I'd flown into Michigan a few days earlier. I came with a suitcase full of cute dresses and shoes. I felt it was important to look good because Greg's wedding was a pretty surprising occasion, if you consider the way Greg used to badmouth marriage. He said it was stupid, he hated it, he wasn't going to get married, not ever. One night, after a few of us had spent a few hours staring up at naked Midwestern girls at the local strip joint, we sat at an all-night restaurant and drank coffee, ate plates full of bacon. Greg told us he wanted to die. He wanted to kill himself. There was nothing about life that could save him--especially not love. He said it just wasn't enough.
You can imagine my surprise when he moved back to Flint, met up with a pretty girl, started dating her, and was suddenly living with her and talking about marriage. And kids. In the conversations we had after Greg started dating Shelly, I constantly had to pinch myself to make sure I was still alive, awake, conscious, and that this wasn't just some alternate universe I'd cooked up where Greg was dreamy and happy.
But it wasn't an alternate universe. It was real. And he was engaged in a matter of months.
And so I booked a flight to Michigan, where I saw some of the best things a girl can see:
It was a great weekend, and I spent most of it having to dab at my eyes so I didn't ruin my mascara. I'd stored up a lot of tears over those few days--mainly because I'd never seen Greg like that before. I'd never seen him so content, so happy. I'd certainly heard it in his voice for the last few months--and I'd call up our other grad school friends and say things like, "You should just hear Greg. He's an entirely new man."--but it's a whole other thing to see a man in that condition. He was beautiful.
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