At the double door leading to the altar

Fear. Shame. Misery. Self-loathing. Despair. Guilt. Cowardice. Loneliness. A frightening urge to bang her head on something really, really hard.

Add "hangover" and "denial" to that equation, and you would get the empty-eyed bride who was currently standing in front of the double door feeling like drowning. She had snagged so many little bottles of wine from the flight attendant's cart when boarding the plane and, consequently, had been drunken before the plane was 3 feet in the air above Big Island. Everything after that had been a blur. She didn't remember the long wait to change planes her husband-to-be just wouldn't stop bitching about. She didn't remember how she had managed to get drunken all over again on the next plane and the plane after that. Hell, she didn't even remember saying yes to the man she was going to marry in 5 minutes.

The mob consisting of her girl friends had grabbed her and her luggage from Newark Airport, driven straight back to her apartment, allowed her a 20 minute shower and 6 doughnuts, and then rushed her to the bridal shop to try on the dress. It had been such a perfect fit that all the people in the shop had been unable to stop "Oh!" and "Wow!" and "Ah!". They had then marched her to the mall and find the perfect bridal shoes in the same creamy hue as the dress. The rehearsal and the dinner afterward had been another blur. And then she had woken up with her head pounding like a man-eating tribe's drum on the couch in her parents' home, in the morning of her wedding day.

She could hear the wedding music through the door. She was going to let the man who had always played an important part in her life put his grandmother's old wedding ring around her finger. Suddenly she wanted to tear the wedding dress off her body and run out of the church like hell. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs and tell the world this was all a big mistake. She wanted to pick up the phone, dial that familiar number and summon Batman to her rescue. But before she could find her strength and courage to run to her love and freedom, the Burg Girl deep inside her chose to wake up at this moment.

Your mother did not bring you up to do such things! The Burg Girl berated her severely.

What will people think if you turn your own second wedding into yet another a fiasco?

You have made your decision, now you have to learn to live with the consequences.

How can you rob the happy, dreamy smile off your mother's face?

How can you bring further humiliation to your whole family?

Haven't you done enough damage?

Spending the rest of your life with him as a married couple will not be so terrible. You have lived with him before. The sex will be good. He has a respectable job, a steady income, a nice cozy house , and a dog you really love. And you do love him too, right?

Think of your poor mother!

Stop being selfish!

And then she was swallowed in a sea of hopelessness and helplessness. No, she couldn't be so selfish. She couldn't do this to her family. She couldn't afford to disappoint her mother any more.

The wedding planner's assistant opened the door and smiled at her. "It's time."

"I have to do this." She whispered to herself and walked through the door, ready to become the wife of the man who had fingered her in his father's garage when she was only six.