She had waited for this moment her whole life. She could remember sitting under the oak tree in her backyard with her best friend Justin, the warm summer wind tossing her long blonde ponytail, the scent of blooming flowers and sweet berries hovering in the thick air, talking about this day.
He had laughed at her, of course. What little boy wouldn't have? But it was a sweet laugh. He always had such a lopsided, crazy smile that she couldn't watch him laugh without smiling herself. He taught her that — to laugh at herself.
She could remember the first day of school, when they walked hand-in-hand into the huge, scary brick building. He wouldn't let go of her hand when the teachers told them they were to be in separate classes. She had never wanted him with her — needed him with her — so much as she did that day. The teachers finally gave up and let them stay together. And then he smiled that silly smile again, and she laughed. They talked about this moment as they walked home that afternoon, and he didn't laugh that time.
She got sick in front of their fourth grade class when she had the flu, and as they all screamed and yelled and big, wet tears filled her eyes, there he was, with his hand on her shaking shoulder. He left school to walk her home in the cool spring rain, and he tucked her into her warm bed with a bucket at her side. She had thought he returned to school until he brought her a cup of his mother's homemade chicken soup an hour later. He told her that he spent twenty minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the stove to reheat it for her and then burned the first batch he tried to make. She smiled as the lopsided grin took over his face, and they talked about this day again.
Middle school was tough for them. Justin's friends thought she was a dumb girl who would give them cooties and told her that she couldn't join their baseball club. She cried for two days and refused to see Justin until he climbed the oak tree and through her window to tell her that he refused to be in any club that she couldn't be in. They formed their own two-person club and talked about this moment.
She was a cheerleader in high school and he was the star quarterback. Her little brother spent every afternoon at their practices, watching Justin and dreaming of becoming him someday. Their friends talked about how close they were — all of the cheerleaders had a crush on Justin — and they couldn't understand why the two didn't date each other or at least date other people and forget about each other. She stayed up late every Friday night with him, listening to him talk about how he played in the game while they sat on her porch swing under a sky of bright stars. They didn't talk much about today then — it just didn't seem right — but both of them thought about it.
And then college. He had a football scholarship, and she had an academic scholarship. Their colleges were two hours apart. They called each other three times a week for four years and spent all-to-brief summers taking walks in her father's wheat field under the blistering sun. Her roommates laughed at how many photos of that lopsided smile she kept on her desk and how she would suddenly get a distant look on her face when she was thinking of him. They talked about today a lot during those summer walks, when everything was green and blooming and time stood still around them.
Then, suddenly, it was today. That moment they had talked about for twenty-some years. That image that had danced in her head every night of college as she lay there, thinking about what he was doing two hours away, was finally here.
And yet it wasn't. The smile dropped from her face as she made herself accept it again. Those big, wet tears filled her eyes, but he wasn't there to guide her home this time.
Michael was a good man. She loved him and trusted him. Next to Justin, he was the only one who really knew her. He would treat her well; he would be a good father. But she knew that images of this day with Justin would haunt her dreams every night for the rest of her life and she would wonder this time what he was doing worlds — not hours — away.
That night she got the call haunted her with every blink of her eyes. Now, today, she tried to put it away for this moment, but everything — this place, this moment, this feeling — was about him. It was everything that she had dreamed of from that moment under the oak tree as a child.
She couldn't look down at her white dress without thinking of that lopsided smile she should have been walking down the aisle towards. Tears dropped onto her satin shoes and moistened her short blonde curls. Nothing about this day was about Michael. This day was all about her and Justin.
She closed her eyes, said prayer for Justin, wherever he had gone too young, and walked down the aisle to Michael with her head held high. She could almost feel Justin's hand in hers on that walk. She could feel the lopsided smile somewhere in the optimism of the children in the church. The moment she had waited for had come. This was what he would have wanted for her, so she smiled at Michael and took his hand.