Then I saw the bartender, the woman who was inevitably going home with Lena tonight, standing next to the caterer, both staring at Reed with the kind of straight face reserved for funerals and boring subway rides. Finally, someone who was allowed to look the way I felt. Bored, unenthused, and, honestly, ready to go home. At least they were getting paid to listen to this shit, I guess.

Reed finally calmed the crowd down by saying, “The faster I’m finished, the faster we can get back to drinking,” which was so déclassé I could physically feel Cheryl shaking with embarrassment from across the room. “This is all to say,” Reed continued, red-faced both from the gin and from the satisfaction of making an entire room laugh, “I guess she looked familiar because she’s always been my sister. I just didn’t know it yet.”

The room awwed and I pretended to wipe a tear from the corner of my left eye. Emotional didn’t look good on him. It looked pathetic. Like he was trying too hard. Like maybe he was playing some kind of game, too.

After Graham and I hugged him and the entire room cheered and drank to our union, I excused myself and slowly made my way to the bathroom. I was about to open the door when I realized what I really wanted was the employees-only bathroom, one where no one could find me and touch me and congratulate me. Congratulations for what? I always want to say back. For proving I’m lovable?

I snuck into the kitchen, where only a few suit-clad waiters stood delicately placing prosciutto-wrapped honeydew and mac and cheese balls on metal trays and followed a WR arrow down a steep staircase and onto a platform.

When I pushed through the heavy door, the automatic lights flickered on like a bad horror movie. It took three blinks of darkness before they stayed lit, fluorescent and slightly blue, reflecting off the white tiled floor and walls like fake daylight. The room was cold and damp and I felt uncomfortable in how out of place I was. I hadn’t peed in a bathroom without complimentary deodorant and Q-tips in over a year.

I sat on the toilet in one of the stalls unsure if I needed to throw up or pass out. Neither would relieve the nausea that speech had brought on. My head was spinning with the thought of being recognized, of the conversation in the closet, of the night we met. God, I fucking hate him. I hate everything about all of them.

The door whispered open, and I steeled myself, preparing for someone to recognize my shoes under the janky gray stall and realize I didn’t belong here. I’m sorry, they’d apologize, as if they were invading my space. As if I hadn’t prevented them from relieving themselves comfortably.