And I had set the waiting down.

The seats were empty, and they would stay empty, and it did not hurt, because I had stopped needing the people who were supposed to sit in them.

I looked to my right, at the man holding my hand, who had stood by me when the storm broke, whose mother’s pearls I had worn down this very aisle.

My real family had come to my wedding.

They had simply not been the ones I was born to.

And I squeezed his hand, and somehow, looking at those empty seats, the room had never felt more full.

THE END.