“It’s over there, next to that chair.” Karen points. “Could you feed her? I’m afraid she’ll throw mashed peas at my dress.” Karen laughs, reaching for Abby. “Terrible twos have come a little early for us.”
The little girl smiles, showing a full row of tiny half teeth. “Mama,” the chubby toddler calls, reaching both of her little hands to grasp the strap of Karen’s dress.
My heart melts every time I hear Abby speak. “Hi, Miss Abby.” I poke the little girl’s cheek, making her giggle. It’s a beautiful sound. I ignore the way Karen and Landon’s soon-to-be-wife stare at me with sympathy in their eyes.
“Hi.” Abby buries her face into her mom’s shoulder.
“Are you ladies almost ready? We only have about ten minutes until the music will start, and Landon’s getting more anxious every second,” Ken warns.
“He’s okay, right? He still wants to marry me?” the worried bride asks her future father-in-law.
Ken smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yes, dear, of course he does. Landon’s nervous as he could be, but Hardin’s helping with that.” Every one of us, myself included, laughs at this.
The bride rolls her eyes in humor and shakes her head. “If Hardin’s ‘helping out,’ I better cancel the honeymoon now.”
“We better get going. I’ll feed Abby something small to hold her over until the reception.” Ken kisses his wife on the mouth before taking the toddler back into his arms and leaving the room.
“Yes. Please don’t worry for me, I’m okay,” I promise the two women. I am okay. I have been okay with the long-distance kind-of-relationship with Hardin. I miss him constantly, yes, but the space has been good for us.
The worst part of being okay is that okay is far from happy. Okay is that gray space in the middle where you can wake up each day and carry on with your life, even laugh and smile often, but okay isn’t joy. Okay isn’t looking forward to each second of your day, and okay isn’t getting the most out of life. Being okay is what most people settle for, myself included, and we pretend that okay is fine, when we actually hate it, and we spend the majority of our time waiting to break out of just being okay.
He gave me a taste of how great life can be outside of okay, and I’ve missed it ever since.
I’ve been okay for a long time, and I’m not sure how to get out of it now, but I hope for the day that I can say I’m great instead of I’m okay.
“You ready, Mrs. Gibson?” I smile at the lucky woman in front of me.
“No,” she says, “but I will be as soon as I see him.”
Chapter seventy-seven
HARDIN
Last chance to bail,” I say to Landon while helping him adjust his tie.
“Thanks, jerk,” he fires back, pushing my hands away to mess with the crooked tie. “I’ve worn a hundred ties in my life, yet this one refuses to straighten out.”
He’s nervous, and I feel for him. Sort of. “Don’t wear one, then.”
“I can’t just not wear a tie. I’m getting married.” He rolls his eyes.
“That’s exactly why you don’t have to wear a tie. It’s your day, and you’re the one spending all this money. If you don’t want to wear a tie, don’t wear a fucking tie. Hell, if I was the one getting married today, they would be lucky if I wore pants.”
My best friend laughs. His fingers twist and tug at the tie around his neck. “Good thing you aren’t, then. I wouldn’t come to that spectacle.”
“We both know that I’ll never be married.” I stare at myself in the mirror.
“Maybe.” Landon’s eyes meet mine in the mirror. “You’re okay, right? She’s here. Your dad saw her.”
Hell no, I’m not. “Yeah, I’m okay. You act like I didn’t know she was coming or that I haven’t seen her in the last two years.” I haven’t seen her nearly enough, but she needed the distance from me. “She’s your best friend and your bride’s maid of honor. This is no surprise to me.” I pull the tie from my own neck and hand it to him. “Here, since yours is a piece of shit, you can have mine.”
“You have to wear a tie—it goes with your tux.”
“You know damn well you’re lucky I’m wearing this thing in the first place.” I tug at the heavy material covering my body.
Landon’s eyes close briefly, and he sighs in both relief and frustration. “I suppose you’re right.” He smiles. “Thanks.”
“And for wearing clothes to your wedding?”
“Shut up.” He rolls his eyes and runs his hands down the sleeves of his crisp black tuxedo. “What if she doesn’t show up at the altar?”
“She will.”
“But what if she doesn’t? Am I crazy for getting married so fast?”
“Yes.”
“Well, thanks.”
I shrug. “Crazy isn’t always a bad thing.”
He takes me in, his eyes searching my face for some sort of hint that I may unravel at any time. “Are you going to try to talk to her?”
“Yes, obviously.” I tried to make conversation with her at the rehearsal dinner, but Karen and Landon’s bride were stuck by her side like glue. Tessa’s helping to plan the wedding was a surprise to me; I didn’t know she was into that type of thing, but apparently she’s pretty damn good at it.
“She’s happy now; not completely, but mostly.”