The Ex Vows

by Jessica Joyce

shiver at how avid his touch is even in the middle of something so mundane.

“Don’t think I’m taking this moment for granted, Georgia, or any moment you’ve given me this week.”

But my body recognizes the person it loves most, so when I’m pulled against a solid chest, I know it’s Eli.

The truth is, I’d been crying because I really needed a friend, and I figured anyone who liked Miley Cyrus had to be trustworthy.”

“It’s been everything.”

“It matters,” he says, his voice breaking, “because I’m in love with you.”

“Still.” A circle. Time bending.

Eli can’t see my heart, and it’s for the better because he’d see his name everywhere in it.

“When I say I’m still in love with you, I mean the first time I saw you and right now. I mean every second in between.”

“That’s why it matters. Because I’m so in love with you that I feel like I can’t breathe. I think it every time I look at you, every time you let me in or you laugh or you look at me like I mean something to you. I know it’s fucking messy, and I know you hate that, but it’s also true.”

“I want you any way I can have you. I want you every way I can have you. I just want it to be honest.”

The only sign of him is a paper ring, placed carefully on my nightstand.

You don’t need to send me anything to make me miss you, Georgia. I already do.

The one thing that hasn’t changed at all is him loving me. And me loving him. It’s our tether, the thing that’s never let us drift too far.

It’s a privilege to have someone trust you enough to show you those pieces of themselves, the most vulnerable and tender, the least polished. It’s a show of trust to let you see them first thing in the morning, in the middle of a panic attack, right after they’ve cried. To give you a shaky smile after a messy fight. To come back to you again and again with their heart in their hands.

I recognize the look in his eyes—the need to bookmark the moment so he can come back to it as a memory.

“I really have loved you for a long time.” My throat crowds with emotion as I nod. “I saw you sneaking the rings I made when we were at Blue Yonder, so I knew you had some of them,” he says, biting back a smile at my shocked squeak, but then his expression turns infinitely tender. “You kept them all, though.” “I did.” His eyes search mine. “Why?” “Because I’ve loved you for a long time, too.”

“It clicked for me looking at the rings,” I say. “You wrote the things you loved about me in good times and bad, when we were at our highest and lowest. I was wrong when I said before that we’re only good at loving each other when it’s easy. I think we’re good at loving each other out loud when it is, but we’ve silently loved each other through all of the hard stuff.”

In reality, the only honest option is having everything with you, even when it’s not perfect.

“This is probably a good time to tell you that marrying you at Blue Yonder was always on my list.” “It was on mine, too,”

We hadn’t started wedding planning at all, but suddenly I was desperate to marry him in the place where those first roots of love dug in between us. And I didn’t want to wait.

“Are you asking me to rumble, Eli Mora?” “Maybe I am, Georgia Mora.”