***

You think about wearing a blue dress, but your hair is shorter now, your curls wavier and you decide that your heart is a hell of a lot more full now, with love and gratitude so you wear a red dress because it makes you feel even more alive and vibrant and beautiful, and well, you know. You look hot in red.

You know it isn't a coincidence that four years later, you end up in the parking lot, and while the memories are there for the both of you, you just wrap your arms around him as tight as you can, and nestle your head in his neck and whisper how much you love him. How lucky you are to have him.

He laughs quietly and kisses your hair and squeezes you tightly before letting you go, and holding your face in his hands and kissing you soundly, shaking his head. Because even though it's four years later, he'll never ever feel like any of this is normal, that any of this isn't like wanting that shiny black bike so much when you were a kid and wishing and wishing you'd get it and you've opened all the presents Christmas morning but no bike. But wait. There's one, outside. Wrapped in a red ribbon and your heart bursts and you laugh and laugh because you just didn't think you'd ever get it. Yeah. It almost feels like that.

But there's rings on each of your left hands and it's the sign of commitment and forever and every morning you wake up to that ring on your finger and you always smile, smile because while there was a time you pictured forever, it was never like this. Sometimes you think about that- how your life would be if you hadn't walked on coals and been brave, but then he looks at you and grins that grin that you know is only for you and you shake your head of the thoughts because how can you think of the past when your present, and future, is so much more than you ever dreamed of it being?

So here you stand- four years later, a ring on your finger, in a red dress in a parking lot, and he's holding you and humming in your ear and you smile. It seems like that's all you do, smile, but here you are. Your heart feels like it's going to burst and your life is almost what you pictured when you were a kid and you laugh a little and hold him closer and you know it's all because of him. Where would you even be without him?

He once said swaying isn't dancing but you're both kind of swaying and all you can do is hold him and be held and close your eyes and listen to his soft voice in your ear and think about how maybe this wasn't where you pictured yourself ten years ago but man, you'll take it.


I want to be more than that.

***