CHAPTER 102

CHAPTER 102
"You sure about this?" Arizen whispered, her elbow in mine as we hid behind the sheer drapery.
I made myself laugh, a quivering sound, adjusting the strap of my camera that rested across my chest like a beat I wasn't ready for. "Sure as hell."

She looked at me—white silk dress billowing like a promise, Canon glowing under the fairy lights—and shook her head. "Only you'd walk down the aisle looking like you're about to shoot a protest."

"I am," I said, smiling. "A protest of the version of us that didn't work."

The music began—muted piano chords, anonymous and intimate—and the curtain opened.

I entered, the heel of my shoes echoing on roughed concrete. The once rowdy party space Tony and his crew once hosted to hold illegal fights was not recognizable anymore. The ivy wrapped around the beams gently, fairy lights sparkled, and the people who once whispered behind me now smiled and remained quiet.

I took a photo every third step, click. Arizen had tried to convince me to leave it at home—"Be present," she insisted.

But this was how I was there. This was how I was breathing. And I wasn't going to let today become some haze of fantasy. I needed evidence. Evidence that chaos could become sanctuary.

Tony at the altar, black suit stretched over a body that had terrified me, thrilled me, wounded me, held me. No tie, of course. His shirt undone a fraction of an inch, a glint of silver on the pendant. His eyes—his eyes—never left mine.

I raised the camera once again and snapped another photo. He smiled as he heard the click.

The nearer I came, the more I could feel my pulse level out. We had fought to get here. With blood, silence, guilt, letters, photographs, each other's wounds. The kiss during the storm. The confession behind a camera. The photo sequence. The second first time. The truth that Rose delivered in that envelope.

We had survived it all.

Tony grabbed my hand as I moved onto the altar. "You're late," he grumbled under his breath.

"You're lucky I did make it at all," I said quietly, lips trembling.

Queen Arrows herself was our officiant—her idea. "Why not complete the book that you began?" she said. "No other human being knows like I do.".

She appeared before us today in a simple navy dress, notecards piled in the palm of her hand. "No script today," she told the audience. "They wrote their own vows. Of course."

Tony took his turn first, clearing his throat before reading from a crumpled sheet of paper—his vow looked more like a crumpled football play than verse.

He did not read it.

"I was supposed to shatter you," he said, his eyes fixed on mine. "I said it over and over in my head each day, sometimes out loud. I blamed everything on you. But what I couldn't force myself to do was to lie, which is that you showed me something I didn't want to see about myself. You didn't kill me. You revealed me."

Silence.

I don't want easy with you. I want the hard-earned peace. I want the raw, the ugly, the healing. And I want to spend the rest of my life proving that the boy you ruined never deserved you—because the man I've become does."

I forgot how to breathe.

Then it was my turn. My camera dangled between us like a mutual secret. I pulled out my journal from my dress pocket and flipped to the last page. My voice shook but my backbone didn't.

You were supposed to be my enemy," I began. "You were the tale I never wanted to tell. The picture I never wanted to take. But you turned out… the caption that goes under all of that. The part that gives the story sense."

I struggled to hold back tears.

"I. Spent years running from a ghost. But you—Tony Zacks—you stopped me. You made me look. And what I saw wasn't fear any longer. It was us."

He exhaled. I dropped the journal.

Queen Arrows leaned forward slightly. "By the authority invested in me by absolutely no legal right, but all emotional standing," she said with a grin, "you may now kiss the—"

"Wait!" Tony growled, his hands framing my face. "Just—"

He leaned his forehead against mine. His voice was a breath only I could hear.

"You didn't ruin my life," he breathed. "You rescued it."

Click.

The shutter locked the instant.

Our windless and passionate kiss was like signing a vow and a war treaty. The crowd lost it. Someone whistled. Arizen burst into tears and swore because she had smudged her mascara.

The reception descended into laughter, hugs, and surprise dance moves. Thatcher even smiled—without dancing. Wells gulped his beer and told some Mackenzie once punched him in the balls. I did not straighten him out. Let the myth be.
Then Tony stole my camera and took a photo of me spinning with Arizen. It was fuzzy. I loved it.

We cut the cake. We imbibed. We did it.

And as night seeped into something softer, Tony and I sat atop the hood of his car parked just outside the venue. My head was resting on his shoulder. My camera was full. My heart was full.

"I didn't think we'd make it," I whispered.

He kissed the top of my head. "That's why we did."

I closed my eyes.

Peace. At last.

But before I could give in to that most unattainable of things—happiness—a earsplitting boom echoed from the back lot.

Then another.

Then screams.

Tony leapt to his feet, pulling me behind him. "Stay here."

"Tony—"

"I said stay."

But I hadn't. I ran after him, flailing my camera, terror clawing up my throat.

We rounded the corner just in time to see Thatcher stagger out of the shadows, blood pouring down the side of his head.

"I tried to stop him," Thatcher panted, eyes wild.

"Who?!" Tony yelled, shaking his shoulders.

But before he could say— 

A body hit the sidewalk.

I saw the blood first. Then the face.

Wells.

His chest rose once. Then again. Then. not again.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second.

And like that—our happily ever after was shattered.

I dropped to my knees, camera still clutched in my hand.

Because not all stories end where the book comes to a close.

Some stories leave a stain.

And somewhere, somebody is always bleeding.

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