He waits a beat before shaking his head.
“But yeah, you know what, I was angry with you,” I continue. “Your first deployment was hard enough, but the second one did me in. I was mad at myself for telling you to go, but I might’ve been madder at you for letting me.”
“How could I have known you didn’t mean it? I’m not psychic,” he points out.
“Be fair, Nick. You knew it was crazy. But you wanted to go, so you believed whatever would justify it,” I say. “You didn’t want the facts to get in the way of your decision.”
“The Navy isn’t just a lark to me!” he says. “I am useful out there. I am not useful here.”
“You would have been useful to me.” The sheer need in my voice almost hurts my feelings, I hate it so much. “Look, I’m just trying to explain how jumbled my head was. I’m proud of your commitment. That’s why I never asked you to say no to the Pembroke. But you knew you were leaving me in shark-infested waters. How many times did you tell me you were afraid of bringing me into this life? We almost lost each other over that once. And we might lose each other over it again.”
“No, I think that’ll be because you kissed my brother.”
“That’s what I mean about context, Nick.” I breathe out hard through my nose. “I was spiraling. Freddie, too. We both felt lost in your family. Things got really emotional, and intense, and for a split second Freddie thought he was offering us both a way out.”
“And that was a better plan than talking to Marj?”
“I’m Marj’s job, Nick. I’m an equation she has to solve,” I say. “You are the only person who chose me. Everyone else on your side just has to make the best of the fact that I was the one person still standing when Daddy forced you to pick a bride.”
Nick looks up at me. “I never intended to keep my side of that deal,” he says. “What was he going to do, remove me from the military under great public scrutiny? Crack me over the head and wake me up in Gretna Green? I just agreed so he’d let me join up.”
“You never told me that. You never told me anything,” I said. “All I was hearing was that I was a desperate guy’s default option. And the way you charged off into the Navy and never looked back, it started to feel like maybe it was true.”
“I don’t understand why it’s so easy for you to believe the worst,” he says.
“It’s never easy, Nick, it’s agony,” I say, a sob rising in my throat.
We’re quiet while he chews on the inside of his cheek.
“I did not handle our breakup as well as I wanted to,” he says. “The longer we were apart, the more I missed…” He searches for the right phrase. “The feeling of family that you and I had. I wanted it again. I’d never had it with anyone except Freddie.”
His voice catches on his brother’s name, but he keeps going. “So yes, I slept with old girlfriends, and some new ones, and yes, I imagined whether we could have a life together. All those girls would have been easy and palatable choices if any of us had loved each other, but we didn’t, and I realized I’d already had my choice and lost her.” His eyes are moist. “And then suddenly you and I were together again. I couldn’t waste it. The timing was ghastly with the Navy, but I was afraid if I waited, something might get in between us and screw it up again.”
“And it did anyway. Again,” I say, feeling drained.
“Maybe that’s our destiny,” he says. “Screwing up. Maybe we misread this all along.”
The words echo off the walls, even though we are speaking quietly. Neither of us has moved, an aisle apart in fact but much further away in spirit. Nick gets up, as if to leave.
“Wait,” I say, sliding out and crossing to where he is standing. This conversation is not finished yet. “I told you the Freddie kiss meant something to me, but I didn’t tell you why.”
He half turns to listen to me, his head still down. “The first time, I learned I wasn’t over you,” I say. “And the second time, I learned I never will be. That’s why it mattered. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but when it did, it killed any doubt or fear I felt, and filled me up with you instead. I’m not marrying the monarchy. I’m marrying you. And however bad it gets with the press, or your family, or even mine, I will always choose you. I’m yours for life. Whether you want me or not.”
Nick jams his hands in his pockets and spends what feels like forever rattling the change in there.
“It’s not your fault he wanted you,” he finally whispers to the ground. “God knows I understand it. But it’s all I can see when I close my eyes.” His voice breaks. “Twice, Bex. Once before we were even engaged. If I’d known then…”
“Okay, let’s play that.” I feel like I’m negotiating for the rest of my life. “You once asked if I’d have turned down your proposal if I’d thought twice about your Naval deployments. The answer is no. Even knowing that this is the way it played out, even if this is the end, I would do it again a hundred times.” I am crying in earnest now. “If I’d told you about Freddie then, would you still have chosen me? Do you still choose me now?”
Nick does look at me this time, long and hard and sad.
“I don’t know,” he says, and he walks out of the chapel, leaving me alone with the ghosts.
Chapter Three
Kira steps back and gives a triumphant hoot. “Nailed it,” she says. “You can barely tell.”
She hands me a mirror. An hour and a half ago, I looked like what’s under the bandages after plastic surgery: splotchy and crimson, with eyelids like cocktail sausages. I’d retreated to The Goring and thrown myself into my mother’s arms, sobbing out to her and Lacey everything I’d had to hold in during the drive; then I bled myself to Gaz and Cilla and haltingly released them to process it in private, telling them that I would respect their choice if they could no longer support me. I pulled myself together a hundred times, only to pop the seams again five minutes later, and hid behind sunglasses on the ride to Buckingham Palace to prepare for tonight’s reception. When I took them off inside the Spartan, utilitarian room earmarked for my styling team, Kira whispered, “Take me now, Lord.”
But she has worked a miracle. She shrank my eyelids with a mixture of compresses, witch hazel, and Preparation H, giving me the faint perfume of hemorrhoid cream of which every young bride dreams. She flushed me out with a gallon of Visine and filled me up with a gallon of water; with all that, some thin white eyeliner on my lower lids, and some artful highlighter, you can’t even tell I spent the day running my heart through a meat grinder. Even I nearly believe the illusion. Apply enough spackle, and you can sell anything.
Kira makes me blot my lips one more time, then holds up her hand for a high five, which Cilla obligingly attempts and bungles.
“Watch the elbow and you’ll never miss,” I say.