Page 112 of Forever Mine
Liz runs into my room, clapping her hands together with effervescent happiness.
“Almost time! Why aren’t you dressed?” she exclaims.
“That’s my cue.” Ash packs the nail polish bottles into his makeup kit. He insists it’s called a man fun bag.
I stand up and pull him in for a hug, careful not to mess up the manicure he gave me.
“Thanks for the mani.”
“I’m so happy for the both of you. You and Elijah are going to have an amazing life together.”
For the third time today, I tear up.
Ash points at Liz, then waggles his finger in a circle around my face. “I did the nails, you do the hair.”
I lift a hand to my head. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
Liz stops in front of me, her gaze introspective as she looks me over. “Humidity, babe. Curse of having your wedding at the beach in the summer. Nothing a little pomade won’t take care of.” Pursing her lips, she asks, “Spiked bangs or gentlemen’s quarterly?”
“You choose.”
“Spiked bangs it is. Just like prom.”
My heart soars free and wild when she says that. We held little hope that she’d get her memories back, but she did, and it continues to hit me like a bolt from the blue when she bringsstuff up from when we were kids. She’s so different now from the girl I grew up with. Liz 2.0, she calls herself. A fusion of old and new.
After running into the bathroom to grab my toiletry bag, Liz pushes me down to sit on the bed and begins styling my hair.
“What?” she asks, not meeting my penetrative stare as she works.
“How are you doing?”
Her verdant gaze drops and snares me in its grasp as we share the pain of Jayson’s absence.
“How areyoudoing?” she quietly asks.
My brother isn’t coming to my wedding. I’ve only heard from him twice since he left. It feels like a piece of my soul has been stolen from my body, the twin bond between us torn in half. I miss him so fucking much, and every time I think about him, I want to fall to my knees and cry. The times it hits me the hardest are when I swear I feel him next to me, or I think I hear his voice and will start talking to him before I realize that he’s not there. It’s gut-wrenching.
“I’m fine.”
I have to be. I can’t put my life on hold waiting for him to come back. Jay made his choice, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive him for leaving me.
“It’s okay not to be,” Liz whispers, her eyes filling just as mine do the same. She cups my face between her delicately strong hands and wipes the moisture from under my eyes with her thumbs. “Only happy tears today. We’ll save the sad tears for another day.”
I cover her hands and hold on.
“I love you, Julien. My silver-eyed knight in shining armor,” she says with a wobbly smile, referring to the make-believe games we would play in the woods as children. “Now, let’s get you ready for your man.”
Kissing me lightly on the cheek, she pirouettes around and slips my tuxedo jacket off its hanger.
There’s a tap on the door right before Ryder pops his head in. “Safe to come in?”
“You may enter,” Liz replies, holding my jacket so that I can slide my arms into the sleeves. She tugs at the back hem, then comes around and smooths out the lapels. “I don’t know what it is about a tuxedo jacket, but damn, they make men look sexy.”
Ryder joins us, wrapping one arm around Liz and the other around me. We lean into our family triangle, three best friends who have weathered a lifetime of storms together. But the love we share shines brighter than all the tragedies we’ve endured.
His voice mired in sentimental emotional prosody, Ry says, “Love you, Jules.”
“Love you, too.”
