Page 56 of Hell and Halos

The yellow dress, which I love, is long. Both in length and sleeves. And despite the color, it is not a summer dress. Not even close. Not even a little. It's got layers because when you decide to promise your eternal soul to the one you love on Christmas Eve in Montana at midnight, you gotta commit. You gotta layer up like you mean it. Like the promise itself has got weight, and fabric, and structure to it. Like you're wrappin' yourself in the vow before you even say the words.

The outer layer drops to her knees, splits up the front, and has a single button at the base of her throat. It's made of that really expensive wool—the kind that don't itch, the kind that feels so soft you wanna pet it like somethin' alive.

Golden yellow. Warm like lantern light against snow. And it's lined with this fleece the color of the sky—not summer sky, winter sky. That pale, sharp blue that only shows up when the cold gets serious.

This blue peeks out in all the right places. The wide cuffs that fold back over her wrists. The neck, turned down just enough. And the inside of the hood—which is mostly decoration, I figure, because Savannah Rose Ashby won't be caught dead at her own goddamn weddin' without a cowboy hat. Light-colored felt, shaped just right, sittin' on her head like a crown she earned instead of inherited. She'd wear that thing to her own funeral. Probably will.

I notice everything. That's the problem. That's always been the fuckin' problem.

The dress underneath the outer layer is nothin' but soft cotton. Prairie cotton, the kind that moves. It's got an empire waist that shows her belly, skirts that flow all the way down to the ground in these bulky, deliberate layers so they swing just right when she walks and only the squared-off tips of her brown boots peek out under the hem as she steps forward.

The sleeves underneath are tight, hugged close to her arms, with these little buttons that cuff her wrists. More on the high neck. Little buttons everywhere, lined up like tiny soldiers guardin' her from the cold. Or from me. Or maybe both.

My hands already know what those buttons feel like. Already know what's behind 'em. Already runnin' the math on how long it takes to undo each one later tonight when the words are done and the sky stops listenin'.

Shut up, Legion. Not yet.

The mittens are yellow—same shade as the dress, hand-knit maybe, thick and practical. And the soft scarf wrapped around her throat is that same sky blue, matchin' the fleece linin', pullin' the whole thing together in a way that shouldn't work but does.

The blue brings out her eyes somethin' terrible. Somethin' criminal, honestly. Makes 'em look like they're holdin' weather inside 'em.

And lookin' at her under the full moon and the starlight, standin' there with her breath comin' out in little clouds and her boots planted firm on the frozen ground, I understand the yellow now. I finally get it.

Because she and the world around her are two very different things.

The world is white. White snow, white frost, white sky pressed flat against the dark. White silence. White cold. Everythin' bleached, and frozen, and stripped to the fuckin' bone.

And she's standin' in the middle of it like a flame somebody lit on purpose. Like somethin' that refuses to go pale. Like somethin' that refuses to match the emptiness it was born into.

She chose yellow because yellow is alive and she has never looked more like herself than she does right now.

Our vows were written more than a decade ago, just reworked a bit. Because that old poem was filled with despair and this life we have now has transcended all that.

But it's still us, through and through…

Through midnight’s veil I come with wings of coal,

To give you what the darkness never stole.

I cast aside my blush of halo flame,

To take the man who wore the demon’s name.

They sold you long before you drew a breath.

I’ll keep you free from here until my death.

They dragged you bleeding from this place for me.

Back you came through dark and set me free.

One word between us splits the very sky.

We made the place where love can truly grow.

To Hell with those above and those below.

There's nothin' in there about husband and wife because our love is way beyond that. It's eternal, not bound to this earth by law. It simply exists because it was always there.