The Wedding Dress

To be honest, I was never like most girls...

Dreaming about the perfect fairy tale wedding to match an equally stunning fairy tale dress- that wasn't me. You see, I used to dream about mountains of books and the place to read them in- the perfect library that would rival the one in The Beauty and The Beast.

Heh, I remember telling anyone who would listen, that one day I'd have a library just like that. And that it didn't matter if I had anything else so long as I had that. 

For me, it was never "I'm going to have a beautiful house one day", it was always, "I'm going to have an awesome library!" And when someone asked where I'd live, I always had the same answer; "My library, duh".

As the years came and went, so too did all of my friends and siblings. 

College, moving out, getting married- always the same thing and in the end, it was just me and my folks living in our small two-bedroom apartment.

"When are you getting married?" They'd ask. 

Not You ever going to get married? 

But when. Like it was some sort of predetermined thing I just had to do.

I would think they'd know that to get married, you needed a partner of some sort first. 

Which I happily lacked.

"I want to see my grandkids before I die, you know." Mom would joke. Not really a joke but something between a reprimand and a warning. The dark hidden meaning behind her lightly joking tone unnoticed by all but something I'd learned to pick up from a young age.

Of course, unlike my child self, I could now care less about the threatening message under the guise of a playful tease. After six years of hearing the same thing it had become a kind of white noise now. 

Still, I'd drolly reply. My duty as the ever respectful daughter. "But you guys already have grandkids, remember? Or do Star and Ben's kids not count?"

Of course they did. But unlike me, Star and Ben were normal. They had partners while I had books. They were sneaking out to stay the night while I was busy staying up to finish the latest book from the already teetering stack beside my bed. They'd gotten married and were living their happily ever after while I- 

While I, was busy fighting off mom and dad's incessant pressure to follow suit.

It was always an issue, a topic of nightly discussions that would ultimately lead to fights, despite my hard earned patience.

 I tried to make them understand that I didn't want to get married, and that doing so wouldn't magically make me happy like they so relentlessly tried to get me to believe. 

And, no, it wasn't because I didn't like men or liked women or any other excuse they tried to come up with- 

It really was just as simple as me not giving enough of a shit about getting married.

I mean, was that so hard to believe?

It's not like it'd ever even been a blip on my radar. Wasn't some sort of long-awaited goal to reach to feel fulfilled.

In fact, I gave more of a shit about when the next volume for my go-to anthology would drop than meeting the so called "perfect one".

And then one day, against my better judgment, I decided to go along on a "family trip" to a local hot spring. 

That the so-called "family outing" only consisted of myself and my parents was a bit strange. I mean if we went out, the entire family went too. I'm talking 15 plus people squeezing into three hotel rooms every single time.