Because I needed, in that moment, more than I had ever needed anything, to complete that walk on my own strength.

To prove to my father, and to the room, and most of all to myself, that I did not need a man’s arm to hold me up.

That I could cross the distance alone if I had to.

I did not know, taking those solitary steps, that I was about to learn exactly how not-alone I actually was.

But I want to stay in that walk for a moment, before the doors opened, because the person taking those steps did not yet know any of what was coming, and she matters.

She thought she was walking alone into a marriage her whole family had refused to bless, toward a man the world had told her was beneath her, with nothing to hold her up but her own spine.