I adjusted the strap at my shoulder for the third time in as many minutes as my fingers trembled against the fabric, as if the small act of fixing myself could hold the rest of me together. Around me the wedding venue breathed joy in every direction. Laughter rising in bright, overlapping waves, the sharp-sweet scent of jasmine and sandalwood incense thick enough to taste, the low continuous murmur of relatives exchanging blessings and gossip. Marigold garlands swayed gently from the ceiling. Somewhere a child shrieked with delight. Somewhere else a woman wiped happy tears from her eyes with the edge of her dupatta.
None of it reached me.
My world had narrowed to a single point of light that was standing right in front of me.
Aanya stood there in her bridal lehenga, the crimson and gold fabric catching every flicker of the oil lamps until she seemed to glow… She looks like.. No she is a goddess!… The lehenga had been chosen months ago in a shop where I had been the one who sat on the low stool while the shopkeeper’s daughter pinned the folds, the one who had said, almost lightly, “You look like a promise no one should be allowed to break.” She had laughed then, the soft private laugh she kept mostly for me, and I had looked away before the sound could settle too deeply in my chest.
Now that same laugh belonged to someone else…but why does it affect me now?
Her eyes are sparkling with happiness that was not mine to give. It was open, unguarded, the kind of light that comes when a person believes the future has finally arrived wearing the face they always hoped for. I watched the way she tilted her head to listen to something the priest said, the way her fingers, rested against the edge of the low wooden platform. Every small movement felt like a door closing.
It hurts..my heart … it is twisting in a sharp, unrelenting ache … I don’t think I can breathe.. the air in my lungs.. It's suffocating…. But I don’t understand, why?
I pressed my palm flat against my stomach, as if I could push the pain back down where it belonged. The gold bangles on my wrist chimed softly, a cheerful sound that felt like mockery.
I had known this day was coming. I had helped choose the invitation card, had sat through endless discussions about the menu, had held Aanya’s hand while she tried on jewelry and asked, half-joking, whether Rohan would like the heavier necklace or the lighter one.
I had smiled through all of it. I had told myself the tightness in my chest was only the ordinary sadness of watching a friend leave one chapter of life for another… and she was my best friend afterall.
Why does it feel like I've been lying...to myself?
While the priest’s voice rose and the conch shell sounded somewhere behind the mandap. This was not ordinary sadness. This was the sound of something inside me recognizing, too late, that the person I had always turned toward was turning away. That the quiet gravity that had pulled me across school corridors and college canteens and late-night phone calls had never been friendship alone.
Aanya’s gaze moved across the gathering, polite, radiant, and for one suspended second it brushed past me. I felt the contact like a physical touch, it was warm, brief and .. already gone. She did not linger. There was no reason she should. I was only the best friend, the one who had always been there, the one who would still be there tomorrow when the music stopped and the guests went home.
I swallowed hard. My throat suddenly felt too tight. Somewhere to my left a relative leaned over and whispered something kind about how beautiful the bride looked. I nodded without hearing the words. My eyes stayed fixed on the crimson figure under the mandap, on the way the light seemed to love her, on the terrible, ordinary fact that she was happy.
And that her happiness no longer had anything to do with me.