I finally married him. After what feels like a lifetime of 'When are you two gonna do it?', 'He better put a ring on it soon!', all that fucking bullshit. We did the whole thing, you know? The big white dress, the fancy venue, all the trimmings. My mom nearly cried herself sick when she saw the floral arrangements – 'Exactly what I always dreamed of for you, sweetie.' Like it was her dream, not mine. I mean, it was nice, I guess. The food was good, the music wasn't too cringe. Everyone said I looked beautiful, which is cool. I even managed a genuine smile in a few photos. The next morning, though. That's when it hit. I woke up on some ridiculous pillow-top mattress in the bridal suite, sun streaming in like a spotlight on all the leftover extravagance. Boxes of tiny personalized soaps, discarded ribbon from the bouquets, the last few crumbs of the five-tier cake we barely touched. And god, the flowers. Buckets of them, starting to droop, petals like dead flies on the carpet. We spent... I don't even want to think about what we spent. More than my first car cost, probably. More than a down payment on a house, for sure. All for this one day, for these wilting things. I mean, I don't even — whatever. It just felt like a punch to the gut, seeing all that money just... fading. My whole life, it’s been about making every dollar stretch, picking up extra shifts, scraping by. My parents worked their backsides off for everything they ever had, and here I am, throwing thousands at a party. For a few hours of feeling like a princess, or whatever the fuck. It felt so… wasteful. And for what? So people could clap and tell us we're cute? I walked over to the window, the city looking grey and pissed off even in the morning light, and I just felt this cold stone in my chest. He was still asleep, snoring softly. And I looked at him, really looked at him, and all I could think was, ‘Is this it?’ Not ‘Is this love?’ or ‘Is this forever?’ but ‘Is this the grand prize?’ After all the struggling, all the saving, all the sacrificing – is this fancy, wilting, overpriced aftermath the reward? And I felt this surge of something, hot and bitter, starting in my stomach and climbing up my throat. Like I’d been conned. Or I’d conned myself. I don't know who I'm angrier at, honestly. Probably me. For wanting it. For getting it. For letting everyone else tell me what a perfect happy ending looks like. I stood there for a long time, just watching the dust motes dance in the sunlight, the dead flowers smelling faintly sweet and cloying. The weight of the ring on my finger suddenly felt heavy, like a manacle. And the sadness wasn't just sadness, it was this deep, simmering RAGE. At the expectation, at the expense, at myself for falling for the whole damn fairy tale. My stomach clenched. I just wanted to go home, back to my small apartment, my regular life, where a wilting flower just means I forgot to water it, not that I blew a month's rent on a fucking centerpiece.