Cara sat out on the tiny balcony, Tai beside her, and they waited.
Exactly what they were waiting for she couldn’t fathom. Perhaps it was the dawn, the morning of what could be their last day on earth. Had it not been for Tai, she would have considered this a waste of time. The sun was going down in fairly spectacular fashion for December, almost like it was their glorious send off. The sky and the flecks of light which rippled off the sea through the darkness were all icy pinks and warm blues, fading down to palest ochre at the horizon. Some brave ships were still out in the bay, their sails dotting the area like confetti, indeed as fragile as paper against the backdrop. Perhaps it only seemed pretty because Cara knew she had to savour it, but when her hours became this scarce, they were worth their weight in diamond. There was beauty to be found even here.
“What would you do if this really was our last night?” Cara asked just to voice what she had subconsciously spent the last twenty minutes trying to figure out for herself.
“I would drink,” Tai answered quickly, before laying his hand on hers. “But I would also tell you not to speak like that, because you’re not going to die tomorrow.”
Cara smiled in spite of herself. It had simply seemed like the thing to say in this horrific, almost dreamlike state but now she had an answer which would sustain her even now. Still it was an answer that she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe. She had always supposed that she only had so many chances, so many times that she could cheat death and they had to be used up by now. Cara sighed and looked down at their hands fitting perfectly together against the bitter grey concrete that made up this oversized ledge outside her window. She grasped the idea that at the very least, she was spending the time with the right person.
Tai shifted his grip so that he actually held her hand. It was as though he was there to stop her falling from the balcony. He didn’t look up when he spoke, but he did smile as though he had found the answer.
“Or I guess I could marry you.”
Cara laughed at first, a little bewildered. As if they could actually have done that, run out in this volatile climate, at dusk on tonight of all nights, and get married. It was even too sudden to be ridiculous. She had spent an entire year of her life warring with her parents, trying to drive Arisaig away and planning her escape the last time she had faced a wedding.
Then a horrible, unbidden thought came out of nowhere and hit her in the heart like a shot from a longbow.
“Why not?”
It was Tai’s turn to laugh, probably in the belief that the pressure had got to her at last but she saw things more clearly with every passing second. It was her, undependable her, who had never before been tied down to anyone and was now talking about the rest of her life while considering it to be hours long at best. She had never been more sure of anything.
“You’re serious.” Tai finally said, a thrill of excitement, even joy, rising unmistakably in his voice.
“Of course I’m serious.”
“No doves, no choir, no reception, no dress – “
He shut up when she kissed him, breathing in this man who was going to be her husband, savouring the warmth of his skin and the taste of him like he was a thousand of these sunsets. “That was the reason I ran away from home,” Cara said quietly, their faces still so close that she could see herself reflected in his beautiful eyes. “All that matters is I love you.”
She swallowed hard, her throat having tightened with the sudden rush which came from these words she had never shared with him before.
Tai insisted on proposing properly, down on one knee in what little space there was available. There was no ring, but the way he clasped her hand was more precious than any stone. Then they ran out together into the twilight.
They found the tiny church at the end of a narrow street about half a mile away, surrounded on both sides by buildings which loomed off the streets like titans of darkness and of stone. This wasn’t the church that the Glomerata favoured, but it was the one that Tai had stumbled into the previous day. The fact that it was relatively unexplored made this all the more fitting. There was a graveyard behind it, nothing more than a twisted cherry tree and moss coated headstones haphazardly scattered. Some poor priest had stayed back late, waiting for confessions as though he knew of the carnage which would come to his doorstep in twelve short hours.
That was how Cara ended up at the altar, lit only by a couple of warped candles, her hand still fitted into Tai’s as though they had been made that way. She wore white by coincidence. The only witness to this madness, this youthful, euphoric substitute for alcohol on their last day on earth, was an old man who had fallen asleep on the back pew.
Cara held a single, flawless white rose in her fingers, snatched from the back of one of the stalls in the market square as its keeper had shut up for the night. She twisted it round in her hand, nervous, impatient, exhilarated, more. These ancient parts of the vows recited over them were the same words she had rehearsed until collapsing from exhaustion with Arisaig in front of her almost ten years ago and they simply washed over her. Through it all, she didn’t take her eyes off Tai, warmed by the forced calm on his face, the secret smile in his eyes which could only have come from happiness shared. Despite the distractions, these riotous emotions, this man in front of her who could make her laugh like nothing else and the occasional loud snore from the back of the church, she managed to say “I do,” on cue, never more sincere in all her life.
Those last formalities of the priest, his final blessing, caught her off guard as Tai leaned in to kiss her before time. Though she fought hilarity, the words seemed infinitely more fitting than the re recycled relics.
“Go from here and feel no drop of rain or breath of wind, for now you are each shelter for the other. Go from here and feel no cold, for now you are each warmth for the other. Go from here and for eternity there will be no darkness, for each of you is light unending to the other. For now there are two people, but there is only one life before you.
“Kiss the bride,” he yawned, lowering his hands, deciding that it was best not to bother disturbing the man in the back to ask for objections. He walked away, bible in hand. “Kiss her and get out of my church.”
They were still locked together when he shook that lump on the back pew by the shoulders, awkwardly choosing the right key for the front door and deciding to leave the candles to burn out by themselves.
“I don’t know about shelter and warmth and light,” Tai whispered at last, still infatuated by the smile on Cara’s face. It had come to seem permanent and it fitted her like a glove. “But I can promise you this.” He let go of her hands for a moment, not even fumbling as he slipped a ring onto her finger, its gold and four gemstones glittering in the candlelight as it died.
“You will never be alone again.”
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