Paige's Wedding Part 1: Naughstin
Back in “Can You Please Teach Me How To Dance?” my cousin from Florida, Paige Spears, got engaged to her boyfriend Austin Beltz. The problem is Paige has two brothers Alexander and you guessed it, Austin. To differentiate the two Austins, the Spears family started calling Austin Beltz “Naught Austin.” Soon the nickname was abbreviated to just “Naught” and my immediate family's personal spin on it, “Naughstin.”
I knew prior to the engagement that Paige was dating somebody, but I have to say I was a little bit frustrated when they got engaged. If you haven't been able to tell over the course of the series, I am a hopeless romantic and a perpetual third wheel. Because they started dating during covid and the distance between us, Naughstin was just a guy who showed up on Paige's social media to me and I didn't want to wait for our family vacation (or worse the wedding) to change that. I stuck it out, however, mostly because I didn't have a choice, until our family vacation.
On June 7 of this year, Mom, Dad, Ryan, Luke, Josh and I, made the drive from Columbus to Orlando. On the drive down my Aunt Alicia and Uncle Paul (Alexander, Austin, and Paige’s parents) informed us that Paul’s dad had passed away. When we got to the house, Mom, Dad, Ryan, Luke, and Josh went in and greeted Alicia, who was home alone because Paul had spent the day with his siblings. After they had said their hellos, Mom thought, Where's Mitchell? Before she could ask the question out loud, she got a phone call.
I had stayed outside to send a text to my then-girlfriend, telling her that we had arrived. I was about to hit send when out of the corner of my eye I saw the back end of a car speed by on the main road. My “sisters” and I got in a car crash one summer and the most traumatic part of that experience was the sound of the screeching tires right before the car hit us. To my surprise, there were no screeching tires this time, so I assumed the crash would not be too bad. I was wrong.
When I got to the scene, the car that had been hit was facing me which was in the wrong direction. The car that had been speeding was on the other side of the road and a girl about my age was being dragged away from it. At this point, I called Mom told her what was going on and that I was going to help. People were driving around the accident so before I got an opportunity to run across the street and help the girl, two more girls got out of the accident car closer to me. The driver of that car was having a panic attack, but her passenger appeared fine. Her passenger asked if anyone had called 911, just as the other car caught on fire.
“Is this about the crash?” The operator asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Okay, is anyone in the burning car?”
I got close enough to check and thankfully no one was. At this point, my family had joined the crowd of bystanders, and when Dad saw me in the middle of this chaos he ran to help me. As Dad comforted the girl who was still panicking, I saw the girl from the other car lying on the sidewalk next to (presumably) her boyfriend. I tried to cross the street to help, but Dad figured out what I was doing, stopped me, then walked across the street himself. I'm not going to tell you what Dad said he saw, but it was traumatizing. The police did say that they thought everyone was going to be okay though.
When everything had settled down we returned to the house, and Paul, Naughstin, and Paige showed up. That day was just a rough one for all of us, but because the day was so depressing and traumatic it was easy to see why Naughstin and Paige are perfect for each other. Through those dark and heavy emotions, their love shined through!
To Be Continued...
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