you.

For talking about our dates on the internet.

That was selfish, and reckless. I’m sorry for not being completely honest with you from the start.

But mostly, I’m sorry for taking so long to realize how happy you make me.

” I felt my eyes start to fill. “I think I was too scared to let myself realize it, but I know now. What I wrote in that newsletter was true. I want to be with you, Dennis. With only you.”

A rush of guests pushed past us. Two of them stopped to give me hugs. No clue who they were. Friends of my parents, I assumed. I needed them to leave, immediately. “Hi, nice to see you, if you’ll excuse me…” I need to GTFO , I said in my head

I grabbed his hand and pulled him through the nearest set of doors: the black swinging saloon variety that led us straight into the catering kitchen. Good enough.

As the catering and waitstaff bustled all around us, completely ignoring our presence, I started to relax. We were alone. The universe had wrapped us back in our bubble. He was here, in front of me. I opened my mouth to say it—

I’d almost lost him once. I wasn’t letting that happen again.

“Sunny.” He took my hands and looked into my eyes. “I—”

“I’m just going to make it weird,” I blurted out.

He grinned.

“I love you!” With a vocal exclamation point and everything. I sort of shouted it. It was the opposite of what I’d practiced in my head.

He looked at me like I’d never been looked at before. Like he was soaking me in. Reveling in the moment.

“Sunny, I am pretty sure I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you in your lobby. You must have just moved in. You walked out of the elevator in your insane leopard coat with your wild blond hair, the Golden Girls were with you, and you looked like a movie star. Then you yelled ‘SHIT.’”

“I did?!”