Twenty-Five

I'm twenty-five, a big girl again, but still rocking a tight ass. I'm too young, too wild, too stuck in old fears, but I'm doing it anyway... the marriage thing.

We're girls, and it's not legal, so we make it up, deciding our friends will marry us instead. The "bridal party" is full of old friends, all of us freaks in our own way, all of us on the verge of something. We've been partying for days, in fields under northern lights, in four-star restaurants, in shadows.

We caravan to Madeline Island, Polly's soul place, her mecca, and I'm in awe of the collection of loved ones that have assembled on our behalf. Still, I miss Joey and look for him in bars, by the side of the road, on the horizon. He is my phantom limb. I want him to just show up, take me by the hand and tell me I'm brave enough to do this. I want him to be part of every minute. I want his voice and his smirk and his heart. But I ended things in the worst way: I made him bad so I could leave him for good. I'm not allowed to have all of this and him.

The day I lay it all down and agree to forever I drive to the ferry dock and think about it. I could leave. I could just drive and drive until I find a new place to rise, to be someone different. There's still time.

I never pictured myself taking this course. Like the books I read on buses with Stacie in grade school, I imagine myself turning to a different page, reading a different ending. I always expected I would chose to let people down and walk away and from the stage, turn found objects into gold in front of empty seats. I knew for sure I would wake up in a life where nothing was permanent, least of all love. It was always my plan. Yet here I am, about to say yes to this other life.

Polly is out cliff jumping with Em. I imagine her sucking down a cigarette before she leaps into the frigid healing water that is her lake. We are opposites, in thought and deed and desire, yet we fit. We can't get close enough; the night is too short for all we have to say before morning. I remember us, pressed together, sitting up and touching cheeks and hair and shoulders, and then I know for sure: I will always want this.

I drive back and give over to the mayhem, the joy, the happy faces. I wear the dress, link arms with my father and take a chance. Polly holds me tightly and whispers her vows into my ear. Throughout the day and into the night people tap me on my shoulder, eager to share their evidence of why this is the "most perfect day ever." A double rainbow. A birch bark sleeve washed up on shore. Sun showers. A song. A look. A moment.

Beck tries on my rings and walks out on the sand to wish for something. Patrick beams and in his toast, reminds everyone that we were once two children in love with each others' dreams. Zoe lays out three handmade boxes on the sand and tells a story. Erick escorts my mother, too tipsy to drive, up to the cabin. From two tables away, Randi smiles at me like she knows everything.

There is the laughing and familiarity that comes with merging of two lives; I never want this night to end. Friends raise their glasses and we dance barefoot in the sand, and I'm good. I'm good.

But I'm not strong. I'm still afraid of my own fingertips, resting in my lap, the world at the ready.