Catching the Bouquet by Kathleen Hope

            “I just can’t believe that she’s finally going to go through with it,” I said, folding a shirt to put in the dresser drawer.

            My sister looked up from her magazine. “Yeah, me too.” She laughed. “I was beginning to think that it was never going to happen. Hell, they’ve been together since the 12^th grade.”

            Our friend Analiz was finally getting married after she and her fiancé Jared had been dating for more than five years. They’d been the power couple in our high school and we all just knew that they’d get together eventually. We were all surprised when they went to different universities. But where that would have ruined anyone else’s relationship, it strengthened theirs. They’d often said that they wanted to finish school and get established before getting married. And they did. And we were a week away from the big day.

            I looked over at my sister. “Have you tried on your dress and stuff?”

            “Yep.”

            “What about the party for Analiz?”

            Andrea rolled her eyes at me. “Really, Bree. I know what I’m doing. I got this.”

            I snorted and put away the last of my clothes in the drawer. I looked around the room that we’d shared as kids. Our parents had left everything pretty much the same. Even all of my sister’s dance trophies were still on the shelf, dusted and neatly arranged. I shook my head. Mama’s doing no doubt.

            In a way, I was glad that something in my crazy life was still the...