Bo waited. He arrived first at the hotel’s steakhouse – lit in gold and decorated in red – as people mingled behind plate glass windows like a zoo enclosure. Ada was not around, so he waited outside the restaurant’s shadowed entry. He squirmed, waiting. Watching people pass around him, texting Ada countless times before threatening to order room service and use up the incidentals fee she paid. The rehearsal dinner started at 07:30, after all. Running almost half an hour late did not bode well with his stomach.

“You’re such a baby,” she told him, rounding out the nearby double doors from the adjacent nightclub. She had a glass of something brightly colored in her hand. “I met up with some friends. Sue me.”

“You didn’t say you were going drinking.”

“Maybe you weren’t listening,” she said.

Bo’s skin prickled. “Are you coming to eat?”

“Depends. Are you going to stop being a sourpuss?”

“Maybe if the world suddenly bursts into flames, I will.”

Ada stared, possibly realizing what she was doing – sending her already morose brother into a worse mood – before she took a deep sip of her drink. “You – !” She stopped, clearing her throat. “I regret this already,” she whispered, most definitely under her breath but loud enough for Bo to hear.

‘So do I.’

Already seething beneath his skin, Bo took his seat at table 8 – his name card written in beautiful script – and barely moved from it. Whatever Bo thought Ada’s presence could supply vanished almost immediately after, always in sight but too far to be heard. She moved to old friends, talking and laughing and leaving him wringing his fingers under the table. Bo squirmed in his seat, the polo shirt he picked tugging gently at his sides and arms, while his khakis too tight around his waist. He wondered how long it would be before someone joked about it.

“Hi, there. Can I sit?” a woman hummed, sitting in the vacant spot beside him. “I’m Alana Russell. How are you?” She waited for the pleasantries to be handed back.

Bo knew the words. Simple words he used every single day – “Hi, I’m Robert. Or Bo.” – but he nodded, half-smirking for a half-second before he grimaced. He cursed himself through his teeth.

She smiled, the expression already curt and uncomfortable. She asked, “Um...sorry for...bopping over,” she laughed. “I like meeting new people. H-how do you know the happy couple?”

“I don’t,” Bo said, his hands pressing into his lap. It sounded like a question more than a statement, and Bo’s face flushed red. He recognized the antisocialness of the statement, but leaning into trying was too much of a double-edged sword for him. She would fade into oblivion after this weekend.

“You’re a guest of someone here, then?”

“I – it’s not that,” Bo said, stammering. “I’m only here because my family doesn’t listen to me, and my sister didn’t want to ask any of her exes to come like some cheesy rom-com.” He could have stopped himself at that, but exhaustion rolled through his limbs; he took a sip of water. Bo wanted to be alone. All he needed was one lousy interaction to shut down for the rest of the weekend.

“What?” the guest asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.

His head spun. “That was...that was mean of me to say. My sister is a lovely human with selective hearing and enjoying life otherwise.”

“Oh.” The word was desperately confused.

“So tell me, Ms. Russell, liven the conversation – how much do you think this wedding cost? I’m guessing at least north of $10,000.” Bo clenched his jaw. He didn’t recognize himself when comments like that flew out of his mouth. It was moments like these when he wished he could turn invisible.

The guest raised her brows. “Oh, I... couldn’t say. It’s a gorgeous hotel, isn’t it?”

The question, the apparent deflection, made Bo yearn, beg for her to rip off the superfluous small talk and dive deeper than the puddle she was standing in. He knew she wouldn’t. He knew he wouldn’t see her again. He wasn’t worth her time. He settled with saying nothing, a frown cast on his lips.

Her mouth opened with a breath; in discomfort or surprise, he wasn’t sure. She replaced her smile – now thin and exasperated – a second later and asked, “Going to be a hot weekend, huh?”

“Like Hell incarnate.”

That was, in many ways, the wrong thing to say because she cleared her throat. ‘Stop me. Read me. Call me out. Do something. Please.’

The guest glanced around before clearing her throat. “I’m...I think I see someone I know over there.” No apology, no excuse beyond that. She stood, her strained smile remaining, before moving into a nearby gathering. She glanced back at him once.

“I – sorr –” The word stopped in his throat, leaving the vile taste of rage on his tongue. She was too far away for anyone to hear him, and whatever expression Bo wore fell into a disappointed grimace. He pressed his fingers over his face, glancing down at the table and retracing every word in retroactive embarrassment.

A part of him regretted it, truly regretted it. Whatever remained of him that didn’t tingle with agitation. ‘Good riddance,’ he thought. Again, he started wringing his fingers. ‘It’s all my fault, anyway. Who cares? Would she have listened, anyway?’

When Bo wasn’t socially nosediving conversations or casting constipated stares at his hands, he watched. Stared in quiet admiration, annoyance, even, and let the discomfort and rage build in his fingers. Fiddling with his fingers under the table, wringing them like fresh taffy, could only pass so much time.

He could already hear what Ada would say about it: “Bo, I can’t believe you. You’re embarrassing me and yourself. I really shouldn’t have brought you.”

Yet glancing around the room, countless strangers engaged in conversation, their faces bright, fresh, and joyous for the occasion, left Bo breathless and dizzy. Glowering like the polite words were poisonous, the air so perfumed that it could upset any stomach. He felt so wasted, useless at that moment. A heavy feeling in his stomach started settling, and he couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t fought more when Ada dragged him to her car before they left. “Be in the moment,” he hissed through his teeth, watching his hands fidget under the table. He downed the rest of his water. His throat screamed with every gulp of dry summer air. “Enjoy being away. Come on. You can do it.”

The mental clock, however, loomed in his mind like a specter, ever-present and mocking him, counting down the time until he and Ada pulled away from the Sheridan Springs Resort for the first (and possibly last) time. Faces he’d recognize over the next 20-some-odd hours would become fuzzy, taking up useless space in his brain.

His fingers growing tired, Bo shook them, flattening them against the tabletop. Watching the people brought out the soft bass of a trombone and trumpet, solid and slow with their notes. It sounded like heavy feet dragging across the carpeted floor. This melody was steady, a march filled with pomp and dread.

Someone laughed behind him.

The melody was gone. Bo cursed himself under his breath. He should’ve written it down on a napkin and somehow captured the snippet of inspiration before letting it go for the thousandth time in his useless, unfulfilled life.

Shoulders slumping forward, he wiped his mouth, eyes darting around again to find his sister. Something recognizable to anchor him, to make him not feel as though he was drifting alone among a sea of nameless faces. Yet the gold light above them showed nothing. Ada became another hazy figure in the crowd, and Bo’s hands trembled under the cover of the tablecloth. His breaths stretched, shook in painful stillness. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be back in familiar misery. That’s what he deserved.

He stood, his senses hyperaware, firing on all cylinders. Bo managed to fumble out of the restaurant into a vacant section of hallway, the water from a long, square fountain puttering gently down sides of slate onto pebbles. Music played above his head alongside the murmurs of crowds just a little further away. He sat on the edge, fingers tracing the damp bumps of the stones. Bo wished he had his tablet, something to distract him, so when Ada came wondering where he went, he could say he got distracted.

‘I could go back to the room,’ he thought, a dull ache of sadness blooming in his gut. Something ricocheted inside him. ‘She wouldn’t even notice I’m gone, would she?’ Bo pressed forward, his elbows on his knees. He covered his eyes, fingers wet against his forehead, cool and clammy. ‘Be in the moment. Do this for her. Enjoy the food. Go outside when you need it.’ He sat upright, sighing. “And, for the love of God, try, and don’t be so fucking stupid,” he muttered.

Standing, Bo walked back to the restaurant, the 150-foot trek back into the lion’s den, his footsteps heavy and pounding the carpeted floor.