At least I could see it

As the clock ticked and the minutes passed Yasmin started to second guess every single decision that led to that moment. From getting out of bed the day that innocent enough invitation had been received to ever applying to college all those years ago. If she hadn’t being admitted to that specific college or stayed out of the dorms, she wouldn’t have made friends with Franchesca and Alisha, and if they weren’t friends they would never have invited her to their wedding, or even if they had for some unknown reason invited a strange to their wedding, if they weren’t such good friends she could at least had said no.

The more she thought about it the more she sweated and cussed and paced by the hotel room. By the time the ceremony was just an hour away the carpet seemed to be permanently marked by her constant pacing, her hands shaken, her makeup was wearing down and her hair looked a mess, her eyes glazed and feverish and her breath came out in rapid and short bursts.

She walked jerkedly to the bathroom and saw herself in the mirror trying to get some semblance of control, she focused on her reflection’s eyes first, then her hands on the sink, the body curved forward and the chest heaving from the labored breaths as a new mantra began to take form.

At first, just air whooshing out and lips moving. With every new repetition the words making more sense, gaining more power, “You can do it! They are your friends and they need you, you can do it!” again and again and again she repeated it to herself until her breath evened out, her hands slowly diminished their trembling and her body started to cool off as the sweat stopped trickling down her face and back. 

When she could think clearly again and looked at the hours, she had less than 30 minutes to take a shower and get ready, all the early preparations had gone to waste on her panic attack and time didn’t stop passing just because her world seemed to be imploding, reality didn’t care if she was lost, the clock continued to tick away, her fears robbing her of time she didn’t have to start with.

With the quickest shower from history of womanhood and a special thanks to her condition for being on her side for once, she finished getting ready with just five minutes to put herself out there and on her seat at the ceremony location, the universe had finally taken pity on her battered spirit and just this time things were supposedly going on as they should.

She hurried herself out of the room and sat on the chair exactly one minute before the start of the ceremony.

Alisha was beautiful as ever in her black gown, the purple hair cascading down her back in artifully fabricated curls with daisies spread evenly, at her side Franchesca wore a tailored white tuxedo that complemented her bride’s to perfection, her hair was in a french braid and when the sun hit her naturally brown hair at the exactly right way the lighter strands shone. To see them walk down the isle with matching smiles and eyes brighter than life, made every second of torture she put herself under completely worth it.

With all her traumas and insecurities she was there for her friends, with all her fragility, from body and soul,  she had found her inner strength once more, even if only for a couple moments, to live one more special moment with those that had brought so many good moments to her. 

The ceremony, performed by a local pastor, was brief and the vows spoken from the heart of the brides resonated with truth and love, enveloping all that watched in their happiness. As soon as the vows ended and the rings were exchanged, the brides kissed and the audience clasped. They walked away hand-in-hand, laughing as their family and friends showered them with rice and good wishes, leading the party to the inside of the hotel to the reception.

The party was in full swing when things started to degenerate for Yasmin, the lights were out, all but the strobes dancing in the ceiling, the bodies on the dance floor moved as one, the music was blasting, the dry ice made it all fuzzy and the panic that had receded to the back of her mind had come back with brutal force.

Flashbacks of that other terrible party so many time ago barreled out of their confined space and the smells and sounds meshed together bringing her right back to her last day as a normal college kid, that fateful night when some strange decided it was okay to take advantage of a young woman with all her life to live, unknowingly or without much thought about what that could do to her long term, he not only ended all life as she knew it with his deed, but ironically saved what she could still have. 

When Franchesca found her unconscious form in a bathroom stall, bloody and with vomit all around her front, she called the ambulance and accompanied her to the hospital. She woke up hours later, victim of one of the worst fates a woman can be and with an even worse diagnosis. The CT scans showed another monster living inside her head, an inoperable one,  slowly draining her life away, silenced but growing steadily by who knew how many time unchecked. Chemo, radio, approved and experimental drugs, they tried everything they could think of, but as sure as the monster on the outside had taken away a part of her life that would never come back, the monster on the inside was just as bent on taking what was left.

All her calm was gone when she finally came back to the present, the party still going on as if nothing had happened, because to everyone but her, nothing had, it wasn’t their fault for not noticing that once again her world had spinned out of control. The early symptoms of her panic attack had come back with a vengeance, trying to take her down and make her scream as loud as she sometimes did when they got hold of her. Body trembling, breath labored and tears dripping, she barely could put herself upright, it took her four tries to do so, and when she did, she had to use all her willpower to keep so and walk to the outside, one small and uncertain step at a time, if she was careful, maybe nobody would see how bad it had gotten.  

As she finally got outside, the night sky and cold wind embraced her, she walked for at least a hundred meters before stopping and laying on the grass, her breath evened out, her body started to cool down once again as she counted the stars to focus on something other than that terrible memories trying to get free from their banged cage. Trying to ignore the sounds of the party, she was almost completely successful in yet another battle with her past when her little monster decided to take that last bit of life from her and his growth blocked the flow of blood from her brain, taking forever her last moments of peace.