Work Text:
There’s a fine line between the moment night time ends, and a new day begins. People write poetry about the light, about the first instant the sky breaks open and the world is coloured anew. Where are the poems about that first thought, about the split second our minds catch up to the sensation of waking, that single contemplation which can steer you off course or ignite a fire inside you before your feet have touched the floor?
I could write tomes about my first thoughts. I have 28 years of mornings which have begun with one word, often before the dawn. I have 28 years of mornings which have begun hours after the light. My days have begun with every joy and every heartbreak my mind could recall, and the tomes about my first thought, about the moment I know that night time ends and a new day begins, can all be summarized with one word.
Lexa.
I walk through the shift of night to day most mornings. The official shift. The one of poetry. The one of light. I wake before sunrise and pull on clothes and boots to combat the chill and traipse out into the dark grey, my steps setting a rhythm on the path.
The morning of the wedding I walked for longer than I would on any other day. I walked until the day was well underway, until cutlery was scraping breakfast crumbs into garbage cans, until many of the houseguests had retreated to rooms to prepare for the ceremony, iron crisp lines into dresses and shirts, to practise speeches of sentiments which would be the one thing the photographs could not capture. I walked until my calves ached and my lungs burned, but still I thought about Lexa.
It’d had been months since we’d spent time together in the same space. It’d had been a year since we muttered our way around excuses, told our daughters over dinner that the one solid thing they’d always known and trusted would no longer be. It’d been longer since I’d known myself, recognized my face in the mirror. Longer still since I’d recognized her on the other side of our bed.
The room we were forced to share was too small to accommodate all the baggage which we had dredged in with us. Our apprehension had spread throughout the room like a fog the moment Lexa had arrived. I’d been sitting on the bed for an hour, my brain working double time to find a solution when I knew there was not one.
The spectacular house Addi’s soon to be in-laws had hired for the weekend had enough rooms for each of the couples who would be in attendance. Addi had neglected to inform her fiancés parents that her moms were divorced. A box of glass and metal, perched on the edge of a cliff with views people only dream of, and I was sitting on a king-sized bed mulling over every decision I had ever made and wishing the floor would swallow me whole.
“Well, this is not ideal.” Lexa wheeled her suitcase behind her and stopped at the edge of the bed, one hand resting on her hip as though she expected I’d have a solution.
I would have agreed. If she’d not been standing there as stunning as she was, sunglasses perched on her head sweeping her mane of curls from her face, I would have agreed.
“It’s not her fault, Lex. She was almost in tears apologising to-”
“I know.” Lexa interrupted, removing the glasses and running a hand through her hair. “I talked to her just now. She’d assumed Rebecca would have told her own parents about us at some point.” Throwing the sunglasses on the bed, she unbuttoned her coat and laid it down beside them.
I stood and leaned against the armchair by the window. Smoothing my hand against the suede, I drew patterns in the pile before erasing them again. The weekend was supposed to be one of happiness, of celebration for Addi and Rebecca, and there we were, two of the people who should have been overcome with pride and excitement, wondering how we could possibly survive in the same room together after so long apart.
We’d been divorced for a little over twelve months, but we had treated each other as strangers for years. We’d thought late nights and no sleep would be hard. We had predicted the terrible twos and threes and fours would take their toll. We knew the teenage years would test us. We never once considered that the peace and quiet created by the absence of our daughters would be harder than every year before. We didn’t expect to grow apart when we finally had the chance to grow back in. We didn’t expect the sound of keys in the bowl by the front door to hurt our ears because it was the only thing to break the silence. We didn’t expect to be stuck together in the same room when we already knew we’d have to share time and energy and our children with each other for three days.
I cleared my throat. “The couch over there looks comfy enough. I’ll take that tonight and you can have the bed, then maybe tomorrow night we can swap?” Shrugging my shoulders, I pressed my lips together, my nostrils flaring as I tried not to give too much thought to the lump in the base of my throat.
“It’s not just about the bed, Clarke.” She shook her head and her eyebrows knitted together as she turned to walk away. Hands in her pockets she left the room and let the door click shut behind her. It was more words than we’d spoken in the longest time.
That’s the thing about divorce when your children are old enough to take care of themselves, there’s no need to communicate at all. There weren’t weekend visits to negotiate. We didn’t need to discuss who had which holiday with them. We’d only had one of each since things fell apart on the outside for all to see. Both our children had cars and partners and lives to lead, and we were only a part of it now, not the whole thing. They’d spent the year driving between us, picking holidays themselves. Addi chose her Grandma over both of us when decisions were too hard to make. Ash chose her boyfriend’s family.
I slid open the door to the balcony as a knock sounded against the one which had just closed behind Lexa. Ash leaned against the door frame, sweater pulled down over her hands as she crossed her arms. Her look was a mix of disapproval and disappointment, and I didn’t know which one hurt most, but I searched for my armour, prepared for her snark.
“So you look sad and she looks angry, just like old times, eh?” Her smirk was a mask I knew well, and I hated myself each time I saw the worst of us reflected in the two best things we’d ever done.
“Please, don’t.” I pulled the door across and walked out, appreciating the breeze which mixed with sea mist and slapped against my face. I needed something to pull me from the fog.
I felt her arm across my shoulders before I knew she was beside me. A head taller than me, she rested her weight against me like she was reminding me I was needed, and I wanted to turn and pull her to me and cradle her on my lap as I had when she was younger so I could feel as though I was doing something right again.
“I don’t know how to fix this, Mom. Bec and Addi are arguing the day before their fucking wedding. I don’t know what they were thinking. It makes no sense not to have told the Thompsons. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. What if you or Mom come and sleep in with Cole and I? You can have the couch or something.” She dropped her arm from my shoulder and wrapped both her arms around her middle, shrugging. “I don’t know.”
“If it was just you, I wouldn’t hesitate, but I’m not sharing with you and your boyfriend.” I raised my eyebrows at her, hoping for a giggle, but a weak smile was the best she could offer.
“Well you’ve got all day to figure it out, you won’t have to be in the room much, just…I don’t know. Make the best of it, or something? You pretended to love each other for years, didn’t you? This is three days. You’ll be fine,” she said.
I’d driven the whole way from work with one hand on the wheel and the other hand balled into a fist. My nails pressed against my palm, enough to distract me from the nausea at the thought of seeing Clarke again.
I thought I’d be prepared, but when Rebecca’s mother told me Clarke had already been shown to our room, our room, I felt every sleepless night for the last week catching up with me. I was drained before I reached the door, and was someone I hated the moment I saw her. I left after five minutes. It hurt too much to look at her.
Ashlyn had been to see Clarke already. That much was clear. They were carbon copies of each other, unable to stop from mimicking one and other’s gestures or each other’s moods. She did angry well. Ashlyn hid it behind smiles which looked like razor blades if you could read her right. She was terrible at sad. She wore it like a thick blanket on a cold night, shoulders stooped under its weight. I wanted to fix it for her. I also knew I was too much of the problem to solve a thing for anyone.
Ashlyn looked as much like Clarke as Clarke looked like her own mother. To line up all three was like unpacking a set of matryoshka dolls whose heights ran converse to their ages.
“I’m sorry about this, beautiful. It affects everyone, but I don’t know what to do about it.” I pulled her close and wished she were still small so I could hold her like that more often. I ran my fingers through my hair again, massaging my scalp, trying to release the feeling of tension inside my brain.
“Well, you could try snapping out of it,” her voice was more gentle than the words she chose, “you know, for two people who don’t love each other, you’re sure as hell miserable not having each other around anymore.” She rolled her eyes, a teenager again, and yet I was the one who felt chastised.
Seeing Clarke sitting on the bed when I’d walked in had thrown me. I’d seen pictures the girls and Abby, her mother, had posted of her over the past few months, but none of them did her justice. I tried to take a picture of the sunrise once. The pink of the sky bled into the orange which was seeping through the deep blues and greys, and yet the image on my screen was just a bright light. No filter could replicate the way Clarke’s eyes looked as she stood in that room. I was shattered to see sorrow there, and then felt ill that I’d felt anything at all.
I thought I’d been miserable in the months before we’d ended things, but that was nothing on the wretchedness I felt when she was gone. Staying together had felt like a burden, but being without her broke me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I shoved my hands into my pockets because agreeing with her was harder. I didn’t want to admit that I regretted the way the past few years had played out. I didn’t know how to say I’d change it all in a heartbeat.
“You’re a shit liar. You look like a fucking kicked puppy when we speak about her. Haven’t you met someone else yet?”
I winced at her choice of words and their implication. “Has she?” The words came out too fast and Ashlyn laughed through her nose, mocking me. It was well deserved. My reaction was pathetic.
“Maybe that’s why she looks so disappointed, because she couldn’t bring along her something new.” She raised her eyebrows and it was Clarke staring back at me. What used to be a comfort had morphed into something unnerving. I didn’t have a place for it with all the other thoughts fighting for space in my mind.
The hums of plans being finalised, and people toasting to every great thing which came to mind, was a busy soundtrack to the shared lunch on the day before the wedding. Each time I looked toward Lexa, she was looking my way. Seated opposite each other, it was difficult to keep our attention elsewhere, but it pulled at the weight wrapped around my heart to see her force her smiles, fastening them to her features for the sake of others.
Addi watched us both, too. She analysed each movement and gesture of Lexa’s like she was planning to impersonate. That wouldn’t be a task. Blonde curls aside, she was the image of Lexa. The glasses she wore made her look every bit like the woman I fell for at 18, the one I married at 22. Her long fingers tapped out a rhythm on her water glass in much the same time as Lexa’s leg which jigged beneath the table. Fidgeting was a marker of both when they were nervous, and it took everything in me not to cry that the both felt the same way.
The food before us was amazing, but I had no appetite, each bite tasting like cotton against my tongue. I filled my water glass repeatedly, my throat dry from swallowing the thick feeling at the base of my throat. I excused myself, taking the long way to the bathroom and stayed away for as long as could be deemed reasonable, the cold water on the back of my neck attracting the breeze from open windows and distracting me from the heat which resided across my chest and cheeks.
For the remainder of the afternoon, I felt Lexa’s eyes on me. She looked as though she wanted to beckon me toward her to answer a question, or seek my approval, but it was always just a look. No words. No gestures. She just seemed to stare.
As arrangements were made to start setting up the space for the following day, I found myself searching for her in the corners of the room and each time I found her she was looking my way. I felt Addi, Ash, and Rebecca milling about her like a buffer, like they could smother the bomb if it went off, but Lexa looked tired rather than angry. Maybe I was still the only one who could tell the difference. Cole kept clear of all of them, skittish around us both. We didn’t know him as well as we knew Rebecca, and I wasn’t sure I trusted him with my younger daughter’s heart. Not yet.
Hours passed without a word being spoken between us and I lost her among the other guests shortly before dinner. Heading up to the room to change, I tried not to analyse the hollow feeling in my chest. There was a heaviness inside me, as though a part of me didn’t exist at all, as if my heart was suspended and swinging by a thread without anything left to protect it.
Lexa was already in the room when I arrived. A fresh shirt tucked into her pants, she was retying her shoes, one foot on the chest at the end of the bed. She looked incredible. This wasn’t a surprise, but still an observation I couldn’t help but acknowledge. My hands belonged at her hips and, just like I’d been fighting urges since she’d first walked into the room, I linked my fingers behind my back to stop myself from reaching out to touch her.
“Is there someone else?” She hadn’t acknowledged my presence, but threw her questions across the room as she swapped feet. Retying her other shoe, she was facing away from me, but I stared expecting something more.
“Excuse me?”
“Is there someone else, Clarke? Are you seeing someone? Is there someone you would have liked to bring this weekend?” She talked with one hand, shoelace tied although her foot still rested on the box.
I stopped myself from laughing as she turned to face me. Who else would there be? It had only ever been her, until it wasn’t, and even then…
“No. I haven’t been seeing anyone. That isn’t really a priority.” The words bubbled up and out before I’d considered them. I had very few priorities short of getting through each day. Sleeping at night was another. Trying not to think of Lexa took up too much of my time. “How about you?” My heart pounded in my chest as if I’d just run up a flight of stairs. I tried to brace myself for her answer, sure that was her way of announcing a new lover, and my nostrils flared again, the base of my throat filling with something which tasted a lot like dread.
“No. No one. I haven’t stopped thinking of you.” She stood in front of me for a moment, waiting for a reaction. If she’d placed a hand to my chest she would have felt one there, but I couldn’t move. Hands in pockets, she turned to leave the room as she had hours before. She hesitated at the doorway, combed her fingers through her hair, pulled her shoulders up in a heavy sigh, and she left.
I walked straight to Ashlyn’s room. I wanted to keep walking out of the house and down the path and not stop until I reached home. I couldn’t remember the last time something had built up so much inside me that I wanted to flee. I was nine years old again, and I needed my mom.
Knocking on Ashlyn’s door, I scanned the hallway to make sure nobody could see me. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep it together for much longer. I knocked again and Ashlyn opened the door ajar and I pushed against it, barging in.
“Mom?” Closing the door, she watched me as I paced in front of her bed. “What’s happened? Are you okay?” She crossed her arms over her body and I shook my head, collapsing onto the couch.
“I don’t know what I am. I don’t know how to be here with your mom. I’m sorry.” I wanted to curl into a ball and I cradled my head between my hands as the tears started to fall.
Ashlyn shifted, slumping forward to meet my pose before sitting back against the couch. Finally, she turned leaning against the arm of the couch, legs tucked underneath her. I blinked at the tears and tried to steady my breathing before turning to face her.
“This isn’t just about the room, is it?” She looked exhausted, as if she’d spent the week thinking of us instead of sleeping, too. I wouldn’t have put it past her.
I shook my head. “I still haven’t figured out how to live without her. Seeing her today…I don’t think I want to anymore.”
“Jesus, Mom. This is so messed up, I-” she crawled over to me then and lifted my arm as she came to rest against my side, “I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”
Lexa and Ash’s absence at dinner went largely unnoticed. It was a much less formal affair than the lunch had been, and besides Cole muttering with Addi and Rebecca on more than one occasion, nothing was said.
I spent the evening preoccupied by Lexa’s words. I didn’t want to assume she was feeling the same things I had been, but there was anticipation stirring inside me which felt a lot like nerves and a little like excitement, and I needed to see her again.
“You guys aren’t going to cause any drama tomorrow, are you?” Addi pulled me into a corner as I approached them to say goodnight, and my heart sank that she had such concerns on one of the most exciting nights of her life.
“I’m sorry things are so screwed up, baby, but we’re both here to support you. Nothing is going to overshadow the ceremony tomorrow. I promise.” I smoothed her cheek with one hand while the other held hers tightly. “I haven’t forgotten what this part feels like, okay. I haven’t forgotten any of it.” Until I said the words, I hadn’t realised they were true. Our wedding day was clear in my mind. It was something which was just ours. So many experiences over the years had been shared with our children or were special because they were part of our life, but that was one thing which would always remain just about us.
“Can you pretend a little tomorrow? There’ll be a photographer and I just want all of us to look happy about being here.”
I kissed her forehead as I swallowed against the feeling of tears pressing at the backs of my eyes. It shouldn’t have been that way. “I love you. We both do. We won’t be pretending. The smiles you see in those pictures will be us seeing our beautiful girl getting to marry the love of her life.” I looked to where Rebecca was hovering, pretending not to be listening. The small smile on her face warmed my heart and I reached to grab her hand and pull her over to us. “Tomorrow is about the two of you. Nothing could possibly make either of us happier than seeing you marry this beautiful girl tomorrow. I love you.” I kissed Addi as my voice threatened to crack, and plastered on my best smile to hide the heaviness in my heart. Still holding her, I wrapped my other arm around Rebecca.
“I love you too. Look after my girl.”
I jumped from the couch when Clarke opened the door and opened my mouth to apologise, but nothing came out. I couldn’t place the look on her face. When she looked at me she appeared as lost as I felt, and I wanted to hold her more than I’d wanted to do anything in a long time, but I didn’t know if that was okay.
“Talk to me?” She said. She could see I’d been crying, the worry across her face throwing me into a limbo between guilt and happiness. How do you ask somebody you let go to come closer again?
“I’m tired, Clarke. I’m just so tired.” Leaning down I untied my shoes and set them aside. Clarke sat down on the edge of the bed facing me, waiting for me to continue, but that’s all I had to say. It summarized the past twelve months of my life. It was a footnote to the last five years. I’d been tired since Addi left for college and the emptiness began to spread like a fire throughout our house. The smoke did damage we couldn’t see for a long time. Both of us found it difficult to breathe.
I removed my cufflinks and set them on the coffee table beside me before rolling my shirt sleeves to my elbows. I undid the top button of my shirt and took a breath before sitting back down and looking at Clarke. So many years had passed since I’d first met the sassy girl who could party all night and still show up on time for classes the next day. I found myself staring at her, two feet away from me, and looking for that girl between the lines the years had left behind. Beautiful didn’t begin to describe her back then, but she was stunning now.
She cleared her throat. “What if we made a mistake.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She’d stolen the words from my mind and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t the one to have said them aloud.
“I know I made a lot over the years, but none as bad as letting you go. I don’t think a day has passed without regret since you moved out.” I said.
For a long time, I thought it was the house. It had been in my family for generations, my parents throwing it at me as an apology for not coming to the wedding, but it was ours. I put it on the market twice and changed my mind as soon as someone put an offer on it. There was almost three decades of history inside those walls that I couldn’t part with, even if it was what haunted me night after night and prevented sleep from finding me.
Clarke said nothing but stood from the bed and offered me her hand. I though touching her might kill me. Pulling me up, she smiled and walked me around the bed to what had always been my side. She gestured for me to sit and then walked away. I turned, following her movements as she walked around the bed and slipped off her shoes. Removing the jacket she’d worn to dinner, she slung it over the back of a chair and then adjusted the pillows before laying down to face me.
If I’d thought seeing her when I first walked into the room hours before had been overwhelming, this was something else. There was a smile on her face which was filled with apprehension and hope, and as I shuffled down to lay opposite her, I couldn’t help the tears which began again, escaping onto the pillow beneath my head.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, “I don’t even have words for the way I’ve felt these past months. I’ve missed you more than I ever thought possible.” She started to cry then and my tears fell more heavily. “Things weren’t working, I know. But I didn’t ever stop loving you.” She reached for my hand then and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like something whole, but her fingers laced between mine made me feel like I was 19 again and the world was at my feet.
Without a thought, I moved across the bed and pressed a kiss to her forehead before pulling her into me. I held her against my chest as we cried and whispered apologies as our bodies shook with grief over the years we had lost from not trying harder to cross the space between us.
“Ash said,” Clarke took a deep breath to steady the tremor in her voice, “-she said we’d been pretending to love each other for years. That’s not true, Lex. It’s not true at all.” She looked up at me then, her eyes red rimmed and I kissed her forehead again, pressed my lips to her skin, and wracked my brain for a way to start undoing all the damage we’d done.
I held her as she drifted off to sleep, rocking her and whispering I know, I know, I know.
The morning of the wedding I walked for longer than I would on any other day. I walked until the day was well underway, until cutlery was scraping breakfast crumbs into garbage cans, until many of the houseguests had retreated to rooms to prepare for the ceremony, iron crisp lines into dresses and shirts, to practise speeches of sentiments which would be the one thing the photographs could not capture. I walked until my calves ached and my lungs burned, but still I thought about Lexa.
She had held me through the night. I woke twice from dreams I couldn’t recall only to feel her arms tighten around me, the comforter having been pulled over us even though we'd fallen asleep in our clothes.
By the time I returned to our room, she had showered and was dressed, seated on the arm of the couch, waiting. The suit she wore was a perfect match the navy panel which ran down the left side of my pigeon grey dress, and she rose to her feet as I approached her.
“Good morning. I was hoping I hadn’t somehow scared you away. You didn’t take your phone.” Lexa gestured to where it sat on the chest at the end of the bed. Smiling, she took another step toward me, hands buried in her pockets. “Was last night okay? Are we okay?” She asked the questions with her eyes trained to her feet which scuffed at the carpet.
Her concern was unmasked, and I reached for her hand, bringing it to my lips and placing a kiss to her fingers. “I don’t quite know what this is, but we’re okay, I promise.”
Removing her other hand from her pocket, she brought it up to rest against my cheek, still flushed from my walk. She smoothed her thumb against my skin and I felt my breath hitch as she leaned toward me only to place a kiss to the top of my head.
“I’m going to leave you to get ready, but call me when you’re done. I’d like to walk you down to the ceremony.” Another smile, another delicate swipe of her thumb and she was out the door, and just like before when my lungs had been burning I felt consumed by her.
I hovered outside the door for minutes before finding the courage to knock. Ashlyn had been shopping with both Clarke and I for our mothers-of-the-bride attire, and had shown me the dress the two had picked together. I knew what that would do to me before I walked into the room.
Knocking, I turned the handle and took a breath before entering the room. There was no sign of Clarke, and I reached for my phone to call her as she emerged from the bathroom.
“Wow.” I breathed the word as she looked at me, head to the side as she fasted an earring, a smile which reached her eyes told me she knew I’d react that way. “You look incredible. I’m not sure the brides will appreciate this.” I waved a hand in front of me, gesturing to her dress. Ashlyn had been right about the color.
Turning, she swept her hair to one side. “Would you mind,” Clarke reached a hand to the zip which sat open at the base of her spine, “I think it’s caught.”
Freeing it from the fabric, I took my time to drag the zip up her back, spoiled by the skin on show, and reminding myself to be on my best behaviour even though I wanted to touch her. I knew it was far too soon for thoughts like that.
“Are you ready?” I asked. I offered her my hand as she nodded and picked up her wrap from the bed. Her fingers fit between mine and I found myself unable to stop from smoothing my thumb over her knuckles. That she allowed me to do so as we walked gave me the assurance I needed that I hadn’t misread things the night before. There was something beginning between us once again.
Like teenagers who might be caught by parents, we dropped our joined hands outside the door to the room in which Ashlyn was still helping Addison get ready. Across the hall, the Thompson’s assisted Rebecca, and Cole loitered in the corridor in between looking as lost and out of place as I’d ever seen him. Patting him on the shoulder, I ushered him towards the small room my girls were in and he sat himself on a chair just inside the door and continued to fidget.
“Ashlyn isn’t expecting a proposal any time soon, buster. Keep your shirt on.” I said.
“Mom, I can hear you, you know.” Ashlyn called from behind the door. “She’s right though, babe, don’t go getting any ideas.”
Clarke backhanded me across the shoulder, but the tension drained from the young man’s face in an instant and I quirked an eyebrow at her, eliciting and eye roll I hadn’t seen in some time.
Rounding the door, I saw Ashlyn leaning over Addison, putting the finishing touches on her makeup, and at the sight of us, the two stood and Ashlyn pushed her sister toward us.
“Wow.” The word left me again without a thought, and I was at a loss as to what to do with my eldest daughter standing before me looking as she did. Much to Ashlyn’s dismay, Addison had insisted on a dress which would show off the ink which began between her shoulder blades, continuing over her collarbone, and running the length of her left arm. “Has Rebecca seen you in this yet?”
“What do you think? I had to make sure she knew how to get this thing off in a hurry.” Addison’s smirked, eyebrows bouncing as Ashlyn made a gagging noise behind her.
“I should’ve known,” I said, clicking my tongue, “well at least she’ll know what to expect then, because god help us all if she saw you for the first time in this in front of a crowd.” My eyes widened at the thought, the couple not particularly subtle when it came to public displays of affection.
Within moments, the Thompson’s had shown the photographer in, and he took a few pictures of the four of us as Cole looked on from the side of the room. From there the proceedings were underway and it was a blur of instructions and movement to get the brides to the door of the function room, and away from each other long enough to get them down the aisle.
As the music began to play, the doors in front of us were opened and Clarke and I each offered an arm to Addison as we walked in measured steps between the four rows of guests on either side of the room. We each kissed her as she stood beside her sister, in front of the celebrant, waiting for Rebecca to join her. Clarke reached for my hand and linked our fingers again as we walked the short distance to our seats. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed by either of our girls, both stood with beaming smiles before their attention was averted to Rebecca and her parents as they began the very same walk.
The tears I shed throughout the ceremony were as much for Addi and Rebecca as they were for Lexa and I. Lexa handed me a handkerchief and I dabbed at my eyes as we followed the married couple outside for more photos as the room we’d just been in was transformed for the reception.
Photographs were taken in every combination of family members and wedding party. Addi and Rebecca laughed together the entire time and I was unable to stop myself from reaching for Lexa, needing to be close to her and needing to know she was seeing the same look of pure joy across our girl’s face. My own face ached from smiling after an hour, and I thought back to my conversation with Addi the night before, of her concern that Lexa and I would need to pretend to ensure the photographs captured something resembling happiness. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt as happy as I did in that moment.
We walked back the building slowly. Lexa hadn't let my hand go for more than a few moments, and as we headed into the room for the reception, we received looks from both Addi and Ash which we only answered with winks and smiles. I wouldn’t have known where to begin with words.
After our meals and the formalities of speeches were out of the way, Addi and Rebecca moved to the centre of the room as the rest of us turned in our seats at the tables surrounding the area which had been arranged to create a dance floor. A familiar tune began, but I couldn’t place the name as my daughter and her wife began to dance and I felt tears threatening to spill once more.
“Remember when that was us?” Lexa asked. She wrapped her arm around my waist as we sat side by side and rested her head on my shoulder drawing more looks from Cole and Ashlyn.
“I do. I still remember every part of that day. It was one of the happiest days of my life.” I felt Lexa smile against me. “I think this might be another.”
We didn’t take our eyes of the couple as they danced, but I felt Lexa shift closer and relaxed into her in a way I hadn’t been able to in years. I didn’t know what this meant for us, but somewhere inside me I felt myself falling as I had so long ago. It wasn’t as though the last few years had been erased, but something about being forced into the same space had made us talk, and helped us bridge the gap which had felt as though it had been widening for years. I wanted to keep working at that with her. I wanted to start piecing us back together.
As other couples took to the dance floor, Lexa stood and offered me her hand. Moving to the centre of the floor, near the newlyweds, I wrapped my arms around Lexa’s neck and felt her knock the air out of my lungs as she wrapped hers around my waist.
“This feels a bit like a dream.” She whispered in my ear and the feeling of her breath against my neck sent chills through me as we moved together.
I looked into her eyes and saw they were filled with tears. Moving my hands, I cupped her cheeks and placed a kiss to each one. Her face changed, then, morphing into something I recognised from when we were younger. It wasn’t quite cocky, but it was close.
“Do you want to stay with me again tonight?” It was a plea fashioned into a question, and I felt my heart speed up at the thought of another night in her arms.
Smiling, I pulled her closer. Looking into her eyes, it felt like waking up again and I wanted to write poetry about the way it felt to have her close to me. She raised her eyebrows as if to remind me she'd asked a question, and I leaned into her, my hand to her cheek as I whispered into her ear, “I do.”