Chapter 2: The Yeses

Before I tell you about Marnie and Grace saying yes, because obviously they did; otherwise this would be a very short book about a bride with no bridesmaids and a lot of explaining to do. I need to tell you something about the nature of “yes” between people who’ve known each other their whole lives.

A “yes” to a friend isn’t like a “yes” to anyone else.

When your boss asks you to do something, you say yes because you want to keep your job. When your mother asks you to do something, you say yes because you want to keep what’s left of your sanity. When a stranger asks you for directions, you say yes because you’re not a monster.

But when your best friend asks you to do something insane, something terrifying, something that could literally change the course of your entire life, you don’t say yes because you have to.

You say yes because you remember.

You remember the time she held your hair back when you threw up in seventh grade after sneaking vodka from your parents’ liquor cabinet. You remember the time she drove four hours in a snowstorm because you called her crying at 2 AM. You remember the way she looked at you when you told her your deepest, darkest secret, the one you’d never told anyone, and how she didn’t flinch, didn’t judge, didn’t love you any less.

You remember every pinky promise you’ve ever made.

And you realize, maybe for the first time, that those promises weren’t just words. They were architects. They were the framework upon which you built your entire understanding of love.

So when I asked my three best friends to stand naked beside me at my wedding, they didn’t say yes because they wanted to be naked in front of two hundred people. (Spoiler: none of us wanted that. The wanting came later.)

They said yes because I asked.

Because I needed them.

Because that’s what we do.

Grace’s Yes: The Call I Didn’t Expect

Grace called me on a Tuesday night, exactly one week after the Zoom.

I know it was a Tuesday because I remember thinking, “Great, another week, another round of waiting to hear if my friends are going to publicly humiliate themselves for my sake.” I was in my apartment, eating ice cream directly from the carton (Ben & Jerry’s The Tonight Dough, if you’re curious, and yes, it’s as good as it sounds), when my phone buzzed with her face on the screen.

I almost didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t want to talk to her, but because I always wanted to talk to Grace. But because I was terrified of what she might say. Terrified that she’d thought about it and decided I was insane, that our friendship had limits, that this was where we finally drew the line.

But I answered. Because I’m not a coward. (Mostly.)

“Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual, like my entire future happiness didn’t depend on this conversation.

“Hey.” Grace’s voice was quiet, the way it gets when she’s been thinking hard about something. “Can we talk?”

“We’re talking.”

“I mean, really talk. Not the Zoom thing. Not the group chat. Just ... us.”

I put down the ice cream. “Of course. What’s going on?”

There was a long pause. I could hear her breathing, could almost see her sitting in her apartment in Columbus, surrounded by the plants she kept alive through sheer force of will and the books she’d been meaning to read for three years.

“I’ve been thinking about what you asked,” she said finally. “Turning it over in my head. Looking at it from every angle.”

“And?”

“And I keep coming back to the same thing.” Another pause. “Do you remember when my mom died?”

I closed my eyes. Of course, I remembered. Grace’s mother had died of ovarian cancer when we were twenty-two, just out of college, just starting to figure out who we were going to be. It had been sudden and brutal and completely devastating.

“I remember,” I said.

“You flew on the day you heard. You didn’t even ask. You just showed up at my door with a suitcase and a box of donuts and stayed for two weeks.”

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You knew exactly what to do. You always do.” Her voice cracked, just slightly. “You slept on my couch. You held me when I cried. You made sure I ate even when I didn’t want to. You sat with me at the funeral and held my hand through the whole thing.”

“Grace”

“I’m not done.” She took a breath. “When my dad had his heart attack last year, Marnie flew in from California. She stayed for a week, helped me navigate the insurance nightmare, and sat with me in the hospital until they kicked us out at visiting hours. When I got divorced, Maddie showed up with wine and a list of reasons why my ex-husband was an idiot, and she didn’t leave until I laughed.”

I was crying now. I could feel the tears running down my cheeks, dripping onto my shirt.

“So when you ask me to do this crazy, terrifying, completely insane thing, I think about all of that. I think about everything you’ve done for me, everything we’ve done for each other. And I realize that there’s no version of this where I say no.”

“You’re not saying yes because you owe me,” I said quickly. “That’s not.”

“I know it’s not about owing.” Her voice was firm now. “It’s about trust. It’s about knowing that if I’m going to be that vulnerable, if I’m going to stand naked in front of everyone I know, I want to do it with you. With all of you. Because you’re the only people who’ve ever made me feel safe.”

I couldn’t speak. My throat was too tight.

“So yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll be your naked bridesmaid. Yes, I’ll stand up there with you and let the world see exactly who I am. Yes to all of it.”

“Grace”

“And yes, I’m terrified. And yes, I’m probably going to regret this at some point. But I’m saying yes anyway. Because that’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always done.”

I cried. I couldn’t help it. Grace cried too, and we spent ten minutes on the phone just crying and laughing and saying “I love you” over and over.

One down. Two to go.

Marnie’s Yes: The Visit

Marnie took longer.

Marnie took two more weeks, in fact. Two weeks of silence on the topic, two weeks of carefully worded texts that avoided the subject entirely, two weeks of me trying not to panic.

Then she showed up at my apartment.

Not a call, not a text, not a Zoom. She just appeared, standing in my doorway with a suitcase and an expression I couldn’t read.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Thinking.” She pushed past me into the apartment. “I needed to think in person.”

“For two weeks?”

“For two weeks, I’ve been thinking about San Francisco. Now I’m thinking about Chicago. Different location, same problem.”

I followed her into the living room, where she’d dropped her suitcase and was now pacing back and forth in front of my couch.

“Talk to me,” I said.

Marnie stopped pacing. “I’ve been running the scenarios. All of them. The best case, the worst case, and everything in between. And the worst case is bad, Kaitlin. Really bad.”

“Tell me.”

“Someone takes photos. Someone posts them online. They go viral. My investors see them. My employees see them. My parents see them. The whole world sees them, and suddenly I’m not Marnie Reyes, tech founder and CEO. I’m Marnie Reyes, the naked woman from that wedding.”

“That’s a real risk.”

“It’s a real risk,” she agreed. “And I’ve spent my entire career trying to be taken seriously. Trying to prove that a woman, a young woman, a woman of color can build something important, can lead, can be respected. One viral scandal could undo all of it.”

I nodded. I’d thought about this too, late at night when I couldn’t sleep. I’d thought about what I was asking them to risk their careers, their reputations, their carefully constructed lives.

“So why are you here?” I asked. “If the worst case is that bad, why aren’t you just saying no?”

Marnie stopped pacing. She looked at me, and for a moment she was twelve again, fierce and afraid and trying so hard to be brave.

“Because I keep thinking about what we promised. That night in Maddie’s backyard, after Tommy Richardson tried to film us. We promised that if we ever got exposed, if anyone ever saw us, we wouldn’t let shame win. We promised we’d face it together.”

“I remember.”

“And I keep thinking: what if this is the test? What if everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve built, has been leading to this moment? To the choice between safety and honesty? Between hiding and being seen?”

“I don’t know if it’s that dramatic,” I said.

“Yes, you do.” Marnie’s voice was fierce. “That’s exactly what it is. You’re asking us to live out loud. To be exactly who we are, with no filters, no apologies, no hiding. And the part of me that’s terrified, the part that’s spent years building armor, wants to say no. I want to protect myself. I want to stay safe.”