Chapter 137

Chapter 137
Gabriela’s POV

The New York County clerk’s office wasn’t beautiful.
Beige walls with peeling paint, fluorescent lights that drained the color out of everything, plastic chairs lined up against the wall where an older couple waited their turn, and a man filling out forms with the look of someone who’d rather be anywhere else in the world.
It was perfect.
We arrived right at nine. Alejandro in jeans, a white shirt rolled up to his elbows, his hair still damp from the shower. Me in a simple cream-colored dress Alejandra had lent me that morning, whispering it was her lucky dress—the one she wore on her first date with Mateo. No makeup, no heels, my hair loose, and Grandma Ferrer’s ring on my left hand, shining under those awful lights as if to say here we are, no flowers, no violins—and it’s exactly how it should be.
Alejandra and Mateo came in behind us as official witnesses. Alejandra with Emma asleep against her chest in the carrier, Mateo holding little Gael, because bringing twins to a courthouse at nine in the morning was exactly the kind of chaos only this family could normalize.
The clerk looked at us over her glasses with the professional indifference of someone who married people eight hours a day, five days a week, and had stopped being moved by love sometime during her second week on the job.
“IDs?”
I placed them on the counter along with the divorce certificate and the forms Alejandra had downloaded and printed the night before with the efficiency of a woman used to organizing everyone’s lives.
“Witnesses?”
“Here,” Alejandra said, raising her free hand while Emma made a noise that could have been approval or gas.
The clerk checked everything quickly, stamped three things, signed two more, and looked at us with something that almost resembled a smile.
“Anyone want to say anything before signing?”
I looked at Alejandro. He looked at me. And in that silent exchange—under fluorescent lights, beige walls, and the background cry of a baby that was probably Gael protesting something—we said everything without opening our mouths.
“I just want to say I love her,” Alejandro said, looking at me with those eyes that had waited thirteen years for this moment. “And I’ll love her every day I have left. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.”
“And I love him,” I said, my voice trembling exactly where it should. “Because he taught me that love doesn’t wait for the world to be perfect to exist.”
The clerk nodded—this time definitely smiling—handed us the papers, and we signed. Alejandro first, with that tight handwriting I knew from the notes he used to leave on my nightstand when he left early, always ending with a little “TQ” that made me smile like an idiot every morning.
Then me.
Gabriela Moretti de Ferrer.
The most important signature of my life, written with a borrowed pen on a laminate counter, while my sister cried behind me and her son spit milk onto her shoulder.
“You’re married,” the clerk said, stamping the certificate. “Congratulations. Next.”
Just like that. No music, no petals, no bridal march, no guests, no white dress stained with blood. Just a stamp, a signature, and a woman in glasses already calling the next couple before we finished kissing.
But that kiss.
God, that kiss.
Alejandro cupped my face like he was holding something sacred and kissed me with thirteen years of waiting condensed into a single moment where the outside world ceased to exist. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer, because closer was never enough—and because this kiss was different.
This was the first one as his wife.
Alejandra clapped through tears. Mateo whistled with Gael in his arms. Emma slept through it all, confirming weddings still didn’t interest her.
We stepped out into a November morning that had no right to be that beautiful—but was anyway. Alejandra hugged us both at once, soaking us with tears she’d been holding in since we walked in.
“Now go before Mom calls asking why I’m not answering,” she said, wiping her face. “Mateo will take you to the airport. I’ll handle everything here.”
“Are you sure you can handle Mom?” I asked.
“I have two babies. That’s kryptonite for grandmothers. I’ll keep her distracted until dinner. After that, Gabriel’s problem.”
We hugged one last time, and Alejandra whispered something in my ear that made me laugh and cry at the same time.
“Be happy, little sister. You deserve it more than anyone.”
The private plane was waiting in Teterboro—the same airport where months ago Alejandro took a bullet for me, and where now we were taking off together toward something dangerously close to happiness.
Once we reached cruising altitude and the pilot confirmed a four-hour flight to a destination Alejandro refused to reveal, I pulled out my phone.
“Ready?” I asked.
“For what?”
“For the hard part.”
We video-called the mansion. Mateo had warned us everyone would be in the living room for afternoon coffee—because Aurora Moretti didn’t allow anyone to skip afternoon coffee under any circumstances, including her daughter mysteriously disappearing.
The screen filled with my mother’s face. She smiled at first—then frowned when she noticed I wasn’t in the mansion.
“Gabriela, where are you?”
“On a plane, Mom.”
“On a plane? What plane? Where are you going? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I raised my left hand to the camera, showing the ring—and next to it, a simple gold band the clerk sold us for thirty dollars that was worth more than any diamond in the world.
“We got married, Mom. This morning. At the courthouse.”
Silence. Two seconds.
Then Aurora Moretti exploded.
“YOU DID WHAT?! You got married without me?! Without your mother?! In a courthouse like strangers without family?! Gabriela Moretti how could you do this to me?!”
“Mamá, breathe—”
“Don’t tell me to breathe! Alejandro Ferrer, put your face on this screen right now!”
Alejandro appeared like a man about to be scolded at thirty thousand feet with nowhere to run.
“Aurora, I—”
“You took my daughter without telling me!”
“Técnicamente fue idea de ella.”
“I don’t care whose idea it was!”
Forty seconds later, the anger melted into tears—because mothers can do that. Suddenly she was smiling through crying, calling us irresponsible while wishing us happiness and promising a proper celebration when we got back.
Then my father appeared, trying to look stern and failing.
“When you come back, I’ll punch you,” he told Alejandro.
“I’ll take it.”
“Then I’ll hug you.”
After that, Gabriel took the phone.
“Congratulations, sister. You deserve this.”
We hung up, and I leaned against Alejandro, looking out the window at the endless ocean.
I was married.
To Alejandro.
The man who loved me in silence for thirteen years, who saved me again and again, who waited until I was ready.
We landed four hours later on a small runway surrounded by palm trees and impossibly blue water.
“A wedding gift from Gabriel,” Alejandro said. “He rented the whole island. Just for us.”
We walked into a white villa open to the sea.
At sunset, wrapped in his arms, he whispered:
“Mrs. Ferrer.”
“Mr. Ferrer.”
“Happy?”
“More than I ever thought possible.”
That night, under Caribbean stars, there were no shadows, no fear, no ghosts.
Only certainty.
“I’m ready,” I told him. “Not because I have to. Because I want to.”
And for the first time, my body didn’t remember fear.
It remembered life.
It remembered warmth.
It remembered that it was mine.
And when I fell, I fell with my eyes open—looking at the man who had waited thirteen years for me.
And he held me.
Like always.
Like forever.
Later, wrapped together, listening to the ocean, he asked softly:
“Are you okay?”
“I’m perfect.”
For the first time—
I really was.
As I drifted to sleep in my husband’s arms, I thought of Alejandra’s painting. The penguin standing at the edge, afraid to jump.
I had jumped.
And I was flying.