Page 56 of The Beachgoers
From the seated crowd in the shadows, murmurs rise. Familiar nods, too.
“That’s right,” Kyle continues. “It was the Fourth of July, and half of you sitting here,” he says, motioning to the guests on the white chairs, “were with me. A bunch of crazy kids we were—bored teenagers going for an illegal joyride on the Sound. We got busted, all right, for hot-wiring the old commissioner’s boat. But it was totally worth it. You want to know why?”
Lauren smiles, and touches his face in the evening light. But the crowd? It’s silent, waiting on his words.
Kyle reaches for Lauren’s hand again and looks at only her. “Because I took your hand that night, Ell, just like now. And I helped you off that stolen boat. Didn’t let go of your hand all night, either, that summer we started dating. And you know something?” He pauses and swipes at sudden tears in his eyes. “I’m never letting go.”
A whistle breaks out from the white chairs. Nick, maybe. Or heck—Shane.
Kyle shakes his head and can’t fight his own smile. “I love you, Ell,” he goes on. “You’re my everything. Without you, and without our children, I’m nothing.”
In the twilight, Lauren wordlessly squeezes his hand.
As she does, Elsa encourages Lauren to respond with her own vows of the heart.
* * *
But Lauren hesitates.
In that moment, Kyle notices the way she glances to Jason beside him. Kyle does, too. His best man stands there on the beach in his gray jacket and faded jeans. And damn, if time doesn’t move like the sea—bringing the three of them here again, right on the Stony Point shores. Here again, but different. Older. Wiser. Yet still connected.
Jason, watching Lauren falter, gives her a knowing nod.
Which seems to unleash her thoughts, her emotion. She turns to Kyle, then. Standing with him at the edge of the sea—which returns again and again with the tides—Lauren begins her vows with three words.
She tells Kyle that she loves him.
* * *
Jason stands off to Kyle’s side and watches this all go down. Kyle’s smile is so wide, and Lauren’s tear-filled eyes so sparkling, all anyone can see is their genuine love for each other.
Jason listens, too, to their personal vows. To the meaning and nuances, to the secrets and stories, behind each and every phrase.
But then he hears something else. Something far more revealing than any word they might utter. As Kyle slides Lauren’s wedding band onto her finger and tells her it’s a symbol of his love, forever, Jason hears it—the catch in Kyle’s voice. It’s a catch ten years in the making, ten years coming. A catch shaped by every emotion thrown Kyle’s way in that past decade.
And when Lauren, standing there in the two-piece wedding dress that is so her, takes Kyle’s hand and slips his ring on his finger, Jason doesn’t miss the sob she stifles. She nearly conceals it; you’d have to bethisclose to hear it. And even then, that sob is almost lost on the breeze lifting off the sea. But Jason doesn’t miss it—the near-sob Lauren swallows back with a teary smile. Oh, he remembers only a few weeks ago when he went to her house the day of the failed vow renewal. He’d sat with her in her kitchen as she shook with devastation. She sobbed then, too.
But not like this.
This stifled sob tonight? It’s different than that day’s grief. This sob is one of relief. One ofunbelievablegratitude, if he had to name it.
And he gets it, Jason does. Standing where the waves break, he really gets it.
Hell, ten years ago,hewas a wreck. Sat in his wheelchair beside Kyle at the altar—with little faith in God, if he even believed God existed at all. Howcouldhe believe? Jason had no leg. No brother. No hope.Everythingin his life was snuffed.
He looks at his two beach friends standing at the podium now.
Ten years later, they made it.
And, Jason Barlow realizes, so did he.
* * *
What started weeks ago with a typo on a marriage certificate has come to pass.
She and Kyle have reaffirmed their commitment to each other. They’ve proclaimed their love in front of everyone that matters. They’ve shared their deeply personal moment with all.
There’s a pause before Kyle reaches for her in front of Elsa’s driftwood podium. Splashing waves whisper in that pause. The sun sets lower. The moon rises. The earth turns.
