Manning had once told me you couldn’t move the stars. I’d thought that meant our love was predestined, written in the night sky, sure as death. Behind my lids, I pictured the two stars and realized for the first time the permanent distance between them. And I accepted that there was, and always had been, a third star.
You can’t move the stars.
I had tried, and I had failed.
24
Lake
Gripping a bouquet of peach and cream garden roses, I peeked around the hotel’s archway. Friends and family quietly filtered onto a perfectly manicured lawn, murmuring as they took their seats for the ceremony.
The sun began to set over the Pacific Ocean, fiery orange dipping into cool blue. This morning’s cloud cover had given way to an unblemished sky. With everything happening around us, it should’ve been easy to avoid looking at Manning, but that always had been, and always would be, impossible for me. My gaze lifted above the crowd and down the petal-scattered aisle. Manning stood under the sheer curtains of a gazebo on the edge of a cliff, his back to me as he spoke to the best man. The first time I saw Manning on that construction site, he’d been larger than life. Today, he was so much more. He commanded attention without trying. His shoulders stretched a bespoke suit, and his hands sat loosely in his pockets as if it were any other day.
He turned his head, giving me the pleasure of his profile. Strong jaw, full mouth, thick, black, recently trimmed hair. Even with the scar on his lip and the new, slight curve of his nose, he looked refined, the sum of all my dreams come to life.
Henry spoke to Manning with the air of a father figure, his hand on Manning’s shoulder. Manning just listened and rubbed his sinfully smooth jaw as he stared at the ground. Henry paused, as if waiting for an answer or acknowledgement, and his smile faded. He looked to the back of the decorated lawn, through the arches hiding the bridal party. He looked at me. Maybe Manning wasn’t as calm as I thought. Maybe he was having second thoughts.
I, on the other hand, had only one thought.
Mine.
The air buzzed, charged with murmured excitement, even in the vastness surrounding us. Water and sky swallowed the horizon. If I’d ever imagined this moment, Tiffany about to walk down the aisle, I would’ve thought it’d be pure chaos. Knowing how she thought the world revolved around her, and this being the biggest event of her life to date, it would seem inevitable.
That was why her calmness unnerved me. Sarah fixed the train of Tiffany’s strapless dress on the grass while Mom hugged her tightly, rubbing her bare shoulders. Surely, as the Maid of Honor, there was something I should’ve been doing, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. Nobody was yelling or crying or putting out fires. All I heard was blood rushing through my ears.
In a few minutes, it would all be over. Everything. The last couple years of my life erased with a simple “I do.” There were bows tied to aisle chairs and petals on the ground. Somebody had spent the time to do that—peel flowers just so Tiffany could walk on them.
Gary shook Manning’s hand, and Manning smiled so widely, it knocked the wind out of me. It wasn’t just breathtaking—it was genuine.
The violinists began to play, and the bridal party took their places. My dad kissed Tiffany on the cheek before whispering in her ear. Her eyes lit up as he pulled her into a hug. Mom held a tissue to one corner of her eye and then the other. They were happy. I wasn’t. I could still change that . . . if I decided their happiness was worth my own.
I didn’t know the right answer. All I knew was my love for Manning. He watched my mom, then Gary head down the aisle, followed by the bridesmaids. I just watched him at the head of it all, hoping for a spared glance in my direction. And suddenly, it was my turn to go, to walk down the aisle to him, but not the way I’d dreamed about.
“Lake,” Dad said from behind me after too long had passed. “Go.”
I looked back at him and at Tiffany, their arms looped together, and remembered the night months ago on the beach when I’d told Manning I could walk away from them for him. He’d said something about my dad in the heat of the moment that hadn’t registered for me until weeks later.
“Why the hell do you think he’s happy about this wedding?”
I’d turned it over and over in my brain until the pieces finally came together. Dad had hurried this wedding along because he knew that wherever Manning went, I’d follow. Even if it meant leaving my family behind. Even if it meant dropping out of USC. The one way, the only way, I’d never be allowed to love Manning was as Tiffany’s husband. The betrayal cut deep, but I’d kept the hurt inside and a smile on my face to make it through all of this.