I can't help it...I listen to the radio and songs just inspire me! I've had this one stuck in my head for the past week or two, and it was driving me crazy. So I wrote it down, and voila! This story was formed (:

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Gallagher Girls books' characters or scenes seen in this story, nor do I own the song that inspired it (: Any lines taken from the song were simply used to demonstrate the song within the story...I did not intend to use them as a façade of my own talent, because I don't pretend to be any better than my average self (:

She Wants to Get Married

"Let's get married."

Zach almost choked on his mom's special lemonade, quickly laughing at his best friend and the ridiculous idea she'd proposed. Literally.

"What? Married?" he asked incredulously. "Cam, have you lost your mind?"

Cammie rolled her eyes, a habit she'd picked up recently, Zach noticed. "Obviously I don't mean for real," she scoffed. "You know how best friends always get married when they're little kids?"

"Yeah, when they're, like, six." He couldn't believe he was having this argument with her. Married? To Cammie? It was ridiculous!

She folded her arms across her chest with a pointed glare. "Well, I'm sorry my proposal is four years late, but you just recently decided that I didn't have cooties," she huffed.

"You never had cooties, Cammie."

"Then marry me." She bounced up and down in her swing, excitement bursting from her tiny body.

"Why?"

"Because I want to get married."

"But why?"

"Because who doesn't want to get married? Having someone to always love you… It's so romantic," she practically swooned.

He glanced back at his house, his mom talking to Cammie's in their dining room. He wondered what they'd do if they knew what was going on just outside that glass door.

He turned back to Cammie, her eyes bright and hopeful. Of course he wasn't going to tell her no. He could never say no to Cammie.

"Okay, fine. Let's get married."

"You okay?"

Cammie looked over her shoulder, the natural light of the sun beaming in from the window behind her casting an angelic glow. Zach stopped in his tracks in the middle of the reception venue as her haunting blue eyes trained on him. He'd always thought she was pretty, but right then…she was downright beautiful.

"I'm fine," she smiled dreamily, looking around the open space at all the wedding decorations she and Macey had picked out. "God, can you believe it? My mom's actually getting married."

"You sound apprehensive," he told her, taking his normal spot at her side and joining her in glancing around the room. "What, didn't think she'd go through with it?"

She elbowed him in the ribs. "Of course, I did," she said. "It's just weird, you know? Most people aren't sixteen when their parents get married."

"Your mom and Joe aren't most people."

She snorted. "Ain't that the truth."

They fell silent. Zach was sure that Cammie had retreated back into wedding land since that's where her head had been the past few months as she and Macey helped Rachel plan the wedding. He, on the other hand, couldn't ignore the flipping of his stomach as Cammie's vanilla scent devoured the air around them, and he tried too hard to act natural—like he wasn't suppressing the urge to stare at her.

"Remember when we got married?" she asked suddenly, her voice breaking through his concentration.

Her words didn't help with the knots in his stomach, and suddenly his mouth was too dry.

She smiled up at him, and even though it made his pulse quicken, it also calmed his nerves.

"Is this what ours would've looked like?" he asked, laughing. The thought of him and Cammie getting married when they were ten was ridiculous.

What was even more ridiculous was that his ten-year-old self hadn't wanted to marry Cammie. What an idiot, he thought.

Cammie scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Definitely not." She shook her head. "This is too much."

"Oh, yeah? Then what's the perfect wedding for Cammie Morgan?"

"Well, for starters, it wouldn't be this big," she answered, slowly weaving herself through the dozens of elegant tables. Without thinking, Zach followed, watching her intently as she ran her fingertips along the linen cloths. "Only our closest friends and family would be invited. Like, maybe 50 people, max. It's more intimate that way, you know?"

She glanced over her shoulder again with that charming smile he loved so much.

"Yeah," he agreed, although he didn't entirely know what she was talking about. Weddings were never his thing, and he hadn't yet crossed being intimate off his to-do list either.

"It'd take place out in the country, surrounded by the beauty of nature," she continued, stopping to pluck at a flower resting in one of the tables' centerpieces. "And I'd have magnolias. Not orchids."

Zach came to a stop next to her, and it didn't escape him that he was a little closer than necessary. She looked up at him, her eyes so emotive, practically pulling at his heartstrings. It took every ounce of self-control he had to not pull her close and smash his lips to hers.

"Sounds like you've thought about this quite a bit. You've already got it all planned out," he said instead.

She smiled. "You know how much I love weddings."

"Yeah, all that romantic bullshit you tried to spin on me six years ago," he grumbled.

She laughed at him.

She laughed so hard that she wavered in the heels she wore and leaned into his chest. His arm instantly went around her waist to catch her. He was sure that she was going to brush his hand away, but she looked up at him again instead, her laugh brightening the blue of her eyes more so than the sun still beaming behind her.

Her laughing faded into a dreamy smile, her eyes boring into his. "It must've worked, because you agreed to marry me," she said cheekily.

"Maybe we can just steal the show from your mom and get married today instead?" he joked, giving her a grin of his own.

She didn't laugh this time, but Zach could see the excitement in her eyes. He was shocked when her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he followed her lead as he stared back at her gloss-painted lips.

He was sure she could feel the racing of his heart as he stood there, silently freaking out.

His first kiss.

Not only was that scary enough, but it would be with Cammie—the girl of his dreams. She'd been his best friend for…well, forever…and he'd always wondered if she felt the same way he did, but he never imagined he'd find out like this.

He leaned in, and to his surprise, she leaned in, too. Their lips were a breath away, Zach's other hand slipping around her small body and pulling her even closer when…

"Cammie!" Liz yelled, standing in the open doorway.

They jumped away from each other. Zach cleared his throat as Cammie ran a hand along her curls, both trying too hard to avoid Liz's eyes.

"The bride and groom have requested that their maid of honor and best man join the ceremony," Liz said before turning and heading back out toward the gardens where everyone was waiting in white folding chairs.

Cammie laughed, weaving her way back through the tables to follow Liz, shrugging her shoulders apologetically.

"Come on, Zach." She held out her hand for him, gesturing for him to walk back with her. "The show can't start without us. We have the rings."

Zach entered his apartment with his mail in hand, throwing his keys onto the table as he shuffled through the mass of envelopes, no doubt all of them being bills he still needed to pay.

He stalled when he came to a crisp white one with a fancy scrawl spelling out his name.

He didn't even need to open it to know what it was, but he did anyway.

With great pleasure,

Cameron Morgan and Joshua Abrams

invite you to join them

at the celebration of their marriage

Her wedding invitation.

The sight of it made him want to puke. Or punch a wall.

He hadn't been thrilled when Cammie told him about Josh barely a month into their freshman year of college, but he never dared to tell her why he hated Josh Abrams so damn much.

Because Josh could make Cammie feel a way Zach never could.

He always wondered if she'd ever felt anything for him, especially after their little moment at her mom's wedding that nothing ever came of. Even after she started dating Josh, he still wondered…

But now, looking down at the invite, he knew it didn't matter whether or not that day had meant as much to her as it had to him.

It was too late.

It took him almost three hours to drive to the location of her wedding, his self-loathing picking up speed the closer he got. Why he decided to do this, he didn't know. Maybe he was a glutton for punishment? Or maybe he thought this was the closure he needed to finally get over his best friend.

He walked up the pathway leading to the outdoor arrangement, just like her mom's wedding. One look at it all, though, told him that that was the only detail the two weddings had in common.

True to her word, Cammie's wedding was small, out in the country, and there were magnolia's everywhere. There wasn't a single orchid.

"Zach!" Joe exclaimed, embracing the younger man with a huge grin. "So glad you could make it!"

"Wouldn't miss it," Zach lied, pasting on his own smile despite how fake it felt.

"Can you believe it? Cam's getting married," Joe sighed. Zach knew he wasn't disappointed though—more like…satisfied.

Which tore right through Zach's gut. "No, I can't," he told Joe truthfully.

"Between you and me, I've been dreading this day," Joe whispered, leaning in so no one could overhear him.

"Really?" Zach's heart almost burst open with joy. Joe didn't approve of Cammie marrying Josh. Maybe he could stop the wedding and—

"It's always hard for a father to give away his daughter," Joe said with a shrug, but the satisfied smile still remained on his face.

Zach nodded tightly.

He wondered what Joe would say if he knew what Zach was feeling—if he knew that he wasn't the only one giving Cammie away.

He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't have even thought about doing it.

But there he was, entering the tent in which Cammie was getting ready to marry another man.

"Zach," she said, turning to face him. Thankfully she was the only one there, and no one else would witness his momentary lapse of judgment.

"Wow. You look beautiful, Cammie," he told her, unable to take his eyes off of her.

She was draped in white, in a simple sweetheart neckline with a lace halter top—he only knew that because it was what she'd always talked about having as the perfect wedding dress. If anything, he was happy that everything had turned out just the way she wanted.

She smiled at him, then she held out her hand for him to take, just like she had all those years ago at a different wedding. Only difference was the gigantic ring on that all-important finger.

He grabbed it, swallowing hard as he forced away the hurt.

"And you look perfectly at home in that Armani suit," she said, smiling as she pulled him to her and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm so glad you made it," she mumbled into his shoulder.

"Of course, Cam," he assured her. Like he hadn't spent the three-hour drive trying to talk himself out of coming.

"What are you doing back here? Guests are supposed to stay up front," she said, turning back to the mirror to put in her earrings last minute. She always hated wearing them, he remembered.

She looked at his reflection expectantly, waiting for him to answer her.

But no words came.

He knew what he wanted to say, what he was going to say when he decided to come looking for her—that she should call off the wedding and spend the rest of her life with him instead.

But as he stood there, looking at her glowing face, surrounded by everything she'd always wanted and deserved, he knew he couldn't mess it up for her.

"Zach?" She turned around to face him, confusion and worry hardening her expression.

He shook his head, ridding it of the thoughts of destroying the one thing Cammie had been dreaming of her whole life.

"I just wanted to congratulate you in person," he told her instead. "And to wish you the best." He gave her a tight smile, hoping she was too blinded by her own happiness to see the pain he was in.

She smiled back, her pearly whites beaming at him through the only pair of lips he'd ever wanted, and would never get to kiss.

"Thank you," she said, hugging him again before kissing his cheek and dismissing him so that she could finish getting ready.

Zach sat at the back of the ceremony, hiding from the view of the altar. He slammed back one last shot of whisky before Pachelbel's Canon in D starting playing and the wedding party began descending down the aisle.

He gave himself a moment to watch as Cammie passed him, the happiest smile on her face as she walked arm-in-arm with Joe.

He turned away when he spotted tears in her eyes, afraid that they'd only encourage his own to fall. He was determined to make it through the whole day without crying, but seeing her uncontrollably happy because of another man hurt his heart more than he ever imagined.

Growing up, she always talked about getting married. It was probably the only thing she really wanted out of life. Through the years, when she talked about marriage, he knew the possibility of her marrying him was slim, and yet he never pictured her marrying anybody else.

It was clear then that she hadn't thought the same.

She'd always wanted to get married.

She just didn't want to marry him.

This one-shot was inspired by the song "Marry Me" by Thomas Rhett. It's sad and depressing with no happy ending, but when I heard it, my mind immediately went to Zammie. I'm sorry that Cammie ended up marrying Josh and not Zach... honestly, now I don't even know why I thought writing/posting this would be a good idea... but it's done now *oh well!* *bring on the hate!*

If you want a happy ending, check out the music video! It's amazing!

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts (yes, even the bad ones...they're there...I know it)! Stay awesome (: