Page 112 of What's in a Kiss?

I take out my phone and cue up “Just Like Heaven,” the song that would have played right after Mash and Eli kissed, if we hadn’t skipped realities. I want to have it ready when the moment is right.

“This is the song I wanted to walk out to during the recessional,” Masha says, incredulous, glancing at my screen.

“I know,” I say. “And you will.”

She squeezes Eli’s hand, and the four of us face Yogi Dan, who meets Jake’s eyes, then Eli’s, then Masha’s, then mine. The moment is right. I cross my fingers behind my back.

“Friends and loved ones of Masha and Eli,” Yogi Dan says in a booming voice. “We welcome you in peace and love.”

I watch my best friend and the man she loves in profile. I watch their faces as they hear the words they wanted spoken at their wedding. Masha’s features soften as she listens. Eli’s eyes fill with tears. And Jake—

I can’t bring myself to look at him yet, though I feel him looking at me.

Then it’s my turn to give my reading. I open my copy ofTo the Lighthouseand hear Masha gasp. It’s not my original copy from AP English—my High Life mom would have donated that by now. I picked this one up at Diesel yesterday. The cover’s different, but the words I need are the same.

“ ‘What art was there, known to love or cunning,’ ” I read, “ ‘by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving [make them] one?’ ”

Masha stares at me as I finish, a hand pressed to her lips. I get the feeling that beneath her fingers, she wants to mouth our code—BBS. But she won’t. Not here. And it’s for the best. It gives me something to look forward to.

“And now,” Yogi Dan says, consulting his program, “a reading from the world’s Best Man.”

Jake looks confused. “Is that supposed to be me?”

I hand him the King James Bible, also new from the bookstore, and flip it open to the bookmarked page.

“ ‘Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?’ ”

As he finishes reading, his eyes cut toward mine, and I realize I’m not wondering anymore about what these words mean to him. He is a man who believes in marriage and in love. I’ve been lucky enough to bask in that belief this week, but I have to step away from it now.

“Our maid of honor made a powerful point in her reading just now,” Yogi Dan says, and I remember how the last time he said this, I’d felt competitive pride. I was trying to win. I was trying to make Jake lose. I didn’t understand we could win so much better together.

“Olivia used the wordinextricably, a gold-gilt frame for the union you dawn today. Your lives never will untangle after this ceremony. You are forever connected,inextricably.”

I know what I have to do. I raise my eyes to Jake. He’s looking at me. I knew he would be. What was once a shallow game of chicken is now a profound expression of love. How strange that both experiences ignite the same sensation in my core, that building heat, that tingling flush in my cheeks. Is this it? Is it working?

“You may kiss to seal your love,” Yogi Dan says.

I break my gaze away from Jake to see Masha and Eli lean in for a kiss. I missed this part, once upon a time, and it’s beautiful to see.

Except that when I look back at Jake, he’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at Masha and Eli, too. He’s clapping, the way you do at this point in the wedding, and I realize in horror we’re still in the High Life.

I grab Jake’s shoulders, pull his focus to me. I stare into his eyes and will him to hate me, will myself to hate him.

“Liv?” he says.

“It didn’t work.” I turn to Yogi Dan.

He shrugs. “Try the joint.”

“Seriously?” I demand. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“What doyougot, Olivia?” he challenges.

“I don’t know,” I mutter, feeling catastrophically alone. Until I look at Jake.

If Jake’s claim about his Moleskine is to be believed, both Glasswells fell for me on the first day of spring semester, junior year. Almost at first sight. Both Jakes wanted to climb the trellis to meet me as Juliet, but shied away because they were scared. Which means... the annoyance I’d always assumed was haughtiness in my Real Life might simply have been Jake struggling to reach me, to know me, to get me to see him.

Which means... all those moments from Masha’s Real Life wedding that I’d filed under Glasswell being a dick—from Lyft pickup to ceremony stare-down—was I wrong about those, too? The sureness of my answer solves something inside of me.

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