It’s the first time I actively feel the kinship that we were involuntarily born sharing. But it is too late now, Nitwit, it’s far, far too late, and all I can do is hope to never be you. So I swallow myself and tell her the only lie she wants to hear; I tell her not to worry, baby, it’ll be okay. Then I hold her hand, walk her to the mandap, and watch as an orchid-strung noose is placed around her diamond-strung neck.

You will marry one of these girls, won’t you? I’m sure she will be beautiful. Of course she will be. And she’ll come from an old, grand family and be just right for you.

You will approve of the schools she went to, the lines of tennis apparent on her body. You will like her cultivation, talk yourself into being intrigued by her reservation. She will name the right authors and, because it has been so long since you played with fire, because you have mostly forgotten what that feels like, her studied intelligence will impress you. Enough. It will impress you just enough.

She will be a little concerned, of course. Your suit is faultless and your manners, impeccable. Your house has the right address and her parents look so very happy. But there’s something just a little off about you, something she can’t seem to put her finger on. Something amused in your eyes sometimes, and some small inattention, a moment where you drift into a world she can’t quite see.

There is a kindness in you, and a practical wisdom that I loathe. You will want to make it work; you’ll show her your world. Maybe not all of it, maybe not the part that is a savage animal hiding in Armani. You probably won’t tell her, explicitly, how much you always want to win, that you need to win. That you need a life of constant battle because when you win,

that’s when you feel most alive. That is what vindicates the quiet, hidden hurts; the girl sipping a lying Bellini in Martha’s Vineyard, the lovely morning newscaster on NBC who refused to want you.

But you won her, didn’t you?