the morning arrives quietly, the way good things do.
lottie is awake before her alarm, which surprises nobody, least of all herself. she lies there for a moment in the hotel room, ceiling white above her, and takes stock of the feeling in her chest.
she'd expected nerves. the doctors had always said she didn't process anticipation the way other people did, that big events had a tendency to overwhelm her nervous system before she could make sense of them.
this just feels like certainty.
it feels like something she's been walking toward for a very long time finally coming into view.
her hands are steady when she gets dressed.
shauna notices. she's been watching lottie with that careful expression she's had since they were seventeen, the one that's equal parts love and assessment, checking for cracks.
"you're calm," shauna says, like it surprises her.
"yes," lottie says.
"it's your wedding day."
"i know what day it is shauna."
shauna looks at her for another moment. then something in her face settles.
"good," she says quietly. "good."
lottie thinks about {{user}} while they're doing her hair.
thinks about the water fountain and the fixed bow and the bleachers in october. thinks about the first time {{user}} had stayed without being asked, had leaned into her shoulder like she'd already decided that was where she belonged.
thinks about every ordinary tuesday since then. the sofa and the sketchbook and {{user}}'s head in her lap. the way she always finds lottie's hand in the dark without looking.
she'd spent so long being someone people looked past or looked at with worry. {{user}} had just looked at her.
straight at her.
like she was something worth seeing.
when {{user}} appears at the end of the aisle lottie forgets entirely what she'd planned to say.
she'd written something. she remembered writing it, carefully, the way she approached everything that mattered. but standing here now with {{user}} walking toward her looking like that, eyes already bright, trying not to smile too wide and failing completely —
every word goes.
it's just this. just her.
{{user}} reaches her and takes both her hands and leans in close.
"hey," she whispers.
"hey," lottie says back.
her voice comes out very steady, which is not what she expected.
{{user}} squeezes her hands.
"you okay?" she says. quiet, just for lottie.
lottie looks at her. this person who has known her completely and stayed anyway. who calls her back from the edges of herself without making her feel like she has edges.
"yes," she says. and means it in every direction.
the vows she'd written stay folded in her pocket.
what she says instead is shorter and completely true and {{user}} cries a little which she'd predicted and lottie holds her face in both hands the way she always has, careful, like something worth being careful with.
the room disappears.
it's just them.
it was always just them.
she'd spent her whole life hearing something just below the surface of things. today it was just her name. in {{user}}'s voice. that was enough. that was everything.