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Clarke’s never been sure about weddings.
She gets marriage: you love someone, you’re planning to have some kind of family with them, you want to benefit from their better health insurance or get tax breaks or whatever. It’s never been something she’s connected with like she thinks she was supposed to be; she never fantasized about being a bride, about her dress or her ceremony or any of that. It just didn’t appeal to her that much.
Which doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to get married, of course. She adores Bellamy, and she’s going to spend the rest of her life with him. Marriage is just logical.
But she still kind of panics at the ring.
“Uh,” he says.
Honestly, physically recoiling was–not ideal, but she recovers enough to cup his face and kiss him. He hasn’t even asked the question yet, but the kiss makes him smile.
“I’m getting some mixed signals here,” he murmurs. “Too soon?”
Clarke graduated last week, and she’ll admit she never pictured herself as one of those people who settled down right out of college, but it seems like a moot point, given she’d been settled down before she even left college. She’s so settled sometimes that it still freaks her out, that taking a step back and looking at her life is almost staggering. It’s not like she’s happy all the time, but happiness is a default state in a way she never quite imagined it could be.
“Not too soon,” she says. “I just–child of divorce, you know?”
“I know.” He kisses her again. “Do you not want to get married? This can just be a cool ring you wear on a different finger.”
“Bellamy,” she says, smiling. “Of course I want to marry you. Did you have a proposal speech? I bet you prepared something. I want to hear it.”
“It’s nothing you don’t know.”
She nudges his jaw. “Please?”
He tugs her down onto the couch and settles her in his lap. “I was the ring-bearer in my mom’s wedding.”
“To Kevin?”
“Yeah. And I remember thinking–” He laughs. “I know guys aren’t supposed to think this, but I couldn’t wait to get married.”
Her stomach twists up, but it’s not all bad. She’s seen pictures of him when he was a kid; he must have looked adorable. “Yeah?”
“You know me. I’m a romantic.”
“You are.” She rests her head on his shoulder. “And?”
“And then everything about the marriage went wrong and I decided soulmates were a sham. And then I met you.”
“And then you met me.”
She can hear him swallow. “I, uh. I didn’t know I could feel this way. About anyone. You hear about soulmates, and you see them, but–honestly, I don’t think everyone’s can be this good. We’re probably really lucky. I know I am. And I love you. So–I’m really hoping you’ll marry me.”
“You didn’t quite stick the landing,” she says, like she’s not actually tearing up.
“The landing was better before you physically recoiled from the ring,” he says, but he actually does land the teasing note in his voice. “Originally it was just will you marry me.”
“I will,” she says. “I just–”
“Child of divorce.”
“Not just that. I never really got the big deal about weddings. Or even engagements. But–I know you like that stuff.”
“Big parties with our friends?”
“That’s not what a wedding is.”
He shifts, getting her more comfortably settled against him. His hand settles over his name on her leg; even when it’s covered, he knows exactly where it is. “Okay, so tell me what a wedding is.”
“It’s–expensive,” she says. “And I know we can afford it. My mom’s going to be thrilled, she’ll help out as much as we let her. But it’s caterers and flowers and arguing about where to do it and spending so much time and money and effort on one day of our lives.”
“So let’s not do that.”
“But you want a wedding.”
“I don’t want that kind of wedding.” He kisses her hair. “You know what I want? I want you to walk down an aisle to me. That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. All I care about is that moment. That’s what I loved. That moment where I’m there, at the altar, waiting, and the doors open, and I see you. Everyone sees you. I don’t care if you’re wearing a giant wedding dress or a t-shirt and jeans. That’s just–that’s the moment. Everything else, I don’t give a shit.”
She laughs. “That was baby Bellamy’s big wedding dream?”
“Yeah. Everyone turns, and sees this beautiful girl, and she’s walking down the aisle to me.”
“I can’t believe four-year-old Bellamy was so shallow.”
“Yeah? What did you want?”
“I figured I’d marry Wells and I wasn’t that excited about it. I didn’t get the big deal with, you know. Boys.”
“This is why you didn’t have a bisexual crisis.” He sighs and nuzzles her hair. “We don’t have to have a wedding. Not like you’re thinking. We can do–something us.”
“With an aisle.”
“Or something like an aisle. Hell, if you just want to go down to the courthouse, we don’t have to–”
“Of course we do.” She leans up and kisses him. “I’m not the only one getting married here, Bellamy. I’m pretty sure we can come up with something we both like.”
“What, you’re trying to tell me marriage is about mutual understanding and compromise now?” he teases.
“Just to start with. If we’re already undermining and manipulating each other now, what do we have to look forward to?”
“Yeah, you’re right. We’ve got years of passive-aggressive hate still to come.” He pauses, shifts a little. “So, um–do you want to wear the ring?”
“I love you, I can’t wait to marry you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want to wear the ring,” she says, extending her hand so he can slide it on.
“Yes would have sufficed,” he says, voice soft, and she slides her hand into his, so he can feel the ring against his fingers.
“It really wouldn’t have.”
*
Clarke’s expecting Abby to throw a fit–she’d always thought her mother was somewhat invested in her wedding–but to her surprise, her mother seems completely happy to contribute financially just by subsidizing her friends’ airfare to Oregon.
“It’s your wedding,” she says. “All I want is for you to be happy.”
It shouldn’t be a surprising sentiment, but Clarke’s finding that basically all of her feelings about her impending marriage are a surprise.
Well, okay. All is an overstatement, because the biggest and most important feeling is still happiness that she is marrying her best friend, favorite person, and actual soulmate. Just because the wedding part still feels a little weird, she’s not letting it get in the way of how great this is. And it is. She finds herself smiling all the time for no reason, these days.
She’s still going to be happy when the wedding is just done. She’s looking forward to being married a lot more than she’s looking forward to getting married.
She’s pretty sure it’s going to be fun, though. They’re having it in her dad’s backyard in Oregon, in late August. She and Bellamy are taking a week off work, but most of their friends are just coming for the weekend. Miller is performing the ceremony, but they don’t even really have a wedding party. It’s just a bunch of their friends sitting in chairs so that there will be an aisle, a quick ceremony, and then a party. Her dress is pale blue and cost about a hundred bucks, and Bellamy is wearing a suit they bought at Goodwill. Monty is bringing a lot of board games, and they’re buying a lot of alcohol.
She wants to be excited, but it doesn’t really feel like a compromise. Not like it should.
“We could get a church.”
“Neither of us has any religious affiliation,” he says. “I don’t even like churches.”
“I could wear white.”
“Do you want to wear white? Your dress is gorgeous.”
“I just–I want this to be your wedding. The wedding you want.”
“I’m not holding back on anything, Clarke,” he says, and his voice is pitched low. It’s his trust me voice, but the thing about that voice is that she does. She knows he’d never use it to lie to her. “If I wanted something more, I’d ask. We have an awesome wedding cake. We have an aisle. We have all our friends coming. I’m going to be married to you in two weeks. You think I’m not happy?”
“I feel like I’m supposed to want more. That I’m letting you down not wanting some–big, stupid thing.”
“You’re not,” he says. “I told you exactly what I wanted, and I’m getting it. And if anyone says our wedding sucks, fuck them.”
“You really are my soulmate, aren’t you?”
He grins. “Yeah, that’s what they tell me.”
*
The worst part is that she cries. Basically immediately. All she has to do is turn the corner and see Bellamy there, waiting for her, and the look on his face at this moment–the moment he’s been waiting for since he was four years old–is enough to get her crying.
He grins when she gets to him, reaches over to brush her eyes. “Wow. That bad, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“You do not have normal reactions to marriage.”
“You’re a dick.”
“I’m starting to see why you didn’t get a priest to do this,” Miller says. “You guys good?”
“We’re good,” says Clarke. “Go ahead.”
She tears up again when Bellamy gives his vows, but makes it through her own without any serious incidents. And then there’s a new ring on her finger, and Bellamy kisses her, and it’s done.
She’s married.
“Good?” he asks, thumb stroking her hand, voice all concern. Her husband. It felt official, just with his name on her leg, but–this is better.
“Perfect,” she says, and means it.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “I thought so too.”