Since high school, Sakura had been Toni's friend -- the only one who had survived and the only one who deserved to be here now. Toni harbored something of a crush on Sakura from freshman to senior year. Toni was, however, too shy to do anything more than making fond eyes. Sakura, for all that she loved Toni, was one of the straighter people Toni knew. If not, they wasted prime years not kissing. Given how little Toni got along with any of her exes, it might have been a blessing that she never did more than adore her friend. She weighed their present near-sisterhood far more heavily than the potential of getting to second base.
Sakura wore a teal dress with a bow on the front, which she was barely on the right side of cute to wear, accessorized by a guitar case on her back, a look not many people could pull off. Sakura was rarely without her guitar case. It seemed so much a limb that she would be mutilated without it.
Sakura sang beautifully and likely strummed a guitar before she learned to walk. When the guitar wasn't in her hand, it was as though something integral to her personality was ripped away. She shrunk and hid behind her hands -- a state Toni knew too intimately -- as though she couldn't quite figure out how to negotiate the world without her music.
Sakura more resembled Toni than Amy did. They had the same sort of blossoming beauty that went largely overlooked by people in high school, a reservation that kept them out of romantic competition. Their hair was a shade away from being the same chestnut, a separation that ceased to exist come the summer sun. They moved and joked, if not the same, then congruently. They went through adolescent goth phases, with pants whose chains dangled and clanged, united in putting these far in the closet come junior year.
Sakura had, as far as Toni knew, only ever dated one guy: Ben. Ben was the sort of person who collected swords from catalogs and flea markets, ones he nailed to his walls and only removed to stab at rotten pumpkins in November and Christmas trees in early January. Ben watched martial arts movies constantly -- the worse they were, the better he liked them -- and took for friends only those unathletic minions who would mimic "Enter the Dragon" until they broke the drywall.
Sakura had a fetish for Ben. She had once caught him in bed with someone from his community college forensic seminar -- the same bed that she shared with him in her mother's house. When he tried to explain against all logic that this wasn't what it looked like, she had thrown him out. She couldn't throw him far since he had nowhere else to go, but she threw him at least as far as the couch until he found his own apartment.
It was only a few months later that he wormed his way back into her life. This was a pattern that repeated more times than Toni let herself know. A part of Toni always hoped that another man would catch Sakura's eye -- she was more than lovely enough that she should have turned heads once boys got them out of their asses -- but she never seemed to take any notice. Ben had deflowered her. Sakura could not imagine another person tilling her gardens.
Toni had a strict non-interference policy regarding Sakura's love life, as she tried to apply to anyone whose bed she didn't hope to share. She knew that Nathaniel liked her, and they had gone on what Toni would term dates but didn't even ask Sakura about these. It would be like spooking a mouse one hoped to pet. She thought they looked nice together, far better than Sakura ever looked with Ben, but it wasn't her position to say anything about it unless asked. Nathaniel would not press the issue. She knew that Jason would -- ached to -- but he respected her edict to let Sakura discover on her own how she felt about Nathaniel.
All the same, Nathaniel could be the solution to her Ben problem. Nathaniel was not a perfect man, but he was a considerable step up, not the least because he didn't show off the sort of knives sold to teenagers at lakeside resorts. At this point, she couldn't deny that Sakura remaining single ranked as a massive step up from returning to Ben.
If nothing else, if Sakura dared to keep going back to Ben, the agony of it was sure to help the content of her songs, if not her motivation to sing them.
Ben was not invited to the wedding. Sakura would not ask or presume. Despite the longevity of their coupling, it was rare that anyone saw Ben with Sakura. He appeared in no pictures with her. He did not socialize outside their home. Sakura barely whispered his name, as though to do so would be enough to invoke him.
Nathaniel could be forgiven for being unaware that Ben existed. Toni barely remembered.
If Sakura loved her boyfriend was an unasked question, though Toni supposed this might be the right name for the emotion. It wasn't love as Toni understood it, but she was not so arrogant as to assume that she was the arbiter of these things. Toni understood the love she had with Jason and thought it was a better love than most. Of course, it was better than how Ben loved Sakura because he was an idiot. She couldn't picture the person who would contradict this, but that didn't mean anyone would be crass enough to say it.
Toni embraced Sakura at the door, the bow compressing between them. At once, the day seemed a fraction less stressful. Though she could easily say that most of the people present were here for her, no one felt this more than Sakura. Jason got along with her -- loved her, in fact -- but Sakura belonged to Toni how Nathaniel belonged to Jason. It was a shame that she wasn't in the wedding party, but that would put a strain on Sakura that would drain her joy for the event to come.
Was Sakura the sidekick in this adventure? That didn't feel right. For one, adventure might not suit Sakura. She would cheerlead everything that Toni did without question, but her role wouldn't be much more robust than that. The best Toni could hope for would be inspiring a song via her angst.
Sakura slipped in, though the door was open wide, and there were few places in this home or among these people where she would not be welcomed. Even Amy seemed to harbor the smallest soft spot for Sakura, though it might resemble the affection one holds for the runtiest kitten. Yet slipping is what she did, all but pushing against the door in her effort to get inside.
Sakura saw Nathaniel and did not freeze. With most people, Sakura reacted at first as though they might be a threat. With Nathaniel now, they exchanged slight smiles. Sakura's caution turned down a notch.
Toni considered that she might have been doing a disservice by not having Sakura in her wedding party, then accidentally revealing that she would have to share a room with Nathaniel. It is that sort of romantic comedy nonsense that she despised in movies -- to say nothing of her Call to Adventure -- but Sakura's own story needed some goosing.
Toni took Sakura by the wrist and led her to the wraparound porch to see the gathering party below.
"Wow," said her friend in a cryptic way, the word's definition changeable given inflection and the sincerity behind it. Was this "Wow, I am so happy about your wedding"? "Wow, look at all those people"? "Wow, this looks as though it took so much work"? Or was it more "Wow, I need to make a sound of acknowledgment here, and I am going for nonspecific amazement"? It wasn't easy to know.
"'Wow' is an understatement," Toni chose to say. "I've mostly been trying to keep out of people's ways."
"But you are the bride."
"Yeah, all the more reason," Toni said. "I put things into motion. Now I... let them be in motion until I walk down that hill and get married."
"But you are already married, right?" asked Sakura, lowering the guitar case to her feet. "I mean, you have the license and everything."
"I need people to sign it," said Toni, who didn't want this big day reduced to only paperwork.
"No, no, what I mean is--" but Sakura broke off, watching Amy rearrange some pies people had brought. "I'd just want paper. Sign something and be done. Wouldn't even have to tell anyone."
Toni leaned against the weathered wood of the railing. "People tend to figure it out eventually." Though, for Sakura, maybe they wouldn't. Ben was all but a nonentity, and Sakura was so retiring outside of her music that she might be too anxious to mention it. The only indication might be a ring on her finger, which Toni baldly scanned to see if this might be Sakura's way of dropping that hint. But, no, they were clear.
Nathaniel found them there after a few minutes, spiriting Sakura away and leaving Toni to get her hair and makeup done before putting on her wedding dress.
Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled, gifted, and adjudicated. He can cross one eye, raise one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings.