Black Dress Wedding

Chapter 1

We both knew our story would end here, but I always imagined that as Jake pulled me close to his tux-covered chest with family and friends gathered around snapping these happy memories, I would be wearing the white dress.

"This is our last dance, Nifer," he murmured in a low voice that barely made it through the band music to my ear.

I rested my head on his shoulder to quell the tears forming in my eyes before managing, "then make it the best dance, my love."

The music soared around us, and for a few last moments, he was mine, and we were lost in each other. The clock's seconds ticked by to the drums' steady rhythm as he spun me in his arms. I closed my eyes and allowed myself one brief moment to memorize the feeling of his warmth pressing into me, the smell of his musk filling my nose, and the sound of my heartbeat screaming out to him.

But as quickly as it started, the song came to an end. I wanted him to cling to me. I longed for this story to be different. I wished I were wearing the white dress. But as he reluctantly pulled me from his chest, I caught a glimpse of my black dress; black, the color of mourning. This was not our story.

I met his eyes, and briefly, I thought he would allow his forehead to slip to mine. His peppermint-laden breath would course over me, and the dark hair that always carelessly fell into his eyes would tickle my face. But he resisted, as he should. He lifted my hand to his lips and gave it one last lingering kiss before turning to the arms of his waiting bride.

Jake Miller was gone. I watched each pace he took away from me and felt them drive like daggers into my chest. The crowded dance floor soon collapsed on me. The backs of joyful dancers provided me with my own private space to bleed, to grieve.

I had always known Jake. I was born on an otherwise dull and drab day in March. Even though they lived two hours away at the time, the Millers were the first people to see me, aside from my parents, of course. On the mantel above the fireplaces of both mine and Jake's sat the same picture of two-year-old Jake holding two-hour me; it was not my best look.

My mom and Jake's mom had been best friends since childhood. Every holiday, vacation, and life moment happened with the Millers. During more than a few fights, I would announce that I wished Beth was my mom. Beth Miller was my idol. Everything seemed easy and effortless with her. My mom was far less cool. She was cut from the nagging cloth. Although I am sure as Jake grew up, Jake idealized my mom, Carol Morse, in his own arguments with Beth.

Aside from the Millers, my other life constant was Ariana Chung; everyone called her Ari. She had been my best friend since pre-school. On the first day of school, I liked the way she said mittens. She said it in a way that you could hear both t's. I admired that, and so, in the way that four-year-olds do, we became best friends. That was my network for the first eleven years of my life: the Millers and Ari.

I had been madly, undeniably, and impossibly in love with Jake Miller for as long as I could recall. Some beginnings you don't remember. I don't remember my first breath, nor my first skinned knee. Most would probably say they remember the first time they fell in love, but I don't. Falling in love with Jake was life. When you are young, love is easy and lasting. The slightest of crushes as a child is the same emotional rollercoaster as an entire relationship in your twenties. When you're young, you are open; fearless to any prospects of hurt or pain. Just like I had always felt my heart beating within my chest and my lungs thoughtlessly filling with air, I had always been in love with Jake. Then he moved next door.

When Beth and Dan Miller divorced, Beth went to the one place that felt like home: to her best friend, my mom. I was eleven years old, and I still remember the rumbling of the moving truck making my house shake as it pulled into our shared driveway. I hadn't been able to sleep the night prior because I would see Jake... every day. I peered through my pink unicorn curtains and watched as Beth and Jake pulled in right behind the truck. My mom was already in the driveway, followed closely by my dad. Jake got out of the car and leaned against it with his arms crossed. Even from the distance of my window and with his face obscured by his baseball cap, I could tell he was not happy.