The first thing Alandra discovered after turning the page was that her cheeks hurt.

She had smiled when the doors opened. She had smiled through every step down the aisle, even while tears blurred Albedo and Lohen into two pale figures waiting beneath the jasmine. She had smiled through their vows, through the rings and through the kisses pressed against her temples as the whole room rose around them in applause.

By the time the last blessing had been given and an organiser guided the three of them towards the raised pelaminan, the muscles in her face had begun to ache.

Still, Alandra could not stop.

She no longer knew where she smiled and when she didn’t. They seemed to rise from somewhere far deeper than her mouth, gathering inside her chest until happiness had nowhere left to go except through her entire body.

The room had changed after the ceremony. Its sacred quiet slowly loosened beneath the sounds of celebration: chairs shifting, glasses being lifted from tables, relatives calling softly to one another and musicians preparing for the next song. The candles continued to burn beneath the flowers, although their flames no longer seemed solemn. Even the jasmine smelled sweeter now.

Perhaps sacredness did not disappear when people began laughing.

Perhaps it simply climbed down from the altar and joined them.

Alandra lowered herself carefully into the middle seat, gathering the fabric of her kebaya so it would not catch beneath her. Albedo held one of her hands while Lohen moved part of her skirt aside with unusual patience, both of them watching until she was safely seated before taking their places beside her.

For several breaths, the three of them said nothing.

They had been surrounded by people all day. Someone had always been adjusting a collar, checking the jasmine in Alandra’s hair, asking for a photograph or telling them where they needed to stand. Even during the ceremony, when the rest of the room seemed to fall away, they had remained aware that every promise was being witnessed.

Now, for the first time since morning, nobody immediately asked anything of them.

The bouquet was still being brought from another part of the venue. Their families had begun speaking with the guests below, and the photographer had stepped away to change a lens. They had only been given a few quiet minutes, but those minutes felt almost private from their place above the room.

Alandra looked down at her hand.

The ring was still there.

She turned it slightly, watching the platinum catch the afternoon light, then lifted her hand higher to inspect it from another angle. The same hand had belonged to her that morning. The same fingers had held a cup, brushed powder from her dress and clung to her mother’s hand before the doors opened.

Yet the small circle of that platinum band made it look wonderfully new.

Alandra raised it towards the people below.

“I’m really married!!!”

Her announcement carried much farther than she had intended.