If only she had read the invitation more carefully. If only she had known that Madeline was marrying him. It wasn't that she still loved him. She was sure of that. And yet, it was difficult for her to be here. For her to watch him marry somebody else. Marry Madeline.
She had always imagined herself being the one to marry him. She remembered daydreaming about her white dress with the silver trimmings and the blue pendant that he had given her on their very first anniversary. She still had that pendant. Her something old would've been her mother's wedding shoes, and her something new would've been the veil. Her something borrowed would've been his mother's silver bangles that had been passed from generation to generation for girls to wear on their wedding days. Madeline was wearing those.
There was no way she still harbored feelings for him. After all, she had known him in college. They were different people now. There was no way that he was the same boy who had sung her love songs at 1 AM and thrown pebbles at her window to wake her up. And there was no way that she was the same girl who woke up at 5 AM to study for Psych test and then got drunk because she was afraid she would fail. They had both grown up. She was no longer the girl who had been in love with him and he was no longer the boy who had been in love with her.
But still, she remembered what it had been like to be his girlfriend. She remembered that he had never let her pay for anything. She remembered how he always kept an extra sweater for her in his car because she always forgot hers. She remembered how he had learned to cook, just because she was terrible at it. She remembered how he used to remember all the right days and all the things she said she wanted.
But she also remembered the breakup. The tears and the shouting. The fear that this was them. That they were just noise, just cruel words and forgotten happiness. The way he had acted and the way she had never known he could say such horrible things to her. But he had. And that was when she had realized that he wasn't all good. Because nobody was. And yet she had fooled herself into believing that he was perfect, when truly he was as human as she was. And that was why she wasn't the bride.
A part of her still wished to be up there. Listening to his declarations of love made her want to be the object of his affection. But she also knew that what had happened between them was the right thing. If she would've married him, she would have married the God, not the mortal man who made mistakes and said cruel things and sometimes didn't say I love you back. And then, the betrayal of who he was would have shattered her.
