Free Rebuilding Forever by Natalie J. Damschroder Page A

Georgie plopped her sarong-wrapped behind on the table in the center of the tent, narrowly missing Cassie's small bouquet. "What the hell?"
    "We're having problems and it seems like our subconsciouses are trying to stop us from doing this."
    Georgie frowned. "This isn't like you."
    "I've changed, as Seth keeps pointing out to me."
    "We all change. But you're being downright neurotic." She spread her hands. "What relationship doesn't have problems? You can't drop out of every one that does."
    "So says the woman who won't have one at all," Cassie accused.
    Georgie waved that off. "That's over. Julian's moving to Harrisburg."
    Cassie's mouth fell open. "What?"
    "Well, temporarily. We need to decide where to make home base. I think he'd like to be closer to Amie. But that's irrelevant. What's going on with you and Seth?"
    Seth was going to kill her if he found out she'd told Georgie about his dreams, but she did anyway. And her own, making sure to be out of her friend's reach when she did. But when she was done, Georgie burst out laughing.
    "Really? All three of you?" She laughed harder. "I can't believe you didn't bring me into it."
    "It wasn't about you."
    "I don't mean in the dream. I mean in real life. Oh, God, Julian with his mouth!" She clutched her sides and bent forward. "I would so have loved to see that!"
    "Knock it off." Cassie turned away from her "friend" and checked her hair in the mirror. Since she'd gone with a careless updo, it looked fine and would continue to look fine even if winds hit mach three. Her minimal makeup and tightly wrapped sarong were similarly fine. A glance at the watch on her wrist told her she had five minutes to make a decision.
    Georgie calmed herself and slid off the table. "Cass, come on. You can't seriously be concerned about this."
    "About Seth and Julian? No. But about Seth's continued desire to marry me? Enough to call this whole thing off." But her stomach burned and her windpipe started to close at the idea.
    "Forget it. He's got normal anxiety because being without you was hard. Probably harder than getting clean. I'm sure he's afraid being with you will be even harder. But once you get through today, there won't be anything concrete for him to hang that anxiety on, and you'll be fine. Or as fine as any married couple is, anyway."
    Cassie hardly felt soothed, but the string quartet outside had begun playing, and there was no more time to worry and wonder. Either she was doing this or she wasn't. She took the bouquet Georgie handed her and exited the tent, watching her friend start up the aisle between two rows of chairs on the high part of the beach. Cassie could only see her for a few steps before she was hidden past the tent, and relied on the change in music to signal her.
    There it was. She took a deep breath, stepped out, and paused. Seth stood under the ivory canopy, his dark hair rippling in the wind, one hand gripping the other so hard that even at this distance she knew his fingers were white. Next to him stood Julian, solemn for once, staring at her as if daring her to turn and run.
    Sudden calm descended over her, born of the conviction that everyone else was right, and she and Seth were wrong. They belonged together, and fuck the groupies and the inquiring press and temptation and distance and even Julian's fifteen-year-old blow job.
    She was going to marry Seth Graham.

    * * * *
    She's about to run.
    Seth's heart stopped when Cassie did at the end of the white runner leading to the canopy, where a female minister waited patiently behind him. She looked gorgeous in her simply wrapped dress and bare feet, her hair looking like she'd tossed it up to take a shower. It was perfect, right down to the white flowers in her hands. White, for new beginnings.
    It was the sappiest, most ridiculous thing he'd ever thought, Seth realized, but it didn't matter. He and Cassie had had a lot of new beginnings, and would continue to. That was the nature of their relationship.
    A knot