My hands won’t stay still. I clasp them together, then unclasp them. Wipe my palms on my tux. Clasp them again. My heart is racing—way too fast. I’ve never been nervous on stage before, never felt anything close to stage fright. But this? This is different.

I glance at my best man. He gives me a quick nod, like You good? I shoot him a lopsided smile, but my fingers twitch at my sides. I can feel every second stretching out, slow and weighty, like time itself knows how big this moment is.

She’s out there. Right outside those doors. Adjusting her dress, taking a breath. Is she nervous? Probably not. She’s always been the calm one, the steady one. The one who looks at a problem and solves it before I even have time to stress. I can picture her now—laughing with her bridesmaids, maybe rolling her eyes at how dramatic I probably look up here.

God, I love her.

Four years. It’s been four years since I met her in that cramped lecture hall, since she sat next to me and changed my entire life. Four years of late-night conversations, inside jokes, debating song lyrics, challenging each other in ways that made us both better. She saw something in me before I fully saw it in myself.

And now, she’s about to be my wife.

The music shifts.

I swallow.

The doors open.

And there she is.