The room was golden. Glowing strings of light strung up from every surface, so many tiny dots of warmth they turned to stars behind the blur of my eyes. Under the glow, the restaurant was overflowing with party-goers adorned in velvet dresses and sleek silk suits. Long tables covered the perimeter of the room and waiters danced through the bustle with trays filled with tall champagne flutes.

 

Everywhere my eyes landed was shimmering, the chairs, tables, and flowers looked like they were dusted in lustrousness. As though they hadn’t hired a decorator for their engagement party, but a golden winter storm had passed through at the perfect time.

​

I wanted to swipe my finger across the nearest surface just to see if it would come back in that glittering dust. James whistled low from his spot beside me, raising our joined hands to gesture at an ostentatious ice sculpture in the centre of the room. It was a shining pair of twin doves, nestled in a bed of icy roses. The perfect symbols of love, I would’ve rolled my eyes at the pretension of it all, if only I could look away from the dripping particles of condensation cascading the side of the doves’ wings.

 

James swung our hands back down, his thumb swiping over the top of my hand. I watched as his finger moved over the curved scars at the spot where my wrist met my thumb. He was always smoothing over that skin, as though his touch could remedy the old wound. I let James pull me along through the party.

​

I had dreamed of this day since I was a kid, though I never imagined it’d take place in a room full of people I didn’t know. My best friend’s engagement party. I often wondered if I was still allowed to call her that.

​

​

From across the room, I spotted a figure towering over the rest of the partygoers. His golden hair unmistakable. The guest of honour. Or one of them, at least. I remember marvelling at the lustrous impossibility of that colour back in university, spending our endless hours in the library watching the shining blonde shift in sunlight. Now the sight made me want to run in the opposite direction. I probably would have if James wasn’t dragging me by the hand to the bar.

​

From the space between the bowed dove's heads, I watched the blonde figure wrap his arm around the waist of a tiny woman in a pale blue dress. Her face was obscured by an icy dove’s wing, though I didn’t need to see her face to know whom I was looking at. 

​

JAMES

Is everything alright?

 

I must’ve stopped moving at the sight of her, because James was a couple of feet ahead of me, our connected arms suspended in a line between us. I nodded absently, moving to stand next to James. I tried to squeeze his hand reassuringly, but my heart was beating so fast it made my fingers shake. I hoped he couldn’t feel it.

 

JAMES

So that’s Marion? The elusive best friend?

 

My eyes snapped to his at the utterance of her name. This time he was the one staring over at the happy couple, his neck strained as he craned it around the crowd of people.

 

LUCILLE

You’re my best friend.

 

I tried for casual, sarcastic, happy. James saw right through me, stared at me while he waited for the real answer. He always did that I started deflecting. His expression was light, patient, unflinching. Looking at James was easy, and in my heels him and I were the exact same height. I let his brown eyes soak through me, trying to find the calm he usually elicited.

​

No matter how much I resisted though, my eyes kept straying back to the couple. His pale skin and sun kissed hair, stark against his navy suit and the baby blue of Marion’s dress. I remembered the shade of his eyes, though I hadn’t met them in years. All that scrutiny held in that gaze. His iris’ were the same colour as Marion’s dress. He bared his teeth in a sharp smile across the room. The sharp elongated notes of the violin scratched at the inside of my skull.

 

The bass was loud and clear from where they stood in the basement as it blared from the speakers in the student housing living room. The noise created an empty space for her cries. Her back flush against his front, music muffling sounds that never reached more ears than the two of them. Skin scratched under nails, over and over again, an erection pressed to her hip like a knife to a pulse. When the resistance proved to be ineffective, she gave in, settling for biting deep on her own palm. Her teeth pulled at the space where her thumb met wrist, until her mouth was filled with blood—

 

James pulled on my arm; imploring eyes trained on the side of my face. I had no explanations to offer.

Before I could come up with another sarcastic comment to distract from the way I was shaking, we started running into old friends from Queen’s.

 

COLLEGE FRIEND #1

Lucy! Geez, it’s been fucking years. I didn’t know you and Ben were still friends!

 

COLLEGE FRIEND #2

Lucy! I can’t believe you showed up. I was so sure you and Ben were dating back in university. I mean, come on, there’s no way a guy and girl can be that close without fucking.

 

COLLEGE FRIEND #3

Lucy! Come take some shots with us. For old times’ sake.

 

Every conversation ended with James turning to me, his eyebrows scrunched downwards, tied together with a line between them.

 

JAMES

 I thought you hated being called Lucy.

 

LUCILLE

I don’t. I don’t hate being called Lucy. I hate being Lucy. I hate that I can never seem to get away from her.

 

JAMES

I thought you hated Benjamin.

 

LUCILLE

I didn’t. I didn’t hate him back then. If I did, maybe everything would be different.

 

JAMES

I thought you hated drinking.

 

LUCILLE

I do. I do hate drinking and I hate even more that the taste of alcohol reminds me of Benjamin’s tongue.

 

I didn’t say anything. Just stood in silence at James’ endless confusion. Bringing James to an event full of all the people I’d spent years avoiding made it feel like everything I said was a lie. I just couldn’t figure out to whom I was lying.

It had been years since I was in the same room as Benjamin. I couldn’t stop looking over at him. His eyes never left Marion. I kept seeing her at age 20, playing beer pong at a homecoming party for a school she didn’t even go to. She met Benjamin for the first time that night, shaking hands over a pyramid of red solo cups. Their bodies on either side of mine as I watched him bring the top of her hand to his lips.

 

LUCY

Marion meet Benjamin. Benjamin meet Marion.

 

MARION

Lucy told me you’re the smartest person she’s ever met.

 

BENJAMIN

Is that so?

 

 

LUCY

I also told her you’re the most arrogant.

 

BENJAMIN

Smart girl.

 

(He winked.)

(That was his thing. Always fucking winking.)

 

BENJAMIN (continued)

Not smart enough to mention how gorgeous her friend is.

 

MARION

Smart enough to warn me against ever falling for your lines, though, Benjamin.

 

BENJAMIN

Call me Ben, babe. Only Lucy ever calls me by that old man name.

 

(I laughed.)

(If Benjamin made a joke back then, I always laughed.)

 

At least I thought it was a joke. I thought it was a joke, up until the moment she told me they were together. Even now standing in the midst of their engagement party, grandiose flower arrangements everywhere the eye could see, it felt like a joke—a joke so longstanding I could no longer figure out the punchline.

           

I watched Benjamin and Marion move away from one group of their adoring loved ones to the next, exchanging kisses on cheeks.

 

JAMES

Did anything ever happen between you and Ben?

 

I had no words to answer that question. None that were meant to be shared over sparkling cider and crostini. None that weren’t stuck in my throat. So deep there was no way to cough them up without losing a lung.

            As a server in a three-piece suit weaved past a small group of people, my eyes fell on Marion again.

 

JAMES

You can tell me if you were with him. I won’t be mad.

 

I wrapped my fingers tight around his wrist and stared down at where my nails dug into his skin. Willed him to see through me the way he always did, as though all the answers he needed could be decoded in my grip around his pulse.

 

MR. HALL

Lucy? Lucy Montgomery is that you?

 

MRS. HALL

Lucy! What a joy to see you. And who’s this handsome young man?

 

JAMES

James Noel, Ma’am. I’m Lucille’s boyfriend.

 

James let go of my hand and extended it to both of Marion’s parents who gleefully accepted.

​

MRS. HALL

Boyfriend? Marion never mentioned anything. That girl would forget her head if it wasn’t attached to her body. Oh, dear. It’s been so long. How’s your mother?

 

LUCILLE

Oh, I uh—yeah. She’s—um, good.

 

MRS. HALL

Marion’ll be so thrilled to see you. Benjamin too. It’s going to be such a beautiful wedding. You know Benjamin’s family, they have quite a bit of money and of course, we would never take advantage of that, but…

 

Over Mrs. Hall’s shoulder, I saw Marion approaching, Benjamin right behind her.

 

LUCILLE

Would you excuse us for a minute?

 

We were gone before the Hall’s could say another word, my fingers wrapped around James’ wrist, dragging him through the crowds of people as fast as I could without bursting into a sprint.

​

JAMES

Lucille, what the hell are you doing?

 

LUCILLE

I just really need a drink.

 

James pulled his arm back, planting his feet firmly in the ground so I couldn’t move him anymore. He raised an eyebrow and looked down at the cider in my hand. I laughed quietly in response, but before I could fill the space between us with more useless words, James spoke.

​

JAMES

What are you running from?

 

James could always tell the difference between a bad joke and a cry for help.

 

LUCILLE

I—

​

There was a clinking of glasses at the front of the room where a small black stage, in front of a large painting of abstract lines was set up. Benjamin stood at the edge of the stage with Marion beside him, tapping butter knives against champagne flutes in unison. It was the first good look I’d gotten at her all evening. Her dark curls with strewn up in a messy updo, meaning there was nothing to distract from the look of delight on her face while she stared at Benjamin. He raised the flute of champagne to the crowd of people in front of him, and she watched with a barely-there flush on her dark skin. It was hardly noticeable, but I had learned her tells long ago, and try as I might, they were impossible to forget.

 

She was in love with him.

 

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise after all these years. It still did.

 

(Marion Hall was in love with Benjamin Powell.)

 

(She smiled up at him. More gums than teeth, all dimples and crinkled eyes, the kind of smile she would hate to see on camera.)

 

BENJAMIN

Firstly, on the behalf of my drop-dead gorgeous bride-to-be and myself, I’d like to thank everyone for coming today to celebrate our engagement. Though it might come as a shock to some of you, I’ve never been the kind of guy that saw myself getting married.

 

(A wolf whistle came from the back of the room. Everyone in attendance laughed. Benjamin winked at the crowd while wrapping his arm around Marion’s waist.) 

 

BENJAMIN (continued)

But when I’m with Marion, all I want is more. I want to make her mine forever.

 

(Marion wiped at a tear.)

 

HAILEY

(Whispering)

I can’t believe these two are getting married after all these years. I hate to say it but they’re adorable.

 

(I whipped my head away from Benjamin’s cocky grin to meet the face of a girl I hadn’t seen in years. She was one of the girls on Benjamin’s ever-changing rotation of girlfriends. Hailey.) 

 

HAILEY

Who’s this? He didn’t go to Queen’s, did he?

 

(She gestured to James.)

 

(I introduced them, though James was staring at me with an imploring gaze the whole time.)(What are you running from?)

 

LUCILLE

I’m surprised to see you here.

 

HAILEY

Ben and I have been friends since Queen’s and I mean, Marion’s the best. You know she got me a job in administration at the school she works at.

 

LUCILLE

No, I had—

 

HAILEY

Plus, Ben invited both his exes.

(She gestured with the drink in her hand to the two of us)

 

HAILEY (continued)

I think he gets off on seeing us in the same room.

 

LUCILLE

Benjamin and I never dated.

 

HAILEY

Okay, fine, you were never official, but everyone knows you hooked up.

 

(Beat)

 

LUCILLE

He told you we hooked up? Like I’m just a fucking fish that can be speared with enough bait?

 

LUCILLE (continued)

Hailey, you knew him—well enough to know it never mattered what anyone else wanted. He never asked. It was all assumptions and desires made up in his own mind to rationalize everything he did.

 

LUCILLE (continued)

The only hooking that took place that night was his elbow hooked under my chin to keep me from moving when he erased me.

 

(I didn’t say any of it. I didn’t say anything at all.)

 

(James was the one who ended up breaking my stunned silence.)

​

JAMES

That’s why you and Marion don’t talk anymore? You and Ben hooked up? I don’t understand what the hell is going on here, Lucille. Please just tell me why we’re here.

 

(Hooked. Hooked. Hooked.)

 

(I could feel his skin against my windpipe all over again.)

 

Through the haze of the air I lost all those years ago, I could hardly remember why I agreed to attend this stupid fucking engagement party in the first place.

 

(Benjamin wrapped up his speech with a flourishing kiss placed on Marion’s mouth.)

 

In my mind, Marion was still the 11-year-old girl that spent the summer I broke my arm with a leg warmer covering her arm. She pretended it was a cast so I wouldn’t feel alone. When my cast finally came off, we had matching tan lines, the opposite of a farmer’s tan—pale wrist and forearm, tan bicep, and shoulder.

That’s why I agreed. Even as my body trembled in resistance.

 

LUCILLE

It’s for her. (The words were biting and strained) She’s my best friend.