My Maid Of Honour Gave A Speech About Her Own Engagement

She had been my best friend since we were eleven.

The speech started fine. Slightly about her, but they always are, and I was happy, and the wine was good.

At about ninety seconds it became clear that the story she was telling was not about me. It was about a holiday she went on. I was there, technically, in the way a coat rack is at a party.

At minute two she said, "And that's when I realised what love actually is." And the room went a bit still, because that is a strange thing to say at somebody else's wedding.

At minute three she reached into her bag and took out a small box, and she said, "Ryan, I know this is your day too, sort of—" and she looked at my new husband, who is called Adam, and she got his name wrong on my wedding day, in front of a hundred and ten people, and then she said, "—but Ryan asked me last night and I said yes."

Ryan is her boyfriend. He was at table nine. He looked like a man watching his own house burn down from inside it.

The room applauded. That is the part that broke something in me. The room applauded, because people are polite and confused and had been drinking since two.

My mother stood up. My mother — who had not liked her since we were fourteen and has been proved correct — stood up and said, in a completely level voice: "Sit down, love. You're at the wrong wedding."

She sat down.

She has never apologised. She sent a message four months later that said, "I feel like you've made this into a bigger thing than it was."

We are not friends now. That is not the sad part.

The sad part is that Ryan sent me a message the next week. It said: "I'm sorry. I hadn't asked her anything."

They got married eighteen months later. I was not invited, and I did not go, and I hope he is all right, and I do not think about it as often as I used to.