I stepped aside.
“She’s out back.”
I followed him as far as the kitchen.
Through the window, I watched Noah walk into the garden where Lily was watering herbs.
She smiled when she saw him.
He said something I couldn’t hear.
Then he went down on one knee.
The watering can slipped from Lily’s hand.
Her mouth opened.
Both hands flew to her face.
Noah opened the box.
Lily began crying before he finished speaking.
Then she nodded.
Again.
And again.
She threw her arms around him so hard that he nearly toppled backward.
I stood behind the kitchen curtain feeling as though someone had quietly replaced my future with someone else’s.
That night, I cried alone.
And beneath the heartbreak came thoughts I am still ashamed to remember.
Why Lily?
Did Noah pity her?
Was he trying to rescue her?
Was something wrong with him?
Could he truly love her as a woman?
I hated myself for thinking those things.
Because beneath all my years of defending Lily, apparently I still carried some of the same assumptions I despised in everyone else.
The next morning, Lily called me.
“Hannah?”
Her voice was practically vibrating with excitement.
“I need you.”
“For what?”
“For wedding things! I don’t know wedding things.”
I laughed despite myself.
“Okay.”
“And you’re my maid of honor.”
“Lily—”
“No arguing.”
Something in my chest softened.
“All right.”
“Promise?”
That word.
Always that word.
“I promise.”
Their Marriage
The wedding was small.
Lily chose daisies instead of roses because she said roses were “too serious.”
Noah wore charcoal gray.
When Lily began walking down the aisle, he cried openly.
Not one polite tear.
He completely lost composure.
Everyone laughed affectionately, including Lily.
When she reached him, she whispered loudly enough for several of us to hear:
“You’re ruining the pictures.”
Noah wiped his face.
“Worth it.”
They laughed together.
I remember watching them exchange vows and wondering whether I had ever truly understood either of them.
Afterward, Dad placed a hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“You’ll look after her.”
Noah’s expression changed for just a second.
“I will.”
At the time, I interpreted the moment as a father entrusting his daughter to her husband.
Years later, I would remember those words differently.
Lily and Noah bought a yellow cottage near the edge of town.
Their life wasn’t extraordinary.
That was what made it beautiful.
They argued over laundry.
They planted tomatoes.
Noah forgot anniversaries of minor events Lily considered extremely important.
Lily called me most mornings to tell me what she planned to wear.
Sometimes I heard Noah shouting from another room:
