Page 61 of All The Happily Ever Afters

My fingers pinch the zipper, half way up, as we pose for another shot.

The camera clicks and flashes before the photographer looks down at it and then tells us she got the shot.

My heart hammers the closer we get to the wedding, but the buzz of champagne and the happiness clearly evident in everything Viv does is addictive.

I’m happy she’s happy.

I want that happiness too.

“It’s so beautiful on you,” I tell Viv as I pull the zipper up and slip the fastener into place. “This dress looks like it was made for you.” The lace and the deep V-neck, it’s just stunning.

“My cheeks already hurt from smiling,” Viv says teary-eyed. She’s done a one-eighty in the last two hours. Ever since the crew started putting her dream wedding into place.

I had a dream wedding planned once. We’d been together for almost three years. It made sense to start thinking about church bells and all the white lace I could dream up.

Until Aiden broke my heart; twice.

The first time when he left me, volunteering to fight in the Army alongside his cousins and brother. Leaving me pining for him and worried every night of the two years he was gone. And bringing up memories I’d longed buried.

The second time was when he came back with his cousin in a casket and told me it was over. To stop sending him letters. I saw a broken man who needed love. He saw a way to hide in his regret, his pain, and even his anger.

I believe in true love and fate. And that’s why I held on. He was the only one who knew me. Who really knew me.

In a world where I knew I didn’t quite fit in, he was my counter. My other half.

I let him come in and out of my life. Sneaking in late at night to hold me and fuck me, but never giving me anything other than pleasure in the dark.

The first night, I don’t know if he was aware that I knew he’d come in.

I heard the door open, the creak stopped me from crying so hard. It was only days after the funeral. Days after he’d ended it, even though I’d sent him letters for years, and he’d sent them in return.

He wasn’t going back to war; his time was over. But he wasn’t coming back to me either.

I gave him a key and told him I knew why he didn’t want to see me, but that it was okay. I was forever attached to a sin that he struggled to accept. But that didn’t change how I felt about him, or how he felt about me.

He crept into the bedroom, as quiet as he could be. I still remember closing my eyes and pretending to sleep. I don’t know how long he sat in the chair, but I know he cried quietly.

I gripped the comforter, wanting to go to him, but I knew that’s not what he wanted. The next night it happened, Iwouldn’t let him cry alone. Even if he didn’t want to tell me what’d happened.

Even though he let me hold him that night, it took days before he came back and when he did, he told me not to let anyone know. That night I cried with him, for both of us, but agreed to keep his secret.

The moment I did, he kissed me like he was starved for me. He whispered along the crook of my neck that he never wanted to see me in pain, that he never wanted to miss me again.

But he lied to me, he would miss me again. And I would miss him. Because he only came every so often, and we went about our lives separately, keeping up the rumors that after years of waiting for him to return, he broke my heart and left me.

Some would call it pathetic, that I would let a man come and go, not giving me anything other than his heart at night.

But secrets have layers that run deep. Just as he needed me, I needed him, and that’s a truth no one can deny.

AIDEN

I’ve been waiting here for nearly half an hour, waiting for her to sneak out of the reception. The night air is crisp and sends a soothing chill up my jacket sleeves as I lean against the brick wall just outside of the back exit.

There’s no one here as the sun sets along the trees of the forest behind the old brick building.

The crickets are louder than the music that drifts through the walls, and I know she could scream my name out here and none of them would hear it.

The door creaks open, the rusty hinges giving her away, my Ella, as she slips outside. Peeking up through her lashes, her hazel eyes are filled with nothing but desire.

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