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Dawn stretches over the night-blue sky. Small clouds drift above the horizon, painted with brushes of lilac and lavender. Crickets chirp to each other in the grass, and if Eddie strains to listen, she can hear the hushed babbling of the creek around the bend.
It’s beautiful. Breathtaking.
Buck’s still in the tent, snoring so loud Eddie can hear it all the way over here. She’d thought about waking him up, but he’s been so stressed about making sure their honeymoon is going perfect for the both of them. She’s pretty sure Buck’s forgetting to enjoy himself, too.
So… she lets him sleep in, and takes the morning for herself. Steals Buck’s red flannel and kisses his birthmark before slipping out.
She’d kill for a cup of coffee, but she’s pretty sure they used the last of it yesterday, and they’re not headed back to the cabin for another couple of hours yet. Instead, she finds a nice, thick patch of grass and sits herself down, ignoring the way the morning dew tickles her legs.
She wraps her arms around herself, watches the gorgeous sunrise, and thinks.
In high school, Eddie took a woodworking class. Made a vase and a birdhouse. She thought about giving them to her parents, but figured it wasn’t worth it. Gave them to her sisters, instead. The vase for Adriana and the birdhouse for Sophia.
Last time she’d been over to Adriana’s, the vase was sitting in the center of her kitchen table.
Sometimes Eddie thinks about God, and about the way He made her in His image. She used to wonder if He wasn’t wrong, but she’d been taught that wasn’t possible. He doesn’t make mistakes.
She’s not religious anymore. Doesn’t pray. Doesn’t go to Mass every Sunday. Hasn’t been in a confession booth since—
Well.
There’s a pang of sadness deep within her when she thinks about Bobby. So raw it almost feels fresh. In a way, it’s always there, like a bruise so faded you forget about it until you press in. Still, she’s always wishing he was here. To have been here when she finally figured it out. When she figured it all out.
The Buck of it all, Bobby might have seen coming. He was always a step ahead like that, had a tendency to know more about all of them than they ever realized themselves.
The girl of it all, well. Eddie’s not sure Bobby would’ve predicted that one, but she wonders what he might have thought, anyway. How he might have reacted.
She doesn’t think he’d be anything other than supportive, and in her imagination, he’s said as much a thousand times. Still. She’d have liked the real thing.
It took a long time to get here. A long hike, an arduous journey. The morning breeze blows through Eddie’s hair, so she slides the hair-tie off her wrist and pulls it up to keep it out of her face. A blackbird settles on the grass near the campfire and pecks at the earth.
Eddie’s not sure about God, or His design. What she is sure of is this: the way the dirt gives in beneath her feet, and the scent of morning dew in her nose. The way the fog drifts in slowly but surely, and the tell-tale sound of her husband snoring himself awake.
“Good morning,” Eddie tells the little blackbird, and the bird chirps and flies away. “Good morning,” she tells the roly-polys beneath the pebbles, and they roll up at the brush of her fingertip. “Good morning,” she tells the sun, tiptoeing past the horizon. “Good morning,” she tells Buck, all sleepy-eyed and smiley, and he kisses her, soft and slow and sweet.
“Good morning,” he tells her, and promptly half-sits half-falls down beside her. “You been up a while?”
Eddie shakes her head and runs a hand through his curls, tugging a few loose knots out. She leans in closer, settles her head on his shoulder and smiles when he wraps his arm around her. “Only an hour, maybe. Was gonna let you sleep in.”
“Well, that’s dangerous. If I slept in too late we’d end up stuck here the whole day.”
“Wouldn’t be so bad,” she whispers, trails her fingers down his arm to find his hand. Marvels at the golden band on his ring finger like she hadn’t been the one to slip it on only a few days ago. “Just you and me and the whole world around us.”
“Weird.” Buck looks at her, confused, eyebrows furrowed. “I’ve already got the whole world right here.”
It’s so unabashedly cheesy that Eddie half-laughs and half-cringes, hiding her face in his chest.
“Isn’t that crazy?” Buck keeps talking, smoothing his hand up and down her arm. “You’re my wife. Can you believe that?”
Eddie had figured out Buck first, and the girl thing later. A year and a half into their relationship, she sat down and told him she was a woman. Buck told her he loved her just the same, and that was that.
Well—that wasn’t that. It was a lot of figuring out. A lot of change. A lot of fear, and a lot of perseverance, anyway. Her parents reacted to it the worst, but they’ve come around, since. Told her they’d always love her, even if they didn’t understand half the choices she made.
She told them she doesn’t need their love, not anymore. But she’s grateful to have it. That they’re still in reach, even if there will never be the kind of connection there that she’d spent her life yearning for. She doesn’t need it anymore.
She never did, maybe.
“I can believe it,” she tells him, and looks up at him. Buck looks down at her, so unabashedly in love, that the sight of it alone is enough to make her smile. “It only happened a few days ago.”
“My wife,” he repeats himself, and leans down to kiss her again, and again, and again. Slow, sweet, like they have all the time in the world. Because they do. “Hey. Have I ever told you I love you?”
Eddie snorts a laugh and pulls away, then changes her mind and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Y’know, maybe once or twice, but now that I think about it I’m not really sure when the last time was—”
“Oh, we can’t have that,” he says, and then wraps his arms around her, quick and sudden, to push her down into the grass. She lands on her back with a whoomph, and Buck presses a kiss to her nose, her forehead, her lips, down her jawline and her neck. In between each one he exclaims,
“I love you!”
He gets louder and louder, progressively, until he’s declaring his love for her to the entire world, until the bees in the daffodils and the squirrels in the trees and the fish in the creek and the sun in the sky can all hear him. Until he’s so loud Eddie’s half-afraid he’s going to wake up a bear. She kisses him quiet and feels it, settled in the depths of her chest, slow and steady and honey-thick.
Love.
Her love for the pink dawn clouds and the spider that scared Buck half-to-death last night and the toads camouflaged around the bushes. Her love for the petunias growing in their backyard and the hyacinths in their hotel room and the roses Buck had given her on their first date after she came out to him. Love for the 118, who have all helped make Eddie into who she is, a woman she’s learning to be proud of. Endless love for Chris, halfway across the country, all-grown up and at college, who she misses every day, with every beat of her heart. Love for Buck, all blue eyes and toothy grins and sturdy hands and contagious laughter. Her love for God, maybe not the one she’d grown up with but the one she’s come to know, instead, the one that tells her He loves her the way she is, now, the one she doesn’t think about all that often but feels, sometimes, when she thinks of Bobby, the God she knows he must have found a home with.
The love she has for herself. It never came easy, but after thirty-seven years of putting the pieces of herself together, she’s learned how to weave love in between each stitch.
For the longest time, she’d been afraid to love herself. Had convinced herself, somewhere along the way, whether it was age six, or twelve, or nineteen, that she didn’t deserve it. Hadn’t done anything to be worthy of it.
For the longest time, she was afraid she would never be.
But here she is, anyway. Leaving lipstick stains on Buck’s shoulders and twirling in her dresses, learning how to breathe again. Finding it easy, easier than she ever has. Looking back at herself every day and not shaking, not turning the lights off, not staring at the faucet instead of the mirror. Staring at herself, all brown hair and brown eyes, long lashes and pink lips, rosy cheeks and dimpled smile.
She loves herself. And it isn’t perfect, because it can’t be—she’s only human, and the world keeps spinning around her. Life keeps going and sometimes she’s still afraid she can’t keep up, but she owes it to herself to try, doesn’t she? An entire life she’d lived, only half-breathing.
She takes it all in, now. It all feels beautiful in a way it hasn’t before. Like she’s seeing it for the first time.
Like she’s living for the first time.
When Buck is done with his onslaught of kisses, he seals the deal with one final kiss. Parts Eddie’s lips and kisses her deep, senseless. When he pulls away, she stares up at him and finds her breath, again. He looks down at her, lips slightly swollen and extra pink, birthmark a little darker, too. It keeps surprising her, waking up and finding that ring on her finger. Sometimes Eddie thinks Buck has only ever been a dream.
She touches a finger to her lips, finds them kiss-swollen and slick.
Not a dream.
“I love you, too,” she tells him, and laughs when he flops down on top of her, clings like a koala. She traces a hand down his spine and looks up at the sky. It’s settled into vibrant, pink-orange, now. Gorgeous, eye-catching.
Buck hasn’t mentioned the sunrise. He just keeps looking at her.
“I’d be okay if our whole honeymoon was like this,” Buck tells her, though she has to take a few extra seconds to comprehend him. His words come out muffled because Buck is clinging to her like he’s hoping she’ll absorb him into her being, face squished against her chest. “Just hangin’ out.”
She laughs and kisses the top of his head. “I think you might squish me into the earth, soon, if you don’t move.”
“You say that like you don’t love it.”
Well. He’s not wrong. She does love it. She loves everything about Buck, really.
“We have plans today, don’t we?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s happening right now? Are you okay?” Eddie presses the back of her hand to Buck’s forehead, pretends to check his temperature. “You’re not freaking out about all the plans we might miss if we don’t get out of here on time?”
“I will be soon! Just not yet. Right now, it‘s just you and me.” Buck lifts his head a little, looks at her, almost shy. Smiles a little, then reaches a hand out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “That’s all I need.”
Eddie’s heart swells with affection. “I’m going to remember this in an hour when you’re telling me to hurry up because we have to leave or else we’re going to miss the breakfast reservation.”
“Clipboard Buck is a different Buck entirely, alright, and we both know I cannot be held liable for—”
Eddie leans forward and kisses him quiet.
When they pull apart, Buck shifts, rolls on his back to look up at the sky with her. Eddie rests her head on his chest and gazes up at the clouds.
She’d worn a white dress on their wedding day. It made the most sense, but she’d gone back and forth about it for a while. Wasn’t sure if it felt like her. Had tried on about fifteen dresses and hadn’t liked a single one. Started feeling a little afraid she was following a tradition just for tradition’s sake.
Until she found the right one. It felt a little bit like another piece clicking into place.
The wedding itself was perfect, and Bobby hadn’t been the one to walk her down the aisle, but she felt him there all the same. She’ll never know for certain, but Eddie’s pretty sure if Bobby were still around, he’d be proud of her.
And she doesn’t know, not really. Never will.
But she feels it. She trusts it.
The dawn sunrise brightens into the morning, robin-egg sky, and Buck stirs beneath her. Eddie turns to look at him, figures he’s about ready to start packing up and get going.
Instead, she finds his eyes shut, breath steady. He’s fast asleep.
Their reservation isn’t until ten. A little morning nap won’t hurt them.
And besides, they have all the time in the world.
She falls back asleep, curled up in Buck’s arms. Just Buck and Eddie and the blackbirds and the crickets and the daffodils.
Just the two of them and the world.