Page 112 of Not You Again
Kit clears his throat and leans on the arm of the sofa. “There were a lot of reasons, but the biggest one was that I felt I was never going to be the man Andie needed. So it felt easier to let her go.”
“Andie,” Petra turns her pout at me. “You seemed so upset after Kit gave his answer.”
“I was.” I agree. “I had fallen in love with him. Again. And he decided to walk away.”
Petra nods, her brows drawing together.
I take a deep breath and say, “You see, we both gave in to what scared us.”
“We did.” Kit rests a hand on my knee and squeezes. “And it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”
Petra smiles.
Kit looks at me. “Andie was the one who was willing to put her heart on the line, and she invited me to see her show at Atlanta Fashion Week.”
“So, the question everyone wants to ask is”—Petra looks between us—“are you together now?”
I smile at Kit. He squeezes my knee again. “Yes,” I say. “We are.”
The crowd gets loud, cheering us on.
When it quiets down, Kit looks at Petra. “Thankfully, we realized our mistake before it was too late. We never signed our divorce papers.”
The crowd applauds. I smile, blinking into the stage lights.
When the applause settles, Petra says, “On that note, we have some photos from your vow renewal a few weeks ago.” She gives the crowd a sly look. “Would you like to see them?”
The crowd cheers, and the first photo of Kit and me at the altar for the second time flashes across the projector screen behind Petra. The cheers melt into awwwws.
We’re standing, hand in hand, in the garden of the home we bought together in Decatur. Heidi was the officiant, with tears in her eyes the whole time.
Looking at these pictures on the projector, I’m suddenly so glad we decided to do it again. I’ll never forget seeing Kit waiting for me the first time, back when we had no idea what we were in for. The heart-stopping terror teetering on the edge of pure elation is a heady mix that I will always, always associate with him.
But the second time, I got to drink everything in, because I knew what I was walking into.
Petra says, “Andie, did you design your own dress?”
“I did.” I smile at the picture of us. “It was the only option.”
After several arguments with Kit, I finally relented and, instead of working on my dress into all the wee hours of the morning, I blocked out the time I would have used on a dress for a client to use on myself.
A lot of things have changed about our relationship this go-around, but his relentless insistence that I was worth the time and attention I gave to others was one thing that hadn’t. It never wavered, and a year later, there were split seconds in which I began to find myself believing I was worth it too.
So, during daylight hours, I designed and constructed my own dress. It was relatively simple compared to a lot of the dresses I send down the aisle. There’s no intricate beading or scalloped hems or even a small train. Instead, the magic is in the construction. The panels of the corset are a pale taupe, while I covered the boning in pure white, so you could see the amount of construction that went into it. Normally, I make a point of hiding everything that holds the dress together. The more mysterious the inner workings, the more magical it looks. At least to the untrained eye.
But it didn’t even feel like a choice when I sat down to design my own dress. I didn’t want to hide a thing. The structure—something that isn’t necessarily glamorous—is out there for everyone to see. The real work behind the dress is on full display, and it’s exactly the statement I want to make.
“She was stunning,” Kit interjects. “She’s always gorgeous, but my poor heart wasn’t prepared for her in this dress.”
I roll my eyes at him.
“I mean it.” He reaches for my hand and squeezes. “I’ll remember how you looked walking toward me for the rest of my life.”
“You cleaned up well, yourself,” I tease. He wore a simple black suit and crisp white button-down. A basic black tie around his neck. A pocket square made of the same taupe as in my dress. What the photo doesn’t show is that I also embroidered the buttons on his shirt to all contain a small white flower.
“Speaking of,” Petra smirks at both of us. “Andie, your appreciation for Kit’s … physique has become an internet meme.”
“I am aware, yes.” Since the show aired, I haven’t been able to go a single day without being tagged in one of them. Once, someone even stopped us on the street mimicking my obsession with Kit’s thighs.