You’ve moved on too, the voice in my head spoke up, defensively. You have new friends too. Who cares if I spend a significant portion of my day watching Kaavi’s every move on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube? I had Jessica, Deepa, and Imogen, didn’t I? Although my brunch friends seemed more like a dream from a different life that I had shaken myself awake from. I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t anymore. Except for Beth, of course. She was real. My only real friend. I thought about discreetly sending her a text, but one of the women turned toward me.

“So, did you know Kaavi and Spencer were dating?” the girl introduced as Lakshi asked. It looked like they had been talking about it when Laura and I arrived.

“Um, sorry?” I wasn’t playing dumb. It just caught me off guard. Great, now these women were going to think I’m some sort of moron.

“I mean, I see Kaavi every day. I’d known she and Spencer were friends, of course. He’s helped out so much with the charity, and has flown down here quite a few times this last year. But I never got the sense that he and Kaavi were involved romantically.”

“Maybe it’s not about the romance,” one of the intern friends joked. “I heard they’ve been hooking up for a while now.”

“Kaavi? Hooking up? No way. She’s far too prim and proper.”

“No? She’s so secretive though. No one ever seems to know what’s really going on with her.”

“She is secretive. I’ll give you that. I actually did get the sense she’s been hiding something these past few months. So maybe that’s it. Maybe she just had Spencer locked up in her bedroom the whole time.”

The table erupted into giggles, and I joined in, too, even though I had given up trying to feel good about anything this evening.

“But that proposal, good lord.”

“Good lord, indeed.”

“Is the video up yet?”

“No, she hasn’t posted it. I don’t know why; now that was something out of a movie.”

“I have it,” Lakshi, who worked at Kaavi’s charity, said. “Spencer asked me to record Kaavi’s speech, though at the time I had no idea what he would do.” She smiled, smug that she was a part of the in-group.

“You have the proposal on video?” I asked, before I could help myself.

“Of course.”

I took a deep breath.

“Any chance you could send it to me? I would love to see it.”

A beat of silence.

“It’s just that I lose out on so much living in LA. I hate that I’ve missed so many important moments in her life,” I added.

“Sure.” She was almost dismissive. “Just promise me you won’t post it anywhere until Kaavi releases it herself or she’ll kill me.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, reaching for her phone as she held it out and keying in my details, “I’m barely on social media anyway.”