Epilogue

I stood there, frozen, in the threshold of the somewhat-familiar makeshift chapel. I had been here multiple times to make arrangements for this day. I couldn’t bring myself to go in. I wasn’t usually this timid. I put my hand on my heart to feel it, and it almost leapt out of my chest. I couldn’t do this. I’d turn around. Huh, how cliché would that be? There was a sense of déjà vu, as if I had been in a situation similar to this in the past...

       “Hey, are you ready?” a man asked, coming up behind me. I turned around, and my eyes widened. It was my fiancé, and, though is sounded cheesy, the love of my life: Chase Ryan.

       “No,” I said quietly, the poufy, tulle veil shielding my nervous face from the man with whom I was planning on spending the rest of my life.

       “Chase!” I heard my mother scold from a ways off. “You’re not supposed to see the bride now!”

       “Sorry, mom,” he mumbled. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his black tuxedo that he happened to look as handsome as ever in, as he avoided my mother’s scornful gaze.

       “Chase Ryan, are your shoes—” she began, staring down at his feet in disbelief.

       “Gotta go!” he said, quickly kissing her on the cheek and disappearing before she had time for further questioning.

       “I like that boy,” she commented about her future son-in-law, dropping all signs of disruption.

       “So do I!” someone said, coming up behind us. “Jules, you look gorgeous!”

       “Thank you,” I said, turning around to face none other then the person who had somehow conned her way into being my maid of honor. 

       “You look lovely as well, Talia,” my mom complimented. Talia, like the other bridesmaids, had on a simple, red dress. It came down just below her knees, and had slender straps that stood out on her tanned skin. Talia looked good in anything she wore, but this particular dress made her appear all the more stunning.

       “So do you,” Talia said. “Personally, I think that you looked better at my wedding, but that’s just one opinion.”

       “At your wedding I was forced to wear a football jersey and jeans,” my mom said, pursing her lips, as I let out a laugh at the fond memory.

       When Talia and Adam got married, they decided that they wanted to have a different wedding—really different. It was held on a football field and everyone wore football jerseys. Adam was wearing a black one, and Talia wore a white one. It was definitely strange, but they were happy, which was all that mattered in the end.

       “Talking about our legendary wedding again, were you?” my brother questioned, approaching us.

       “Yeah,” I answered with a nod.

       “No offense, but, Jules, I think that ours was way cooler than yours it going to be,” Adam boasted.

       “It’s not my fault that they forced me into taking the ‘conservative’ route,” I mumbled, resting my hands over the tight corset, fitted to my waist in a way so that it suffocated my mid-section.

       I was having the fairytale wedding, of which most girls only dreamt. All I wanted was a simple wedding. I was willing to elope. But, no, my mother said that she wanted at least one of her children to have the perfect wedding. Since Adam had already taken the untraditional course, I was stuck with the princess wedding—gown and all.

       My dress was one of those flowing, white monstrosities that looked like a cupcake—a nice, elegant cupcake, but a cupcake, nonetheless. I didn’t even know how my mother had convinced me to agree to wearing this thing. The top of it was tight, strapless, and had white, embroidered roses all over. It wasn’t an ugly dress per se, but it was a little over the top for me.

       Under the many layers of tulle of which my veil was made, my hair was placed into a bun of sorts, so that it was off my face and back. It was pretty. I had a thin coating of makeup on my face, because I was fully confident with my own exterior that I knew I didn’t need the makeup, but rather, I simply wanted it. And then, there were my shoes… Overall, I looked good. Really good.

       “Course not,” Adam replied lightly with a laugh.

       “Julia Tylers, you look so amazing!” a girl shrieked, dragging her male counterpart behind her.

       “Thanks Mia,” I smiled at her, though she probably couldn’t see, due to the thin sheets of fabric that were compiled together to create my veil.

       “Hi, Jules,” Aiden said, grinning at me.

       “You two need to line up,” my mom told them. They complied, moving into their respectable spots. “And, Adam, get your butt in there with Chase, now!”

       Adam too had somehow manipulated his way into becoming the best man. I was rooting for Aiden to take that role, but Aiden assured us he was fine just being a groomsman. Chase didn’t really care either way, for weddings weren’t really his favorite things in the world.

       “Ready?” my dad asked as he put a hand on my shoulder, smiling down at me.

       “Yeah,” I said shakily.

       I heard the classic organ music begin, and the procession started. The couples of groomsmen and bridesmaids entered through the elongated doors, as planned. First were Kim and Trent, followed by Izzy and Mason, Mia and Aiden, and finally Logan and a person we had learned to love, Katrina.

       Talia walked down the long pathway, and then came our appointed ring bearer, Samuel Ryan, my soon-to-be nephew. I could still remember holding him when he was a baby, only twelve short years ago… It was incredible, really, to see him grow up into the pre-teen that he now was.

       Lila Ryan, Sam’s younger sister and Gloria and Michael’s daughter, was next to enter. In all her seven years of glory, she walked down the aisle, throwing rose petals of red as she did so. Suffice to say she made an adorable flower girl in her red and white flats.

       Finally, it was my turn. My father locked arms with me to one side, and my mother did the same with the other. It had been decided prior to the day that both parents would walk me down the aisle to compensate for Adam’s less than customary succession (there was no aisle—only a grassy and somewhat muddy field). Slowly, we began our journey down the never-ending path.

       I could see Chase in the distance, smiling as he looked at me. Everyone around him was lined up to perfection. It was the exact image that I had spent nights upon nights dreading. When I was younger, I questioned love’s existence because I feared the unknown. A few days ago, I found myself questioning the point of marriage. I was scared of the unfamiliar, yet again.

       We came up to the altar, and my parents left my side. I was facing Chase, and he looked as confused and as terrified as me. Yes, we loved each other, but there was something about making the actual commitment of getting married that could really instill fear in a person.

       When he proposed, I was just as apprehensive about accepting as he had been asking. The proposal had been perfect. We were at a football game with the rest of his family, when the words “Marry me, Jules?” appeared on the Jumbotron. I looked over to Chase, and he was on one knee with a ring in his hands. It was amazing.

       The priest began to speak, jolting me out of my thoughts. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in paradise, and into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined.” It sounded like a bunch of B.S. to me, not being the religious type, but I went along with it. Chase and I had also lost the battle to do like Adam and Talia and have a secular ceremony.

       “Do you, Chase Ryan, take Julia Tylers to be your wife?”

       “I do,” Chase said solemnly and meaningfully.

       “Do you, Julia Tylers, take Chase Ryan to be your husband?”

       “I do,” I grinned.

       “Therefore if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace,” the priest said. There was silence. We were told to exchange rings, and did so.

       “You may now kiss the bride,” he said, uttering the line I had heard in so many classic movies over the years. Chase removed my veil, and kissed me deeply like he had done so many times before. Applause made its way around the room, and we pulled back from each other. He took his hand in mine, and we walked back up the aisle as Mr. and Mrs. Ryan.

       “Well, that was fun,” he said once we were safely out of range of others’ ears.

       I stared down at his feet and smirked, picking up my dress to expose my own shoes. “How mad do you think our moms are going to be when they figure out we wore Converse?”

       “I don’t really want to find out,” he said, looking down at his worn shoes he had kept for so long. “I can’t believe they still fit…”

       “Neither can I,” I laughed, wiggling my toes inside my own red shoes.

       “Always,” he said.

       “And forever,” I sighed happily.

       “I love you, Jules.”

       “I love you too, Chase.”