AND NOW, WE WILL HEAR THE GROOMS EXCHANGE VOWS.
‘‘ anyone who knows me, even a little bit, knows the summer of 1989 was one of the worst fucking times of my life. it sucked for a lot of reasons that i don’t need to get into right now – that’s what i have a therapist for! but one of them is that i didn’t get to be with you for over a month. before that, i hadn’t gone longer than a week without seeing you since we were 8. and it was just … fucking awful. because i was in love with you. 13 years old and i’d fallen so fucking hard for the neurotic little shit i called my best friend – sorry, stan – that i felt like i was going to explode. so i did something stupid. and kinda brave.
i carved our initials on the kissing bridge. R + E. right there for anyone in our shitty hometown to see … i mean, no one knew. of course not! i would’ve shit my pants and booked it if someone showed up while i was doing it … but they were there. still are, because the last thing i did before leaving derry the second time was refresh ‘em. and i never told you about it when we were kids. took me months to tell you when we were adults. didn’t think i ever would.
and there’s a few things i want you to know. some of them you already do, but they’re worth repeating.
i loved you then. and i loved you 5 years ago. AND I LOVE YOU NOW. and i’m going to love you when we’re 70 years old and you’ve gone gray and i’m back to lenses that make me look like an alien from the wrong angle. i’ll even love you in twenty minutes when you’re yelling at me to stand still so adam can get at least one good fucking photo. and it won’t be hard because LOVING YOU IS THE EASIEST THING I’VE EVER DONE. it’s like breathing. i don’t even have to think about it.
and there are so many reasons i love you. there’s even more reasons why i’m in love with you. i won’t try and list ‘em all. we’d be here for fucking years if i did. so i’ll just go with the most important one.
i’m in love with you because you see me. YOU’VE ALWAYS SEEN ME. even the parts of myself i tried so goddamn hard to hide. there have been times when i’ve wanted to run away because being known like that is terrifying. but it’s fucking exhilarating too.
so thank you, eds. i fucking love you. more than i know what to do with. ’’














