A Mere Bridesmaid

Amanda was looking at various color patterns with her wedding planner, a fellow Miamian, and her sister Karen and friend Becky and you. She'd picked purple as one color ... something regal, but she was dithering on the other selection.

"So, I was thinking ... Becks ... I'd like you to be my maid of honor," Amanda said slowly, her eyes never leaving your fake blue ones. Becky clapped her hands excitedly, her eyes filling with tears. And you ... you felt wounded.

Afterwards, after they'd selected gold as the secondary color, you lingered behind.

"You want to know why you aren't the maid of honor," she said simply. You nodded, your blue eyes brimming with tears for a different reason.

"I know you're back with Trevor, Dani," she said, studying you. "You know how he is about Blacks."

"I know, but ... we've been together for so long, in one form or another," you said, sniffling.

"This isn't your happy path, where you get everything you want, Dani. Nor is it the path where you got everything you feared. This is my path. And I'll be damned if I'm going to have the bitch of a white supremacist helping me marry the man of my dreams."