Chapter 9

As they say: Time flies when you're having fun.

I never knew how true that was until I met Amber. And it was very true as the next few weeks seemed to pass quickly.

In our ecstasy the night of  "the kiss", we both (and Mark) forgot about my mask thing. So they made me go through with it the next night at a house show. And they were right when no one cared, when I took it off and they smiled and shook my hand and told me how happy they were that I was doing that.

Our wedding was at Vince's house on May 10. Ha. I couldn't stop laughing at that. It was really nice though. He had everything set up on his hellahuge estate, in the back. It was a really pretty day; nice and warm. And Vince had tone of flowers ordered. It was perfect. And Amber was ecstatic.

Need I go into all the details? It wasn't unlike any other weddings I suppose…well to me it was but to you, reader, I'm not sure so I think I can just leave it out. Vince also hosted the reception. He was so happy for us. Heh…we're part of one of the few companies where it isn't frowned upon to have relationships with coworkers. Vince even gave us both a few weeks off and offered to pay for a vacation as a honeymoon, but we decided to just use the house that I owned but barely ever used.

Amber was so so so beautiful. And she did something that a lot of girls say they'll do but actually don't. She wore her mother's wedding gown. Most girls don't want to because they take their mothers for granted, but Amber, not having a mother, thought that it was the right thing to do. She wanted to.

"Kane, she never knew that I loved her. This is my way of telling her…or showing her that." When she told me that my heart went out to her. We hugged and I felt sad. She asked me why.

"You know," I explained to her, "as funny as it may sound, if I were you, or actually if I were any woman getting married, I would wear my mother's dress. I loved her and she knew it, but it's like…it's like having her there with you, isn't it?"

"Yeah…" she sighed. "I get so pissed off when I see girls hating their mothers. At least they have mothers…you know?"

I nodded. "And I can't stand when I see parents hating their children…" we both just sort of crumpled up into each other, painful memories running through us both, her of her mother and me of the shit I had to take from Paul. Ugh. We were both shuddering.

We loved each other. It was so simple. And with every second that passed we just had it engraved in our heads more and more that it was fate. We were perfect for each other.

My life for years was nothing but darkness, locked in a systematic vault of tragedy that I couldn't get out of. And Amber, on my most cursed of all days, had been light. She had opened that vault and lifted me out of it. My angel. And she said that I had done the same for her.

And so getting married was good. For both of us.

We went to my house. That day…and night…we were active in ways that we'd held off on for two moths. I don't know what else to tell about other than that. In the morning, she made breakfast again, after making me go out and get the food that never needed to be in my unused house. When I came back I found her watching TV, cartoons really, with a bright, childish smile. She sat in one of my chairs, too small for it, with her legs stick out straight. She looked like a little kid. And again she wore her Eeyore slippers. I looked at her crookedly and laughed as I pulled my mask off. I sat down on the couch beside her, staring at her, the sounds of the television on all the while. We stared at each other calmly. I could feel my heart pounding in a type of worry that I knew I shouldn't've had.

"Amber I have to ask you something…seriously."
Her smile faded but I could tell that she wasn't unhappy. It was the light in her eyes. And she looked at me, knowing that nothing could ever hurt us as a couple. "What?" she asked.
"Are you…happy?" I asked her. "Really happy?"
She frowned a little. "What do you mean?"
I sighed and took her hands in my own. "I just…I'm having trouble believe that this is all happening. I mean…I've never felt this way. I just can't believe that my life has changed this much in five months. You're just so perfect. I never would've thought that this could ever happen to me. And now I really have to know. Is it just me or are you happy too?"
Her eyebrows came together and her head tilted to the side. Her mouth curled into a soft, warm little smile. "Yes, Kane. Yes I am."
We leaned forward and hugged, the most intimate of things we could do. I said things to her as we did this, mumbling as the words just flowing out subconsciously. "Amber when I was little I used to look into mirrors and wish that everything would get better, but nothing ever did, and whenever I realized that it wouldn't happen I would feel ten times worse. And I'd hear my mother's voice in my head, telling me fairy tales and bedtime stories about people that would fall in love and even her talking about he love between her and my father and I'd think about how I would never know how it felt…but now I do. And I have to know it it's real."
Tears filled her eyes when she pulled away, and looked up at me. "Kane, I love you. I promise you that. I don't know how you don't see it. I mean, seriously. I've fallen in love, found myself an actual job, a husband, a goofy genius of a brother-in-law, and the WWF Women's Title in three months! Kane, what more could I want?"

I laughed and so did she. She turned off the television and we went into my monstrosity of a spacious kitchen as she made pancakes and I set the table and poured orange juice and for maybe the third time ever opened the window shade in the dining room. When she walked in a few minutes late and froze as she looked out the window onto my backyard and into the woods behind the house. And also the so convenient flower bushes below the windows. She almost spilled the syrup on the floor as she stared.

"Oh my God, Kane, this is beautiful," she said. I didn't really know how to respond to that so I just thanked her and we sat down to eat.

"What do you wanna do today?" I asked her. She sighed.

"Well, no offense, this seems like a kinda hick town…what is there to do at all?"

I laughed. "You're right. That's why I moved here. It's quiet. Secluded."

She laughed. "Jesus. I wouldn't be able to stand that. I like metropolises. I mean. This is a gorgeous place to like spend a weekend or something but I couldn't live here."

Again I found myself laughing. A chuckle almost. "Well I'm on the road all the time. I don't exactly live here."

We talked about possible things to do for a long time until I remembered the chapel. And we walked there. I had only bought the house about a year prior, and one of the time that I have been staying there I walked up this dirt road on the side of a mountain for a workout. Jogged really. The house was in Vermont, in a very small small town with once classroom for each grade and a single school bus, and so the chapel confused me. But it was so cool.

Because it was May it was chilly, and so we each put on sweatshirts and shoes and left. I didn't wear a mask and had my hair tied in a ponytail. She and I walked, my arm around her shoulders, her arm around my waist, and she marveled at everything; at the trees, the animals, the little streams. She was thrilled by its serenity.

It took about an hour to reach the place. It was on the top of the mountain, almost exact to how it had been when I'd seen it last. When I turned to see her reaction I saw that her jaw had dropped.

"Kane…what is this?" she stepped around, her shoes, making little crunching sounds. "This is so cool."

The chapel…I don't know why it was there. On the top of a mountain, but it was just on of those things that reached in and grabbed your attention, that just made your heart stop. It was made of brick, crumbling yellowed bricks, and a concrete floor with only remnants of wooden floor boards, burned away in parts and rotten in others. But the steeple was there, and a rusted cross, and a stained glass window below it was falling apart as well, with little pieces of colored glass crunching under the feet of whomever might walk there.

"I'm not really sure what it is," I admitted to her. "I was just taking a walk once when I first moved here and I was flowing the road until I saw the steeple sticking up and I walked through the woods a little and I found it."

"It's amazing…" she stepped over some rubble and came to hug me. "We should've gotten married here."

Perhaps it was more to her than it was to me. But she was truly fascinated. We were there for a few hours until she declared that she was hungry, and so we headed back. I made lunch for us, sandwiches. I had to go grocery shopping first, so she snacked on leftover pancakes while I went out. But when I came back we had enough food to last us years. I set the table for her, and she was obviously tired from the hike so I didn't ask for or let her help. I made sandwiches and set out chips.

"I like sandwiches," she said matter-of-factly. She was very giggly. I laughed. We were just so amused and happy with each other. We probably spent a large fraction of our time just laughing. We were so happy together.

Later in the day she wanted to explore my house, and we went upstairs to where I never needed to go because my bedroom was on the ground floor. Four more unfurnished bedrooms were up there. And one room was just storage; boxes of clothes and things that I didn't need to unpack and was too lazy to go through and throw out. And so I pushed it out of my vision to upstairs where it wouldn't bother me. I really only used the ground floor; there was the kitchen, living room, dining room, and my bedroom, and I had set up my workout equipment in the living room. Amber thought that was hilarious. Why? Eh…I dunno. She was weird like that. And also in her obsession with exploring my house. Because there was nothing up there.

As she dragged me from room to room and through the closets and whatnot, I scolded myself for buying the big house which I didn't need. And so that took up a few hours of our day. Or course by that time, being so madly in love with each other, we made love again, not being able to help it. And that night for dinner we helped each other cook. After dinner we lit a fire in my fireplace, and like so many other times doing this we talked for hours until falling asleep.