Lena was about to say something when glasses started clanking around the garden, the sound bouncing off the buildings around us, and Veronica approached.

“Toast time,” she sang, tugging at my arm and pulling me toward the center of the party where Graham was waiting and a circle had begun to form, everyone gently tapping forks or knives or spoons against champagne flutes that had mysteriously appeared in everyone’s hands.

“I’d like to make a toast...”

Reed’s voice echoed around me like the precursor to an avalanche as he climbed onto a chair. The impossibly short, silent, eerie beat before everything begins to crumble.

Graham put his arm around my waist and turned me to face Reed and I reminded myself to smile, to show teeth, to exude joy from my stance and my eyes. The more you look like you’re actively laughing, the harder it is for anyone to decipher what’s actually happening underneath.

“I’m the groom-to-be’s brother, for anyone here who doesn’t know. Actually—” he scanned the room quickly “—is there anyone here who didn’t know that?”

From the bar in the back, Brittany and Ashleigh and a few of my colleagues raise their hands and cheer like we’re at a talk show and the host mentioned the small town in Missouri they grew up in. Judging from the way Brittany’s skinny strap kept falling over her shoulder, I’m guessing she was at least two drinks in and, no doubt, discussing how she wished Reed weren’t married.

“Eliza doesn’t have a lot of family, that’s what I’m told. At least not family she’s introduced us to—” He motioned toward himself and his parents. “She could have a secret second life no one knows about...” The crowd laughs and I do, too. Because it was a joke, of course. “We always thought that was kinda strange. A girl we know almost nothing about—I mean, she had five suitcases when she moved in with my little brother. Her entire life in five suitcases. And she just walks in here and takes Graham for all he’s got.” He looked at Veronica, who was sitting at the table in front of him gushing like a mom at her kid’s first ballet recital. “At least no one’s questioning how quickly we got married, babe. This was way faster.”

The crowd offered a few uncomfortable laughs.

“The day I met Eliza was the day she moved in with those five suitcases. I was there to help them unpack but there was nothing for me to do. Literally nothing. She’s the first female minimalist to ever exist.”