His Number Changed So I Changed My Life Chapter 36
What truly mattered was what he did after he made a promise.
Before the ceremony began, Austin pulled me aside for a moment.
“Do you remember that question I asked you?”
“Which one?”
“If I hadn’t been an 8 when we met, would things have ended differently?”
I looked up at him.
He had no idea I could see the number, and yet he had always remembered that his past bothered me.
“I remember.”
“It was a terrible question,” he said. “Back then, I just wanted you to regret not choosing me.”
He glanced over at his bride, who was now chatting with my mother.
“Later, I realized that the person who’s truly right for you would never ask you to erase your past. She would only ask you not to lie.”
“It’s not too late to understand that.”
Austin smiled.
“Is that a blessing?”
“It is.”
The music began, and he walked toward the woman waiting for him beneath a floral arch.
My mother and I sat in the second row.
When they exchanged their vows, I didn’t check the number above the bride’s head, and I didn’t look at Austin’s again.
I just listened as they promised to be honest, to respect each other, and to think of one another before making a mistake.
Vows can’t guarantee a lifetime.
But at least in that moment, they both understood exactly what they were promising.
After the ceremony, Austin and his bride came over to offer a toast.
“Charlotte,” he said, raising his glass, “thank you for not choosing me back then.”
My mother looked at him, surprised.
His bride laughed and tapped his arm.
“That sounds like a dangerous thing to say at your own wedding.”
“What I mean is, if she had chosen me, I might never have learned how to accept being rejected.”
I raised my glass and clinked it against theirs.
“In that case, I did you a huge favor.”
We all laughed.
On the drive home, my mother fell asleep against the seat.
My phone lit up with a message from my editor.
She wanted me to lead the follow-up investigative reporting.
Not as Parker’s ex-wife.
As the reporter Charlotte Mercer.