The Day I Stopped Being the Bride in My Own Wedding

After work, a few coworkers and Polly dragged me into the car heading for the bar.

I hadn't been sitting there five minutes when Preston showed up.

He cut straight through the crowd toward Polly, brows drawn tight, and lifted the mojito off the table in front of her. "Are you crazy? Do you not know what day it is for you? And you're drinking?"

Polly reached to snatch it back. "Mind your own business! Give it here!"

"Give it back, nothing. Waiter, a glass of warm milk over here."

He held the glass up out of her reach, his other hand pressing her back down into her seat. His tone was all snap and scold, but the look in his eyes as he leaned over her was pure worry. "If you can't get out of bed tomorrow from the cramps, don't you dare call me crying."

The coworkers around us traded glances.

One of the girls asked the person beside her, low, "Is that Polly's boyfriend? He's so good-looking."

"No way... isn't that Milly's fiance?"

The air went quiet in an instant.

A few pairs of eyes bounced between Preston and me.

I looked down at the lemon water in my hand and thought, suddenly, how familiar this all was.

Over these years, at countless dinners, Preston peeling shrimp for Polly, ladling soup for her—people always took the two of them for a couple.

At first the two of them would explain. But after enough of that, they stopped bothering.

Preston's only comment on it: "Other people getting it wrong is their problem. As long as you know what we are to each other, that's all that matters."

Only then did Preston notice me.

He frowned, and there was a note of reproach in his voice. "Why didn't you stop her either? You know perfectly well she can't drink these two days, and you just let her act up."

The unfair blame put a nameless heat in my chest.

Polly, though, jumped in ahead of me. "Why are you snapping at her? I'm the one who insisted on coming!"

"Milly's about to marry you. What kind of attitude is that?"

Preston paused, and something faintly uncomfortable, something apologetic, crossed his face.

He sighed and reached out to put an arm around my shoulders. "Milly, I didn't mean it like that... I just get frantic when I'm worried. Don't take it to heart."

I turned my body aside.

His hand closed on nothing.

"Sit," I said. "You're here now."

Preston sat down beside me, but his eyes settled on Polly, plain and open.

My presence seemed to be a wall standing between them.

A wall keeping apart two truly loving "lovers."

Halfway through the party, a waiter leaned in toward Preston and Polly. "You two are a couple, right? We've got a promotion running these next few days—whoever holds the longest kiss in the room wins a custom-made pair of diamond rings. Want to join?"

Preston reflexively started to wave it off, then caught the flicker of hope on Polly's face.

After a long hesitation, he stood anyway, took Polly's hand, and led her to the center of the stage.

The lights drew in around them.

Polly rose up on her toes and kissed him.

Preston went stiff for a second.

Then he closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss, deeper.

I sat in the booth, watching them.

The whispers and the stares of the people around me landed on me, but I no longer felt any of the earlier awkwardness, any of the ache.

I didn't even feel it hurt.

Probably it had hurt so many times that the place had gone numb.

Applause broke out.

They'd won.

The waiter smiled and handed over the box with the pair of rings. Polly let go of Preston's lips, her face a little flushed, and turned to trot over to me.

"Milly!" She dug out the man's ring and pushed it into my hand. "This one's for you! You're not angry, are you? I just wanted this pair of rings, there was nothing else to it..."

I glanced at the man's ring in my palm. The band was too wide; my finger couldn't hold it at all.

"It's too big, I can't wear it. Give it to someone it fits."

I handed the ring back.

Polly's eyes went instinctively to Preston.

She tossed the ring over to him. "Lucky you!"

Preston caught it, gave a short laugh, and came to sit down beside me. "My wife's always had an easy temper, always understanding—she wouldn't fuss over a little thing like this. Not like you, kicking up something every other minute."

I caught the smell of Preston's cologne, and it only turned my stomach.

I really didn't care.

After all, twenty years of friendship and a ten-year long-distance run of love—today, that too came to a complete end.