by Lux, Vivian
And now today, I would be seeing him for the first time.
I tried not think about Rane, to wonder what I was going to be walking into today. I kept myself busy helping my mom and Mike set up tents in advance of the pending storm. Throwing myself into work like I always did.
When everything was finally in place, it was time for me to get my mother changed into the wedding dress I bought her a million years ago.
"You look amazing, Mom," I told her. There was simply no other way to describe her. Tears gathered in her eyes. "And Lord knows you've been waiting long enough for this." I smiled, kissing her on the cheek.
She laughed. "It was worth it making sure that Rane was healthy again."
"He's been fine for a while," I lashed out. "He just didn't want to work."
My mother smiled and rubbed my arm up and down. "You two will figure it out," she said, rubbing my arm so hard I wondered if she was trying to start a fire. "Love always wins in the end."
"Sure it does," I said. I certainly wasn't going to question that theory on the day of my mother's wedding. "Now, let's go get you hitched before something else goes wrong."
Warm gusts seized our hair the second we stepped outside of Mike's house. My mother giggled and tried to shield her hairstyle, but Nature was having none of it. We half-marched, half-sprinted down the little aisle in Mike's backyard, and by the time she reached her soon-to-be husband, we were both breathless and laughing.
The smile slid from my face when I saw him.
Rane stood next to his father, leaning against his crutch, but still devastatingly handsome in his charcoal gray suit.
The wind stung my eyes and I had to look away from him.
Part of me, the part that still loved him, still wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything, gasped. The other part of me, the raw, ragged, and self-righteous part, wanted to stay away. To not even look at him, for fear of what I might do.
The wind tore at the programs and scattered petals from our bouquets. The wind blew at the tears in my eyes as I watched my mother and Mike exchange rings. And the wind nearly knocked the lined paper out of Mike's hands as he yelled his vows over the noise of the gusts.
The ceremony was quick and simple, just perfect for the people it was honoring. My mother vowed to make eggs every Saturday, and Mike vowed loudly to always kill the spiders that gathered in the drain of his shower. They kissed, we clapped, then everyone ran for the shelter of the tents.
Once inside, I caught my breath.
"Hey, Maddie," Keir said, his voice rough and gravelly. "You look beautiful." He sounded like he had been drinking the night before.
I kissed my stepbrother's cheek. "There's some coffee back at the house," I told him.
He shot me a grateful look and headed back up the lawn.
And left me standing face to face with Rane.
"Hey, Princess," he said softly. "I've missed you."
I swallowed hard. "It's good to see you moving around."
He nodded and pressed his lips together tightly. "Got something else I want you to see, too."
He looked past me. I turned around to see Keir returning from the house with a mug in his hand. Something wordless passed between the two brothers.
And then Keir stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.
The conversation died away as everyone looked towards us. I saw my mom blinking, a smile still plastered across her face. Mike cocked his head to the side skeptically.
"Go sit down, Maddie." Keir nudged me.
Rane stepped forward, clearing his throat. "I know it's not in the program, folks," he said, his smooth baritone rolling easily through the crowd. "But I have a special thing I wanted to do today."
He paused and looked down, flexing his right hand. I watched him, feeling tingles of anticipation running through me.
His hand.
He was moving his hand.
"I've got a lot of people who love me, got a lot of love in my life," he continued. "And I have a lot of love in my heart, too, for the two people over there." He nodded at his dad, who nodded back slowly. "And a few of you out there, too." There were more chuckles, some whispers. "Anyway," he continued, "you all probably know I got hurt a while back, that's why we had to reschedule this whole shindig and everything. I'm here to say, I'm better."
He turned, and Keir handed him his guitar.
My heart immediately leapt to my throat as he curled his long body around the wooden frame. He hugged it to himself, letting his fingers play lightly across the strings. They moved slowly, slowly but smoothly, with no trace of pain or ache.
I realized I was biting my nails. Keir set up a mic stand and Rane began to play.
Chapter
Rane
I was so fucking rusty. I felt like I was thirteen years old all over again. The beat up old guitar was the first one I'd learned to play on. It seemed fitting back when I had this brilliant idea, but now it seemed simultaneously too small and too big for my body. I held it, hating her, hating music, hating the fall that took the easy out of my life.
And I started playing anyway.
From the minute I met Maddie, nothing had been easy. But I had kept at her because, well, because I fucking loved her. And I loved music, and I loved my brother, and I loved my band and my father and all of this shit. I wasn't going to just let it go.
She taught me that.
It was a simple acoustic piece, one of the first songs I taught myself. Dad would recognize it and know why I played it. Everyone else would just see that I was playing again.
Maddie would see that I was playing again.
I hoped she knew that I was playing for her.
I finished and saw tears in her eyes. She blinked rapidly, a shiver of barely contained emotion rippling through her. It was right there, at the surface, and she made no effort to hide it from me.
Standing up from the chair was harder than it should have been. But the loss of strength in my legs had nothing to do with my accident and everything to do with the person I was walking towards.
The sounds of conversation rose around us and I knew people were watching. I could feel their eyes, but the only eyes that mattered to me were the color of a bright autumn sky.
"I did it," I told her. Just in case she didn't understand why. "I did it. For you."
She swallowed, nodding, ducking her head.
"Thank you," I said. "For making me realize."
The soft sound she made was nearly my undoing. If I held back any longer from kissing her, I was afraid I would combust. "Music and you, Maddie," I told her, brushing my finger under her chin and tilting her lips up to mine. "These are the things I'm willing to work for."
Her lips parted when they met mine and I kissed her with all the frustration, all the anger and all the longing of the two months I went without her. I kissed her with the promise, to myself and her, that I would never stop working to be worthy of her. It would be hard, it would be complicated. I knew this. I didn't care.
It wasn't fucking easy, loving a crazy girl like Mad Maddie.
But that was the whole fucking point.
Epilogue
Rane
We heard that tickets were being scalped for upwards of five thousand dollars.
"That's more than you pay me," Twitch mused.
"That's more than you're worth," Pepper piped up.
"Hey, did you see this already?" Keir asked, worry lines creasing his forehead.
I glanced at his tablet screen. "Mad Maddie's Mad Love," read the title.
I looked over my shoulder to where she sat, poised as ever, her legs crossed at the knee, her fingers laced around her kneecap. "Mad Love, huh?" I grinned, blowing her a kiss.
She stuck her tongue out at me. "They got it right, for once. I'm clearly crazy, putting up with the likes of you."
I went to her. I still limped. There was still pain radiating down my arm. But none of that fucking mattered when I saw Madeline Cole smiling up at me. "You're
bat-shit insane," I whispered, nuzzling her ear. "In fact, I think I'll have you committed. Locked away for all eternity, in my bedroom."
She laughed and swatted me. "Are you trying to get out of playing tonight?"
"Maybe."
"Well, it won't work. You're playing tonight if I have to push you onstage myself."
"You would, too."
"I absolutely would." Her expression softened. "You worked so hard for this night to happen. Go on. I'll be waiting for you."
"Is that a promise?"
"It is."
"You'll be waiting, right here?"
"Well, I want to see the show...so...in the wings."
I nodded. "It's a deal. As long as I know you're there."
"I'm here."
"I need to know for sure." I pulled the little box out of my pocket. "I'm not leaving this up to chance anymore. I'm not going to fuck myself over like that. If at first I don't succeed in being the man you want, Maddie, this is my promise that I won't say fuck it. I will keep trying, keep working, until I am the man you need."
She looked down at the ring in my hand. I went stiffly to one knee. "You are the man I need. Already."
"Good. Then that was easy." She hit me, then tears glittered in her eyes as I slipped the ring onto her finger. "That looks good there," I smiled.
"Yes. You didn't ask me, but I'll say yes anyway."
"You're crazy."
"I know. Crazy about you."
She lowered her eyelids slowly and snaked her arms around my neck. I bent to kiss her, aiming to make it the best, most memorable kiss of her life.
Whack! Something slammed into my back. I whirled around to see Jaxson Blue cavorting behind me, bobbing and weaving like a boxer. "Yo! Ready to blow their minds?"
"You just fucked up a huge romantic type moment over here," I informed him.
"So what? You'll have other ones. Let's do this shit."
I looked back at Maddie, who was practically doubled over in silent laughter. "We'll have other ones," she gasped, wiping tears from her eyes.
"Promise me that?"
She held up her finger. Even in the low, sallow light of the green room, the diamond still winked. "Here's that promise."
Her words buoyed me through the jitters of stepping on stage for the first time in months. The crowd roared, their applause drowning out almost every song, and the sound became near deafening when Jax stepped out on stage to guest vocal on "Raining Fire."
The song I wrote for Maddie.
As I played it, throwing every ounce of heart and energy I had into the song, I realized something fundamental had shifted. I was no longer playing just for fun. This wasn't some bullshit lark that I could quit and walk away from. No more than I could quit and walk away from the promise I had just made Maddie.
No, this was something I needed to do. It mattered. Music was what I loved.
And love was what mattered most.
THE END