Wooo!

Band-aids. Do you rip them off quickly? Deal with the stinging pain in an instant or try to slowly ease the plaster away from your skin. Everyone has their methods. Maybe it's all a matter of preference.

For Robbie, the chance to make a quick and clean break had long since passed. Too many band-aids over one wound. Three months after the engagement announcement -- which, of course, she congratulated through grinning, gritted teeth -- the "Save the Date" card arrived. And with it, a heavy dose of reality.

"I am so fucked."

Back then, there was still some time until the actual wedding date. A lot of time. Twelve whole months full of nothing but time to reflect on the last decade. Fuck, had it been ten years? No matter. This was the inevitable. The thing in the back of her mind that she always knew would eventually come, yet for whatever reason (and heaps of self-delusion) she'd been avoiding.

"Idiot. What were you thinking?"

Twelve whole months later, Robbie stepped out of a taxi, as dusk began to fall. Her heels click-clack-click along the cobblestones as she hurried, late and already a little tipsy, into the reception hall.

"Robbie! I didn't think you'd make it! I didn't see you at the ceremony." Mrs. Bernhard, mother of the groom, greeted her at the entrance.

"Traffic was a killer, but I got here as soon as I could!"

It was a lie, but the best that Robbie could come up with at such a short notice. She made a beeline towards the bar. Too late for liquid courage, she opted for liquid happy. Or, at the very least, made a valiant attempt.

"This could have been my wedding." *gulp gulp* "No, wait...could this have been my wedding?" *gulp* "You never even wanted to get married." *gulp* "He never asked and you were never officially together." *guuuuuulp* The questions swirled around in her thoughts as she started her second glass of wine.

"So very fucked." She chugged the second glass and went back for a third.

Looking across the dance floor, she spied the bride and groom sitting at their table. Even while engaged in conversation with other guests, Robbie is distracted. No one notices. The buffet is opened. Robbie poured herself another glass of wine.

After everyone has eaten, the best man and maid of honor get up to make a toast. A waiter rolls out a projector from the back and - surprise - the toast is now an iMovie clipshow of relationship highlights documenting a thirty-some-odd years of life and ten years of true love blah blah bullshit.

Fifth glass. Robbie was there for it all, but more the crazy parallel universe version of events. The sanitized instant replay burned like salt in a wound.

The train of congratulatory speeches feels endless. The open bar is the only saving grace. After the last speech, a group of waiters and waitresses appeared, clutching clusters of red, heard-shaped helium balloons and began handing them out to guests. The best man announced to the attendees that they should write down a wish, or message, or quote on the little sheet of paper attached to the end of their balloon string. Once everyone is finished, the group is to go outside to release the balloons.

After several minutes of drunken scribbling, the crowd began to file out the doors. Clutching her balloon, Robbie discreetly choked back her tears as the countdown to release began.

The brief message that she wrote replaying in her head over and over like a mantra.

It read:

I used to love you. Now I don't.

The crowd chants in unison, "3-2-1...Woooo!"

And one hundred and eighty red, heart-shaped helium balloons drifted into the sky.