And that stung a little. Because I wasn’t quite ready to admit that what went down between me and Miles had affected other people as well. People that, once upon a time, I’d cared about and who’d cared about me. “Honestly,” I said, “I’m not great at self-awareness but I think it started as a sincere attempt to be over it.”

Oliver was maintaining his tactful silence, but he laid a hand softly on my shoulder.

“And are you?” asked Heather.

I had no way to answer that yet. “Can I get back to you after the wedding?”

“For what it’s worth,” she told me, “I’m sorry things went down the way they did.”

I sighed. “Not your fault.”

“No, but it was still a mess and I could have handled it better. Just at the time…I-I don’t know. I felt like Miles was getting a lot of shit and—”

“Wait a minute. I’d had my sex life splashed all over the News of Whatever. How was Miles getting shit?”

She shot me a withering look. “Oh, come on. You know what Priya is like. You know what Bridget is like. You know what James Royce is like. They might have had good reasons, but they were fucking vicious. Not just to Miles but to everybody who didn’t directly take your side as loudly and vocally as they did. So yeah, I stood up for him, and I said a bunch of things that I shouldn’t have, and”—she took a deep breath—“I’m sorry.”

I’d never looked at it like that before. Not that I’d ever had any obligation to because I was still very much the shaftee in this situation. But while Miles had wound up with custody of most of our associates and acquaintances—the Jonathans of the world—I had taken most of our real, close friends with me. As alone as I’d felt, as little as I’d appreciated them for it, I’d always had all the people that mattered in my corner.

Fuck, was I going to have to be nuanced about this? Being nuanced about things sucked. “I-I guess I see how that was tough. And—and probably a lot of us could have behaved better.”

“Thanks.” Unexpectedly, she hugged me. “This must be really strange for you.”

I said, “And how,” but I hugged her back in a way that I hoped communicated something more along the lines of This is weird and complex but ultimately I think positive, and I’m glad we got a chance to reconnect even though it was in less-than-ideal circumstances, and I wish our past had involved less bullshit, even though neither of us was directly responsible for the bullshit in question.