The Perfect Storm 3

Chapter 280

The grass beneath us is perfect, so perfect that I feel as though somehow Jace and Rosie managed to create the perfect wedding. the weather outside is perfect, with almost no clouds in the sky as we walk on what could as well be the best summer day Ohio has seen.

I know everyone is waiting in the Ohio charm church, up on the hill, further than Jace lives and further than my mother used to live. It's the only building in a few minutes of walking which has always made it feel more holy and at peace; something I didn't know I needed, church has always been there for me, and right now, it's going to be there for Jace and so am I and so is everyone gathered inside, making everything outside the church as quiet as it can get, not a single bird is singing and not a single sound of wind can be heard anywhere near us.

I feel my hair stand still, nothing blowing or moving it from the perfect way I placed it in the bathroom, it remains as perfect as I styled it to be and so does everything Jace has put together to meet his future wife.

The walk is quiet and Jaces hands are in his pockets while I hold onto his strong arm with both of mine, enjoying the walk we have left. We haven't even passed my mother's house yet and I somehow hope we won't just yet.

These are the last moments I have with Jace before he grows into an honest man and starts a life with someone and changes into the husband Rosie deserves.

Everything stays quiet between us, we're both thinking about something as we connect when we watch the church together. I've never seen it this clearly, the tall building before us that has meant so much in my life.

the butterflies in my stomach start to grow more and more as we approach the church and by the time we've walked up the small hill, watching the white doors, they somehow have completely come to a stop.

Soft music plays; not wedding music but something soft, something that makes me want to cry, but as we step inside, in the same position we took walking to here, I don't feel emotional anymore, I feel happy. and to know that Jace doesn't need his wedding to be perfect like something out of a magazine but has made it much rather something with feeling an emotion; something he won't forget and neither will I with me being now an odd bridesmaid without a date since Lacey replaced me, but the sight of the open church before me and Jace beside me makes me forgive him instantly.

I take one step and Jace follows, then I take another and he follows again but he never takes a step himself and for an instant, I wonder if I'm somehow making me do this or if it was rather the flow of me taking the first that started this.

I take a deep breath and look over at Jace whose eyes are closed for a brief moment until they look into mine; no smile, no nothing, just eyes, just those eyes that I've seen my whole life.

The red carpet leads to Rosie who looks at us both, her cheeks a rose color as she stares at her future husband and as I stare at Miles I see the dark hazel eyes I'll never let go of. I take another deep breath and watch him as he stares only at me, I breathe in the church air and the feelings around us, the way Nancy and Ben are looking at the two of us, I allow myself to smile at them and then at Miles, wishing that this were our wedding and knowing that because I'll never get married to him that this is my only chance to just pretend. To pretend that this is what our life would have been like.

I watch the way that Miles's anger at me for telling Jace slowly fades before me and the way his lips stretch into a small smile; a smile just at me, something nobody else would notice because no one else knows him the way I do.

I imagine the way he'd read his vows to me, the way he'd stare into my eyes and by the time we approach the altar, I realize that I'm standing beside LAcey, the both of us watching him, but his eyes only ever on mine as I think about the way he'd hold me and carry me into our honeymoon, the way we'd be expecting the baby together inside a marriage.