The rain was a bad omen.  Not the first, but the one that made her stop and really think about what she was doing.

She’d been forced to make compromises and concession after concession as more people stepped in and took control, and here she was, an hour before her wedding, wondering what she was doing.

And it was raining.

It was mostly her desire to finally be married that made her say yes when Jason popped the question, a disappointment in itself, but she had said yes regardless.

But in all her dreams about her wedding day, it was never raining.

Like a frog that’s slowly boiled alive in a pot of water, she hadn’t jumped out when her outdoor wedding was moved into a church to serve her future mother-in-law, or when her dream of a small intimate wedding of only her closest family and friends was bloated to nearly four hundred people, or when her fiancé decided he didn’t want to write his own vows, or when her bridesmaids had decided they didn’t like her choice of dresses and had chosen something different.  Those pink dresses would mar her wedding photos forever, but it’s what they had wanted.  It was always what everyone else wanted.  What ever happened to everything being about the bride?  It was her day!

But it wasn’t her day, she finally realized as the rain pattered against the stained glass windows.  It wasn’t her dream wedding, it wasn’t the husband she wanted, and it wasn’t a beautiful sunset over a field while she and the man of her dreams recited their own vows.

It was raining.  A depressing gray day with water pouring from the skies in sheets.  

She lifted the hem of her wedding dress and slipped quietly out the back of the church into the deluge.  Even her wedding dress wasn’t what she had pictured.  Again talked into it by her bridesmaids, it wasn’t horrible, but like everything else about that day, she was done with it, and as the rain drenched the white gown and the puddles sullied the hem, she thought it fitting as she ran as fast as she could on her heels away from the church.

She was drenched to the bone by the time she realized she was lost.  She’d been to the church several times to check it out and for rehearsals and preparation, but never by herself.  In the gloom and rain, nothing was recognizable.  

It was a sleepy little town, most of the shops on the street closed on Sunday as she came across empty storefront after empty storefront.  She waved at a passing car, but it didn’t stop for the girl in the soaked wedding dress waving her arms, splashing up more dirty water all over her as it sped past.

Through the driving rain she could just barely make out a sign for a gas station ahead, and she made her way forward, leaning into the wind and rain bearing down on her.

She didn’t notice the car that had just passed her pull over and stop.  She didn’t hear the car doors slam over the torrential downpour as three guys got out and plodded through the rain after her.

It wasn’t until they were almost upon her that she even suspected something was amiss, heavy splashes right behind her that weren’t her or the falling rain.  She looked back just as one of the men grabbed her from behind.  

There was no one around to hear her screams as she was pulled into an alley.  Her soaked dress was heavy and cumbersome, weighing her down as she tried to fight her assailants off.  They were bigger than her, and between the three of them, had no problem dragging the runaway bride to the back of the alley, behind the dumpsters.  

A stream off water cascaded off the roof of the building onto her face as she was thrown to the ground with a splash.  She could barely breath, let alone scream as her dress was ripped off, the soaked fabric pooling out around her struggling body.  They held her down, and she blinked up through the water as one of her assailants undid his belt, standing between her spread legs.

Over the sound of the rain and her own helpless screams as he ripped her white lacy panties off, she could hear the sound of church bells in the distance.

The fourth note tolled out through the rain as the man entered her, his rain drenched body heavy on top of her.  It was four o’clock.  She could have been walking down the aisle right then.