I just could not bring myself to forgive her for what she had done.

I close the photo album in my lap and it slams shut with a thud, signifying the close of what I’ve chose to put behind me. My fingers enclose around the spine of this thick album, and they clench, hard. Just because I chose to put the memory away doesn’t mean I haven’t been scarred. And that is exactly what makes it so hard to let it go.

There I was, at the end of the aisle, head and heart pounding. And the music sounds, worsening the nerves that I felt. Take step by step, I told myself silently. Each step counts. All the way to the front, one by one, slow and steady to match the beat, up to that breathtaking man.
I walked in the midst of a crowd of a million familiar faces that rose and smiled – but not at me.
In front of me was a woman in white. With her dark hair knotted elegantly at the back of her head, in a beautifully done princess-cut dress, she looked like Cinderella. The main character of this story was her. I followed steadily behind her, wearing helper’s hat for the day. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help but stare at the man that was never mine and was never going to be mine.
From this day forth, he would be hers.
And as they exchanged their vows, I made one to myself.

“Honey?”
“Yeah?” I call, turning around.
He comes to me and looks at the album in my lap. “Hey, I remember that.” And he gives me his goofy sunshine of a smile. “But how could I forget?”
I smile as he flips it open, and there in the last page is a picture of me and a man I met at the end of the wedding, who I, one year later, walked down the aisle to.

The vow I had made was to forgive my best friend for what she had done to me, because she never knew. I never told her – and that was my failure as a friend. And even though I have found the man of my dreams and lived happily with him for the past twenty years of our lives, I just could not bring myself to forgive her for what she had done.