Meg Chukar was standing at the pulpit, sweating through every pore of her body. She was terrified that her almost off-white wedding gown, which she had rented from the cheapest retailer she could find, was about to become a translucent, see-through piece of fabric. Starting from her armpits, arriving at her neck, traveling down her back, reaching her inner thigh and splashing down to her feet, she slowly felt her body become a pool of salty water. But, more than her profuse leakage, she feared what was causing it.

Here she was, about to be married to the boy in front of her, Devon Lord, at the tender age of eighteen and she wanted nothing of it. The moment her parents forced her to marry, it had hit her all at once that her life was over before it even began. Eighteen! She had thought, everything before was the prologue, the setup. And now I won’t even get to experience the main part!

Only months before, she had felt invincible and ready for anything. She had everything and was ready for more. She was in her last year of high school, ready to get out and experience the world. She would finally be able to move away from her parents’ house and be liberated from their strict hands. She had already tasted that freedom when she began secretly dating her first ever boyfriend, despite her parents’ abhorrent rules against the concept. She had sipped on that sweet juice of rebellion when she had him for the first time in her room and in her bed while her family was out. Back then, nothing had felt so essential, so needed, so good. Now, that memory of her first time tasted like bile stuck in the back of her throat. Bitter and overpowering.

Never had she imagined the shame she would feel when she explained to her parents that she was pregnant. She felt weak and small and vulnerable when the full extent of her father’s anger boiled over and the deep accusation in her mother’s eyes ripped her apart like the claws of a feral beast. She felt the itchy frustration at herself that her shame had yielded her to her parents’ order of keeping the baby. Yielded her to accept marrying her boyfriend, Devon, the moment they both came of age. His eighteenth birthday was in December and her birthday was in January. January 1st to be exact. It was a cruel joke. Here she was, on the first day of the new year, the first day of her adulthood, and she wasn’t given the privilege of easing into it. It was thrown at her face, fast and hard and hurt like a cinderblock. Worse actually, because unlike a cinderblock in the face, it didn’t kill on impact. It strangled.

The audience was comprised of seven people. Meg’s mother and father, both of the looking relieved, making Meg feel even more sick to her stomach. Devon’s father and little sister; the former seeming almost as stressed as Meg felt, the latter with an air of simultaneous uninterest and curiosity. The officiant was Reverend Gregory Sin who was the pastor of the Chukar’s home church; the humor in the man’s name being an intrinsic natural truth. The last two were the somber groom and the dazzlingly sweaty bride, making vows they didn’t believe in, receiving on their fingers inexpensive rings they didn’t want, signing fake documents with fake pens in a fake church and committing to live a fake life until a real death do them part.

At the end of the service, Reverend Sin awkwardly announced that “You may kiss the bride”, and out of a mindless obligation for tradition, Devon Lord closed the distance to obey the order given to him. But Meg Chukar was not about to kiss the groom. She swerved out of Devon’s way, down the stairs leading to the pews, walked with intentionality down the aisle and through the sanctuary doors. Her dress, almost as angry as she was fluttered about behind her like the plumage of a bird in flight. Devon watched her go, wide-eyed and holding back tears. Someone might as well have played Ode to Joy in reverse.