The Gravity of Us

After all, maktub—it was already written.

We were destined to live happily ever after as our hearts floated near the stars and our feet remained on solid ground.

I often looked back on the happiest seconds of my life and wondered how a man like me became so blessed. There was the moment Talon was released from the NICU. The first time Professor Oliver called me son. The time Lucy first told me she loved me. The second when the adoption papers went through for Talon to officially become Lucy’s and my daughter. My wedding day. And now, as I held my handsome son for the first time in my arms.

Oliver James Russell.

Ollie for short.

Family.

I somehow ended up with a family. Never in my life had I thought my life would end up like this—happy. The two girls who sat beside me were my world, and the little boy who would be here soon was already controlling my heartbeats.

“Again?” Lucy asked, speaking of Professor Oliver’s story, as she walked outside. She waddled over to Talon and me, with her full-grown pregnant stomach, and when she lowered herself to her chair, she sighed heavily as if she’d just run a full 5k.

“So this is our happily ever after?” I asked softly against his lips.

“No, my love, this is merely our chapter one.”

“I love you, Lucy,” he said, not calling me Lucille for the first time ever. “I love the way you give, the way you care, the way you laugh, the way you smile. I love your heart and how it beats for the world. Before you, I was lost, and because of you, I found my way home. You’re the reason I believe in tomorrow. You’re the reason I believe in love, and I plan to never let you go. Marry me. Marry Talon. Marry us.”

Will you marry us?

“Graham,” I whispered, shaking as I slowly turned around to face him. When I did, he was down on one knee, holding a ring in his hand.

“I resented you. I resented how she loved you, and then, I come back here and he loves you too. Everyone has always loved you, Lucy, and I was left unlovable.”

“It has a happily ever after,” I whispered to myself, stunned. Graham had never in his life written a happily ever after ending.

Until me.

Until us.

Until now.

“I, Graham Michael Russell, take you, Lucille Hope Palmer, to be my wife. I promise it all to you—my broken past, my scarred present, and my complete future. I am yours before I am my own. You are my light, my love, my destiny. Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me. I give you all of my soul. I give you all of me.”

Then, in every cliché way possible, in every facet of their lives, they lived happily ever after.