I can’t get out of the monastery fast enough, half-running through the central hallway to the front door and pushing through that as if I were running out of air.

I am. I am running out. I’m choking on my own pain, my own bittersweet regrets. And I can’t even summon the strength to listen to the singing and praying echoing from inside; I hurl myself down the stairs and onto the old, broken sidewalk, willing the city noise of traffic and wind to drown out the melody of Zenny’s marriage to Christ.

Why did you do this to me? I demand of God. What possible reason could there be for this?

There’s no answer, and of course there’s not. If there’s anything I’ve learned during my detente with God this week it’s that He very rarely answers fussy prayers right away.

Although He better get used to them. I’m much more Jacob than I am Abraham, ready to fight and wrestle with God at a moment’s notice; I’m much more Jonah with his dead plant and his surly I’m so angry I wish I were dead. But I’m beginning to think that’s okay now. That honesty and angst and rage and all the other messy human feelings are preferable to lifeless piety.

So I think sullen, hurting thoughts up to God, which turn into sad, lonely thoughts as I get closer to my car at the edge of the block.

I’m never not going to love her, I think with sorrow. She’s the only one my heart will ever hold inside itself, for as long as I’m alive.

God finally sees fit to answer, and Kesha erupts noisily from my phone. I don’t recognize the number offhand, and my chest deflates so fast my ribs crack, which is stupid. Like I really thought Zenny was going to call me in the middle of her ceremony? What kind of sad idiot am I?

I answer, not bothering to muffle my mopeful tone. “Sean Bell.”

“Sean Bell,” a creaky voice says back. An old woman’s voice. A familiar voice. “I think you’d better slow down.”

“I—what?”

“Slow. Down,” the voice repeats as if I’m maybe not all that bright, which maybe I’m not, because I still don’t understand what she means until I turn around to face the monastery, and I’m very strangely certain now that this is the Reverend Mother talking to me, and why would she be talking to me—

A flash of white flutters out of the front door of the monastery and I freeze.

And then the flutters resolve into froth, and the froth resolves into a nun in a wedding dress, her hands balled up in the skirt and holding it up as she runs toward me.

She looks like something out of a movie—or a dream. The sun gleams along her skin and catches the silk in shimmering flashes, her hair bounces and spills around her neck and face, and the wind strokes her affectionately, making the dress billow behind her.

I am rooted to the spot, emptied out of everything, even hope, as she runs breathlessly up to me.

“That ought to do it,” comes the satisfied voice of the Reverend Mother through the phone, and I hear her hang up.

Wordlessly, I let my phone drop to my side and stare.

“Don’t lose your joy,” Zenny says, coming to a stop in front of me.

“What?” I ask dumbly.

“It’s what your mom said to me before she died.” Zenny takes a deep breath, stepping forward. “She said we made joy in one another, that she could tell just from the way you’d talked about me.”

“Zenny—”

She shakes her head—not at me, but at herself. “I even said it. I’m more myself when I’m with you. I got to the front of that aisle and I realized that I wasn’t more myself there, not like when I’m with you. I realized the walk down to the altar wasn’t going to be a walk of joy.” She looks up at me, her eyes meeting mine. “You give me joy, Sean. You give me the space to be strong and to be safe and loved and please say it isn’t too late, please say I’m not too late for us—”

But I’m already gathering her into my chest, I’m already kissing her. I take her by her upper arms and hold her apart from me after a moment, trembling. “You’re not taking your vows? Truly?”

She nods bashfully, a slow smile on those perfect lips, and I yank her back into me for more kisses. “Oh Zenny,” I breathe, my lips everywhere in gratitude—across the bridge of her nose and her jaw and her collarbone. “I’ll make you every vow in the world in exchange, I promise. I’ll be everything for you.”

“Everything is tempting,” she laughs under my kisses. “But I think Sean Bell is quite enough for one girl to handle all on his own.”