Free A Lowcountry Wedding by Mary Alice Monroe Page A

Letitia, she was the one.” Kwame got teary eyed and looked across the room at his new wife. “Look at my bride. She’s so fine. Gentlemen, my days of trolling are over.”
    Beau hooted and Marcus patted his shoulder. “That’s real nice,” Marcus said patronizingly. “Give it a few years. As for you . . .” He pointed at Atticus.
    A roar from the crowd interrupted them as music for the Electric Slide broke out. Marcus let out a whoop and turned to dance his way to join the lines forming on the dance floor.
    Kwame took off after him, looking for his bride.
    Beau grabbed Atticus’s arm. “Come on, brother. Let’s show ’em how it’s done.”

    The weather was cloudy and cool when Atticus got out of the pizza joint. The pizza was only okay, but the run-down restaurant was close to home and the only place still open. The warmth of the pizza felt good on his hands, and the scent of tomato sauce and crust floated up to him, making his mouth water. With his free hand he turned up his collar, hunched his shoulders, and began walking.
    Seeing his friends again, feeling the pull of the bonds of his youth, left him feeling unsettled. Kwame, Marcus, Beau—they all seemed content with their lives; even Big Beau, who talked a good game but was devoted to his wife. They sensed Atticus’s loneliness, as best friends could. And knew that he’d changed after the accident. Sometimes, he felt they tiptoed around him. He caught the hooded glances they shot to each other when they were worried, such as tonight when he didn’t go out with Keisha. They were always trying to set him up, somehow thinking finding the right woman would end his searching. Atticus appreciated their concern, but didn’t they get that he wasn’t looking to get laid? He’d sowed more than his share of wild oats in college. He wasn’t the same popular and conceited kid he was back then. The car accident had changed him. A life-and-death experience did that to a person. And what bothered him most was that the conceited, skirt-chasing Atticus was the man his friends missed.
    From far off he heard the high-pitched scream of car brakes. Atticus stopped abruptly, his head reared up, and his heart rate accelerated. In a flash he was back to that night eight years earlier.
    It was another damp spring night, like tonight. The night of college graduation. It had been raining hard and they’d been drinking hard. Marcus and Beau were in the backseat of Atticus’s new BMW, a graduation gift from his parents. Kwame was in the passenger seat. Atticus remembered the new-car smell mingled with the scents of cologne and whiskey. It was almost midnight when they’d left the graduation party, and bored, they were headed to a nearby club. They were just a bunch of young bucks, feeling no pain, out to celebrate. The night was black and starless. He shouldn’t have been driving, but he was cocky and young enough to believe he was invincible. Back then, Atticus felt he knew better than his mother, his teachers, and, hell yes, his father. He’d found all the advice he needed in the lyrics of hip-hop, the heated whispers of girlfriends, the late-night drunken wisdom of his friends, and the amber magic he’d discovered in a bottle.
    The last thing he remembered was losing control of the car as it hydroplaned across two lanes. The tree came out of nowhere. Suddenly there it was, looming large in the headlights. Atticus awoke days later. Blinking heavily, he felt as if he were swimming up from underwater. Sounds were muffled and he saw the world through a watery veil. Someone called his name, “Atticus, Atticus,” over and over, pulling him out from the depths.
    “Mama.”
    They said it was the first word he’d spoken in nearly a week. The police came to take his statement. His friends had been spared with minor injuries. The car was totaled. Atticus was the only one not wearing his seat belt.
    By all accounts, Atticus should have died from his injuries. When the