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Description
I sat alone at the long table, staring down at the decorously decorated cake in front of me. I could feel the eyes of the various guests pinning me to my seat as surely as the deft buttons pinned me into the overly flamboyant dress that was a physical representation of my own folly. I avoided eye contact as I shifted again in the car. There is just no good way to sit while wearing this much fabric, I thought mildly to myself. Deeper inside my mind, my thoughts were anything but mild. I was raging; no, not even that. I was fuming.
I made myself ignore the curious glances of the uninformed, and quickly flew over those who knew and disapproved. Only some of our guests knew why I was sitting here, alone, at a time when I should have been freshly celebrating my union, my togetherness, my completion with another half. My other half, as I now even disdained to call him, was no doubt busying himself. In short, he was nowhere to be found: not where he should be, MIA, disappeared, lurking. The clock ticked loudly over the hushed conversation that began to emerge around me. Crowds as large as this can rarely maintain a silence over a long period of time, and my new husband's absence was beginning to cause quite a stir. How I had so quickly grown to hate that word. Not even an hour after I stood before him, all smiles and joy, and I resent him already.
A few guests now look at their watches and prepare to approach me. I lower my veil in hopes of deterring them, or at the least, hiding my own disturbed suspicions about my new husband's absence. Variations of the same advice push through to me: "Maybe you should go find him," "Something important probably came up," and my personal favorite, "I'm sure he will be along shortly." That was his family reassuring me, refusing to see the tears that now flowed freely behind the sheer cloth. I mutely shake my head and continue sitting, secure in my own foolishness. I know that the business that my husband is looking into is probably very closely, no, impossibly intertwined with the same business which keeps one of my bridesmaids from her own table.

Description
I sat alone at the long table, staring down at the decorously decorated cake in front of me. I could feel the eyes of the various guests pinning me to my seat as surely as the deft buttons pinned me into the overly flamboyant dress that was a physical representation of my own folly. I avoided eye contact as I shifted again in the car. There is just no good way to sit while wearing this much fabric, I thought mildly to myself. Deeper inside my mind, my thoughts were anything but mild. I was raging; no, not even that. I was fuming.
I made myself ignore the curious glances of the uninformed, and quickly flew over those who knew and disapproved. Only some of our guests knew why I was sitting here, alone, at a time when I should have been freshly celebrating my union, my togetherness, my completion with another half. My other half, as I now even disdained to call him, was no doubt busying himself. In short, he was nowhere to be found: not where he should be, MIA, disappeared, lurking. The clock ticked loudly over the hushed conversation that began to emerge around me. Crowds as large as this can rarely maintain a silence over a long period of time, and my new husband's absence was beginning to cause quite a stir. How I had so quickly grown to hate that word. Not even an hour after I stood before him, all smiles and joy, and I resent him already.
A few guests now look at their watches and prepare to approach me. I lower my veil in hopes of deterring them, or at the least, hiding my own disturbed suspicions about my new husband's absence. Variations of the same advice push through to me: "Maybe you should go find him," "Something important probably came up," and my personal favorite, "I'm sure he will be along shortly." That was his family reassuring me, refusing to see the tears that now flowed freely behind the sheer cloth. I mutely shake my head and continue sitting, secure in my own foolishness. I know that the business that my husband is looking into is probably very closely, no, impossibly intertwined with the same business which keeps one of my bridesmaids from her own table.