The wedding.  That’s when all this started.  I’m pretty sure of it now.  The wedding, or the non-wedding, whatever you want to call it, was the beginning of the crazy time my life has been for a while now.  Not that hanging around with a Slayer, a couple of witches, an ex-demon, a neutered vampire, a Key, and a mostly absent English guy isn’t crazy.  This stuff is a few gigantic steps beyond your normal, everyday crazy.
    The wedding.  I was wearing my tux, which was too tight, by the way, and the church was covered with flowers.  I wasn’t too sure about having the wedding in a church, but Anya insisted that that’s the most logical way to go about it, and because I would rather have the wedding in the house of God than in the house of court, I agreed.  She’d had a blast planning the color schemes and ordering the flower delivery people around about where to put everything.  The place looked really nice.
    My parents were there.  I don’t know how they found out.  I did everything I could to keep my parents out of my life after I moved out of the basement.  I’ve always done everything to keep them out of the things I care about.  It’s just safer, really.  They were sitting in the back on the groom’s side, though.  I wanted to hurl my guts up.  Then I wanted to smash my father’s skull.  Then I repressed the urge, like always.
    All the Scoobies were there, too.  Even Spike.  He sat on Anya’s side, just to spite me.  I didn’t care.  I knew he hated me, and I hated him, so it didn’t matter at all.  Giles sat on Anya’s side, but I think it was because he wanted Anya to have someone sitting on her side of the church besides Spike and three of her favorite customers from the Magic Box.  Plus, he was giving her away.  Cordelia wanted to come, but she was tied up with other stuff in LA, something about diapers.
    Anya looked beautiful.  She was wearing the dress she’d been endlessly drooling over for months before.  It was white and really nice.  Her hair was perfect.  I found out later that Buffy and Dawn had done it.  Walking down the aisle with Giles, she looked…wonderful.  Anya decided not to have any bridesmaids.  I don’t know why.  I probably won’t ever know.  It’s not that important, anyhow.
    ‘Dearly beloved…’ blabbed the minister.  I wasn’t really paying attention to anything he was saying.  I just kept staring at Anya.  She looked perfect, almost too perfect.  The guy went through his whole speech, and I hadn’t heard a word.  He eventually got to the part where I was supposed to say I did.
    I didn’t, so I didn’t.
    Anya looked at me, looked at the minister, and looked at the guests.
    ‘We’ll be right with you in a few,’ she said, and she was really calm about it.  We went behind the stage and into a hallway.  ‘This is where you have cold feet and I assure you we’ll be fine, right?’
    ‘Anya…’
    ‘It’s okay, Xander.  This happens all the time at weddings.’
    ‘Anya, please—’ She cut me off.
    ‘Xander, you have no reason to be nervous.  Marriage is not the impossible task it seems to be.  I’ve read all the books there are on the subject, and I think it’ll be really quite simple.  Now, all we have to do is go back out, say all the right words, and go home.  Well, we actually have to make a small stop at the magic shop for some billing slips, but then home.  Now, let’s go.  I’m paying that Bible man by the hour.’
    ‘Anya, no.’ I thought she was going to have a flashback to her vengeance demon days and haul off and kill me.  She didn’t, and I almost wish she would have.  It would have been less cruel.  ‘I can’t do this.  I’m not…it doesn’t feel right.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I can’t explain why, I just…I can’t marry you, Anya.’ I was going to kill myself if she wouldn’t.  It felt like murder to say that to her, but I couldn’t have said anything else.
    ‘I don’t understand.  You asked me!  How can you back out when this whole wedding is your idea?’ She wasn’t angry, just royally confused.
    ‘I am so, so sorry.  I thought I knew what I wanted, I mean, I thought I wanted to marry you, but now…it feels like a mistake.’ She walked a little ways away from me, shaking her head.  She was finally starting to get mad, and I was starting to get really scared.  ‘Can’t we just go back to the way things were?  We’ve been happy living together, right?’
    ‘Yes, but we can’t simply go back!  The uncertainty may be fun for you, but I’m finding that I like the idea of a real commitment!’
    ‘You don’t think I was committed to you?’
    ‘I wanted it in writing!’
    ‘I can’t do that, Anya.  I have this gut feeling.’
    ‘Not for long…’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing!’