Everything seems to be running in slow motion. Her erratic heartbeat and the hammering notion of the rain; even the slamming beat of her feet on the cold wet pavement seems to be going at an all too sluggish tempo. In her mind, she tears the doors open and forces her cold, drenched body through.
In reality, she gently opens one door and slips her tiny body through it. She does not make a sound.
While quietly gasping for the air that her lungs desperately cannot get enough of, she has the realization.
It's too late.
There they are, standing at the far end of the chapel. There is a glint in his eyes: a concoction of happiness and love that feels foreign to her now.
This can't seriously be happening.
She has to be imagining it. This has to be an illusion. After all, the probability that the universe would ever do this to her is so slim. She has to be dreaming.
This CAN'T be real.
But life is real and very, very cruel to her. She witnesses the act as it unfolds before her very being.
He opens his mouth to say the two words that take hold of her heart and shatter it into a million pieces. Her gut quenches up into many impenetrable knots; some, she recognizes, will be with her for the rest of her days. She hears the words, but they do not seem to register in her frazzled mind.
"I do."