Lena took my hand and floated around the room, introducing me to everyone she laid eyes on. “This is my friend Eliza,” she’d say, a step up from when she’d call me a coworker, or worse, give me no attribution at all.

I must have been visibly disappointed when, halfway through the night, Graham was nowhere to be found because Lena eased up to me, so close—and after a few glasses of champagne—that I thought she might try to kiss me, and she whispered, “Get over him. There are so many hotter guys here anyway. He’s not worth it.”

I took a deep breath and smiled, nodding like she was right. Like I was being pathetic, and I needed to shake myself out of it. If there was one person besides Graham that I didn’t want to look desperate in front of, it was Lena. She was too carefree to ever give a fuck about anyone. I bet she’d never been ghosted like this. I bet she did the ghosting and her partners probably felt honored to have ever been in her presence in the first place.

But she had no idea what she was talking about.

To ease her mind, I plucked a glass of champagne off a passing tray and ambled toward a guy in a dark suit standing alone, admiring what looked to me like a piece of fabric covered in staples then tacked to a wall and called “art” by a rich person with little taste. But what did I know, the walls of my apartment were bare.

“Beautiful piece, isn’t it?” he said once he noticed I was there, his voice more gruff than I would have expected. Something I’d find at the farm, not at an art show.

“So emotional,” I said, convincingly, taking a sip of champagne. The art world is subjective to the point of being both brilliant and obsolete. Everyone can have an opinion and no one can say you’re wrong. I learned from Lena that emotional or textured or moody were easy buzzwords to stick to when trying to impress someone and seem like you know what you’re talking about and care.

He stepped closer to the fabric, his head cocked, eyes squinting. “In what way?” he asked, resting his pointer finger on his bottom lip like flirting with the painting would help him critique better.

I wasn’t expecting a follow-up.

“Well, the way the curvature of the...staples represents the downfall...of democracy...” I trailed off, hoping that it would feel like I was so overcome with emotion I couldn’t even finish the thought. It was staples on a canvas—what the hell?

“Hmm,” the man began, backing away from the art. “That’s so—”