The time passed slowly, my nervous energy dissipating a little in my boredom, as I watched distant relatives and friends of friends walk through the muck to come view my wedding to a vampire. Mom and Ashley regaled me on tales of what such-and-such a cousin was wearing, and how the forty year old ex of a far-off uncle had brought her twenty year old boyfriend. I laughed with them at their stories, and then the group of us started taking candid photographs.
Teren and I weren't doing the traditional posed photos. We'd rather have everyone looking natural and causal, so we could remember people how they really looked. Like Teren had said, "Capture people in their natural environment." As my friends and I snapped at least three dozen "natural" photos, and a couple risque ones of me for Teren, it was finally time to face the music. The wedding march music, to be more precise.
That brings me to the last thing that happens at weddings. Your friends become your ability to stand up straight and walk upright, as your body becomes so overwhelmed with love and terror and excitement, that the very act of breathing becomes too difficult to do properly. With my entire body lightly shaking, the closest people in my life led me away, supporting me with their arms wrapped around my laced covered ones. We slowly walked down the hallway to a side door that led out back to the pool. Out back to where my vampire was dressed to the nines, and probably waiting just as anxiously as I was, only with every eye already on him. I gave a nervous titter at the thought of him all antsy out there. I really hoped Hot Ben was still standing beside him.
My nerves shot to near panic level when the door was opened and the sound of orchestral music, mixed with the smell of lit candles, filtered back to me with the swirling air wrapping around my body, the slightly colder air from the outside forcing back the warmer air from the inside. As my comforts started leaving me one-by-one to set the stage before me, I clasped on to my anchor, my lifeline - my mother.
Once Ashley and Tracey had left me, and mom and I were alone in the hallway, I turned to her, grasping her upper arms as icy terror flooded through me. "Mom, I can't do this."
She calmly looked me over, tears in her eyes as she gently stroked my cheek with her thumb. All she said was, "He loves you...and he's waiting."
A calm peace flowed through me. He loved me...and I loved him. That's all that mattered. I nodded, a true smile breaking over my face as my mom and I hugged. I clung to her, to that last tie of my childhood that I was truly leaving behind, and felt the tears sting my eyes already.
I vaguely heard the music that was my cue, and vaguely heard my mother tearfully tell me that it was time as she handed me my bouquet of flowers. Grabbing them with one hand, I wrapped my other around her arm, pulling strength from the contact. Then she led me out those doors, and led me to my future.
The rustle of people standing was what I noticed first. I couldn't really see much, and I was supremely grateful that Mom wasn't leaving my side, as tears hazed over my vision. I could make out the red of the carpet that was leading me to the white canopy, holding every person in this world I cared about. I felt the bodies standing around the outskirts of the tent, too many people inside to all fit well, and felt the heat of the outdoor lamps as we passed by them.
A whispering followed me wherever I went, and I could just make out the words - "beautiful", "gorgeous", "wonderful". I tucked the praises away in my brain, storing them away for later days, when I knew I'd need the positive reinforcement. Then Mom and I were under the tent and my hazy vision turned crystallized. The tears in my eyes caught the twinkling lights strung everywhere underneath the canvas and expanded them to glowing snowflakes. The spectacular beauty of them stole my breath as we walked along that red carpet leading me to the altar.
Then the water in my eyes became too great to bear, and the heavy tears dropped to my cheeks. As they did, my vision cleared and Teren was the first thing I saw. Teren was the only thing I saw. I was positive more people were in the tent, I could still hear the whispering above the procession of the music, but I took no note of them. My soon-to-be husband was waiting, and with tears on his cheeks too as he smiled at me.
I held his pale gaze as more tears dropped off my cheeks, staining my dress. I didn't care, I barely noticed. Mom brought me ever closer to him and my breath came faster with each step. He was mine, he was waiting. His smile was glorious as he stood in his jet-black tuxedo, matching his jet-black hair, his hands calmly clasped together in front of himself. He stood tall and straight, the sharp tux, with a button collar instead of a tie, and a silver vest peaking out underneath the jacket, emphasizing every enticing thing about him.
He was...perfect.
As my mother handed me off to him, something inside me changed as well. As his cool hand took mine, I felt something shift inside me, some instinct buried deep within me, something that told me that everything was going to be fine, because we were now in this together - for life. I'd never worried about Teren straying on me, not with what we meant to each other, but as his fingers interlaced mine, a calm assurance filled me. This man would love me, with the same intensity that had driven him to throw Hot Ben against a wall to protect me, until my very deathbed. My looks, my body, my mental facilities...none of that fading from me, would keep him from my side.
I turned to him, facing him, suddenly feeling as if the rest of this ceremony wasn't even necessary. I completely understood what he'd meant when he told me once, that in his eyes, I was his the day I'd saved him. That, to him, I was already his wife. And he was right. We were already married, already bound, in our souls, if not on some legal document.
My eyes lost in his, I heard the gruff voice of their friendly hired hand fill the space of the tent. There were introductions and a poetic rendering on the meaning of love, and, although I never turned from Teren to look at him, I imagined the leathery Jack Palance-like man speaking of love, and couldn't suppress a giggle. Peter Alton led the crew that helped the family out throughout the year (more for show than anything else) and he was pure cowboy, rough and hard, and with a heart of gold. Or so I had to believe, since I also believed he was well aware of the family's true nature, and worked for them anyway.
As he got to the section about exchanging rings, Teren's eyes finally pulled away from mine. He looked behind him to his dad, who handed him my ring, a beaming smile on his aged face as he stood next to his son. It was probably a little odd to my distant relatives that Teren's dad was standing up as his best man, instead of some twenty something guy, but that was just Teren's family. They were close. As Teren turned back to me, I looked past Jack and felt myself sigh with relief. Hot Ben was standing beside him, looking pale and nervous, and eyeing Teren cautiously. I knew from his behavior that he still remembered what Teren was, and he'd decided to stand beside him anyway. Again, I could have kissed Ben.
Finally registering what I needed to do, I turned to Ashley standing beside me, her blood red dress making her look elegantly beautiful, the elaborate curls on half of her head facing the direction of the crowd. From their perspective, she'd look nearly normal. To me, she looked perfect. I gave her a quick hug, handing her my bouquet of white roses and then taking Teren's unadorned platinum band from her. I flashed a quick smile at Tracey behind her, looking exceedingly hot in her skintight dress and intricate up-do, and then turned back to Teren.
Opting for our own words instead of prepackaged ones (since nothing about our relationship was prepackaged), Teren began speaking to me as he slipped the ruby encrusted ring on my finger. I swallowed as silent tears ran down my cheeks.
"Emma Taylor, I think I fell for you, the moment you dumped your coffee all over my shirt." He grinned and a soft laughter went around the tent, followed by a round of soft sniffling. He tilted his head as he gazed at me adoringly. "I would have married you on that first day in the coffee shop, if you'd have had me."
I smiled at his sentiment and he stroked my fingers, once the ring was in place. "I promise you that I will always love you, that I will always take care of you, and that I will never let any harm come to you." A silence filled the tent as Teren's face got intensely serious at those words. I understood the meaning though, and even more tears slid down my skin.
Clutching my fingers, he added, "I will be your husband until the day I die." With tears building in his eyes and falling down his cheeks, he softly said, "I will love you, for the rest of my life."
A sob escaped me and tears fell rapidly at hearing those words, at seeing the tears running down his cheeks, at understanding what he really meant by that. When most grooms say things like that, they are assuming that they will live a long life together, and will each die within a relatively short amount of time of the other. With most men, those sentences merely imply that 'I will never love another while we are both alive, that I will never stray, and we will still be in love with each other on our deathbeds'.
But when Teren says those things, he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will die before him, quite possibly, centuries before him. What he is really saying, is that he will literally mourn me, miss me, and love me...for eternity. That he will never move on from me, will never marry another. I will always be his wife, no matter how many hundreds of years we were apart. It was a heartbreaking admission and I openly sobbed. I heard others sniffling at his sentimentality, but really, only his family understood our true pain at those beautifully simple, yet horribly complex words.
Knowing I was skipping a step, I reached up and kissed him. The sniffling in the crowd shifted to laughter and Peter coughed and said, "We're not there yet," but I ignored them. My man had just said something that deserved a bigger response than me sobbing in front of him. I poured my soul into that kiss, letting him know that I would make the short time we were together worth it. I would give him the memories he could take with him, for the rest of his supernaturally long life.
Finally we broke apart as the crowd openly laughed at us. I sniffled and wiped my eyes, muttering an apology to Peter. He smiled warmly at me, shaking his head and looking very debonair in his gray dress suit. He indicated the ring I was still holding, and I turned back to Teren, to slip it on his finger.
I said something, something warm and loving that brought tears to Teren's eyes and made him smile warmly at me. It wasn't nearly as moving as what he'd said, although the crowd still sniffled, not realizing just how heart-wrenching Teren's speech actually was. While I couldn't remember the words in my hormonal, emotionally charged vows, the overall sentiment was - I love you more than words can express, and that will never stop.
After that, we kissed again, and a laugh went over the crowd again until Peter finally gave up and simply proclaimed our kissing bodies husband and wife. I ignored the thunderous applause and the sensation of several bodies standing and clapping; I already knew we were husband and wife. Teren and I kissed, smiled and hugged. Finally we tore our attention off of each other, long enough to take in the crowd of well wishers.
I didn't know a lot of them, only having heard of them through family stories my mom told, but some were familiar and I smiled warmly at them. At the people I loved, I smiled brightly - My mother, her eyes a red, watery mess. Alanna, her eyes so pink from her pink tears, that she almost looked like she had an infectious disease. Imogen, who was clapping at us and swallowing repeatedly. I could tell she was forcing herself not to cry; vampires cried pure blood, and although that trait had faded away by the time it had diluted to Teren, it was still pretty obvious in the fifty percent vampire that was Imogen. Beside her, her bare arms wrapped around her daughter, was Halina. No tears were on the vampire's cheeks, nor did she seem to be holding back any, but her face beamed at us as she hugged Imogen.