𝐍𝐄𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐇𝐄 - a medicine for sorrow. It is a place, person, or thing, which can aid in forgetting your pain and suffering.
With two brothers, she has always lived in the same house. And always, they had the same neighbors. The same boy with wh...
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I take a deep breath before he starts speaking.
"Hi, my name is Thomas, and I am thirty-two years old. I'm writing this to you, Sage, not because the psychologist told me to, but because the marriage officiant told me to; vows."
That deep breath did not help. Tears begin running down my face already.
"The first memory I have of you is not being able to pronounce your name. Viviette was way too hard. So Sage it became, your second name. And it has not changed in the many years of knowing you."
He continues after a breath, eyes shimmering with tears as he reads out loud.
"Through all those years, you've been the light in my life, like the green in nature— like Sage. Sage, the color in our beautiful Hazel's eyes, and Sage, whom I've been writing letters to since I was seven. That's why I decided to write my vows a little differently. Or rather, special, because they're dedicated to a very special person."
I try to blink the tears away. The makeup on my eyes Indie and Mom spent so much time on will be ruined. But they keep coming and coming.
"Here are the vows I've been making to you since seven years old. 'I promise I will make you as many sandcastles as you want', me, at seven after I watched you smile at the sandcastle I built for you. Then a few months later, 'I promise I will give you every chocolate cookie I ever have' because I found out you love them more than anything, but your parents refused to get them for you."
A soft chuckle escapes from him. He wipes tears off my and his own cheeks before he continues again.
"And then, at ten, when you got angry I accidentally broke a part of your sewing machine. I wrote, 'I am very sorry. I will never break anything that belongs to you again', except I, unfortunately, could not live up to that promise. Sage," he looks up at me, "I promise that if I break something you own, I will always repair it, from just buying something new to traveling to the other side of the world and finding the one person who might've gifted you the thing I broke.
"Along with that, I promise I will always help you pick up pieces, no matter how messy things get. We once spent a whole day gathering branches and leaves in the garden. I also mean your heart. I promise it won't ever get broken and every small piece that might fling away because you saw something sad, I will return to you in the perfect shape and state."
There's a tug at my dress below me. I look down, finding a smiling Hazel. Her greenish eyes are also shining with tears, even though she's just six. Then I look in the crowd, at Jade—who already became an aunt at seven—and she smiles brightly at me, her braces showing.
She has grown into a beautiful girl. Long, brown hair, the same color as Thomas's. Her eyes are also the same color, but her lips are fuller and her cheeks chubbier.
After her smile, I focus my gaze on Thomas in front of me, wearing a dark blue suit with the tiniest black details in it; thin flower patterns and curvy lines.
I made it.
And the white dress I'm wearing is made by me, too.
The design is a bit off shoulder, like the red dress I wore in Greece; the straps hang past my shoulders. They're sheer, lace-trimmed. The bodice sits tightly around my waist; corset style with floral lace details. The skirt flows to the floor, long enough to swipe across it when I walk. It's adorned with with more floral appliques, all in white.
It's anything I could've ever dreamed. Everything is.
"You had braces when you were thirteen and you hated them. I promised to keep making you laugh until you forgot about them, and you did laugh. I now promise to always make you laugh, braces or not. Because your smile will remain as beautiful as always."
He looks up at me again, such tenderness in his eyes that it makes my heart flutter.
"Around the age of fifteen, we did not speak much. I don't know what your reason was, but mine was that you were turning into a beautiful woman. 'How could someone like me ever be able to speak to someone like that without messing it up?' I asked myself. That thought has not changed, so it's surprising I'm able to talk right now, basically to an angel. And yet, at that age, I still promised I would always talk to you if you needed it, and I would always be there for you, both silently and loudly. I have kept my promise and I will keep it forever."
As he pauses to take another breath, I hear the quiet sniffs from friends and family. I want to look at them, but I can't. After my quick look at Hazel and Jade, all my attention is on Thomas. Almost like it's just us here, outside in the warm sun.
"At eighteen, I was so in love with you that I wrote your name all over my paper, accidentally on a test, and I imagined you in math and physics problems. If the force of Viviette's smile affects Thomas's heart with a mass of 70 kilograms at an acceleration of 9.8 m/s², what is the emotional impact? I don't know the answer, but it's very high."
A laugh escapes from me between my tears.
"At nineteen, I almost made you cry because of a stupid joke. In my letter at night, I promised to never make you cry again— unless they were happy tears. I really hope I have kept my promise."
Thomas's voice cracks, and he stops again to steady himself.
"Now, here we are, standing together at what feels like the start. I told me you'd be the one to make my suit, and you did. Of course little me had thoughts of marrying my best friend, but later on, I never realized those thoughts would come reality. I'm just really, really happy they did. And my promise to you today is that I will always love you, cherish you, and to stand by your side, through every storm and sunrise, for all days the rest of our lives, with Hazel by our side."
I can barely see him through the tears now, but I can feel the love everywhere. I reach out to hold his hand while my other one is being held by Hazel.
'I love you,' he mouths, our silent communication.
If my face expression did not say enough yet, I hope my silent 'I love you' did.
"You once thought me about the word Nepenthe," he then says. Surprised, I straighten my back. I thought he was done reading.
By the looks of it, he is, though. He seems to be saying this... randomly.
"I said 'I don't believe in the voodoo stuff' and you said it wasn't voodoo, but a Greek word. We went to Greece not long after that, and I realized exactly what Nepenthe meant, as I was there with you. Watching you with Jade in your arms added to my belief. Every single moment with you has added to my belief since then."
A last deep breath, "Nepenthe, a medicine for sorrow. It is a place, person, or thing, which can aid in forgetting your pain and suffering."
