I was unrolling my hair from the curling wand in front of my bathroom mirror when Lily's ringtone blasted from my bedroom. I let it go to voicemail twice, but the third call in a row caused me to rush out of the bathroom, mid-curl.

"What's wrong?" I put her on speakerphone when I got back to the mirror, finishing the other side of my hair. There was some commotion around Lily, so she told me to wait for her to find somewhere else to talk. So, I waited. Both eyes perfectly outlined with mascara, hair softly curled on both sides, and then she finally answered.

"You're going to hate me forever."

I was reaching in my closet for a pair of heels when I knew what she was doing. "Do not tell me you're spending your Friday night at..." I caught my breath, closing my eyes as I clutched my favorite pair of black pumps. "You're at the engagement party?"

"I'm a starving artist, Vi. They were offering a meal and a free bar."

"And opening trauma wounds."

"Not mine, though," she tried to joke. My silence didn't reward her poor judgment. "Look, I just thought I could be like a fly on the wall. I wasn't expecting anyone to notice me, and they shouldn't have because this place is filled with people."

"What happened?" I tossed my shoes on the end of my bed and sat on the edge of the mattress.

Lily told me how she'd gone to the party, been offered the most expensive champagne she'd ever had, and she ran into some people she knew from a million years ago. But, when she went to spy on the happy couple, she was nearly held captive by Eleanora.

"I'm so sorry." I practiced sympathy. It was almost award-winning, because I was starting to get annoyed that my sister was now part of this mess and she felt it was okay to share it with me. It should've been, after a decade, but there would simply never be someone who compared to him. Ever.

I wondered if that meant something was wrong with me. I hadn't held on to false hope, or waited by my phone like a lost teenager. He was gone. There were other plans for him, and I wasn't part of them. It broke me, but I wasn't waiting for magic. Love just wasn't for me anymore, and I found ways to remedy that by celebrating the love of others and... overworking.

I lost track of Lily's rambling. "Can you believe Eleanora asked me to ask you about planning this Roxy chick's wedding? And now, I'm like five glasses of champagne in and I don't even have a ride home. I was planning on walking, but my shoes are too tall."

I'd reached my limit. With my sister for the night, and that family for a lifetime. Standing, I wiggled into my heels and grabbed my clutch and keys.

"I'm going to march in there and threaten to sue their sorry asses if they don't leave us alone. This is harassment," I explained, arguing as I rode the elevator down with Lily still in my ear. I barely acknowledged Michael as he opened the door for me and hailed a cab. I was too annoyed. "Should I plan something for them and have it fail miserably? It would ruin my reputation, but—"

"God," she groaned, interrupting me. "That would be amazing."

"I wasn't serious, you dork."

Lily's voice was muffled as she talked to someone else. When she spoke to me again, I asked where I could pick her up and relayed that to my cab driver. I overheard Lily tell someone that she was talking to her boyfriend, which caused that person to ask if Lily was also engaged, where her wedding was, and if she knew the bride or the groom.

"The groom," she blurted, then excused herself. "I'm going to wait for you outside, Vi. These people are too intense for me."

Trying to squash the knots in my stomach, I paid the driver extra for letting us idle across the street for a few more minutes. When I climbed from the cab, I couldn't see Lily at the entrance. I must've looked for her in the crowd for too long, because the driver was getting restless. I didn't blame him. I don't want to be here either.

I wanted to get my sister and get out. Pretend I wasn't there, like I hadn't opened the past and I could just flip back into the present I'd meticulously curated. But I still couldn't find Lily. She wasn't outside, and I'd done two laps around to make sure. People flowed in and out of the monstrously large building and I realized, after a few people filtered out, that I had nothing to fear. What if I did see him? He was getting married. It was his engagement party. So, what ifs were meaningless. Sticking to my plan to get my sister, I took in a deep breath and climbed the stairs.

It was a safety hazard. There was barely a path to squeeze through as I squished between fur coats and fancy couples. When I could finally grab the railing, I held my ground, even though traffic paused with two steps to go.

"He's a billionaire," a man said to his companion behind me.

"I hear it's from the stock market," another added. My nerves heightened in that crowd, feeling squished and suffocated inside and out. The need to articulate my frustration with whoever I could find was growing. I'd yell at whoever, grab my sister, and leave. But first, I'm trapped.

"It doesn't matter where. Does it?"

We moved up a step as their conversation continued. Somewhere between overhearing them discuss their opinion on old versus new money, and reaching the landing where the crowd finally dispersed, all memory of my purpose in that building ceased.

Years had passed, but my heart traced every detail it could remember once I saw him, like not a moment had slipped between us. Forgetting my purpose, I gaped as my heart climbed into my throat. He hadn't noticed me, but I also couldn't move my feet to keep it that way.

"There you are!" a woman exclaimed as she snaked her arm around his, getting his reluctant attention. I knew that expression, where his polite smile wouldn't reach his eyes and he moved out of obligation, like it was an act. "They're waiting for your speech."

I couldn't hear his response as she pulled him away. Clinging to the railing, I steadied my swirling mind, snapping back to reality when some people bumped into me on their way up the stairs. Reaching the landing, I could no longer see Aidan in the crowd. If that's the extent to which the past unlocks, I can handle it.

I wanted to find his mom and her sister, and lay into them about how they needed to leave my sister alone, but Lily rushed across the marble floor in an excited blur.

"Thank you for coming! I was waiting outside forever," she engulfed me with a hug, "but then I got trapped trying to warm up in here. Want to get pizza?"

"No," I uttered. Lily told me she had stories to share, but my pulse was in my ears and I couldn't hear her. I looked over my shoulder as she pulled me back down the stairs, not sure what I hoped to see. Maybe some sort of confirmation, like his engagement party wasn't enough, because there never had been closure. How could there have been, when we didn't end on our terms?

"I bumped into a woman in the restroom," Lily's voice finally crept into my throbbing head, "who was gossiping with this other lady about the bride. Did you know she's from new money?" Lily groaned, shaking her head. "There was some sort of conflict, like wherever they got their money from was important. What is it with people?"

I recalled the conversation from the people behind me on the stairs, moments before I saw him, before it felt like the ground opened beneath my feet and I would've fallen had the crowd not held me hostage.

"There was a cute guy, though," Lily continued, nudging me when we reached the intersection outside. My lungs filled with crisp air as I gulped a deep inhale. "I got his number."

Turning to see my sister grinning widely, I couldn't help but smile. "You're all over the place."

She shrugged, linking her arm with mine when the walking signal passed. "Hard to imagine you existing without me, though. You'd be all shriveled up and lonely if I didn't keep you on your toes."

We waved for a cab, telling the driver to take us both to my place. Lily was asleep within minutes of tucking herself into my bed. I'd slipped away to take a shower and change into pajamas, not ready to shake off the night. With her zonked out, I quietly wrapped a towel around my hair and plopped onto a stool at the vanity in my closet.

I closed the door behind me, sheltered by a rainbow of my clothes hanging on racks around me, while clicking on the soft golden bulb next in front the mirror. Tidying up my makeup and a small splattering of jewelry, I tucked things away and tried to go through the next day's to-do list. I twirled an emerald bracelet between my fingers, tracing the princess cut of the stones as I opened a drawer to find its box. It was our mom's bracelet, so I kept it in a special place with a few other velvet boxes.

Reaching into the drawer, I found the one I needed in between a stack, pausing when a small thump of a falling box echoed in the drawer. It bumped my fingers, the soft velvet one more nudge from the past. I placed the bracelet back on my vanity and pulled out the other small box, the one that still smelled like the jewelry shop in Paris where it lived once upon a time.

I don't know what I was thinking, or why I opened it. Worse yet, I couldn't comprehend why I took out the two-carat diamond ring and slipped it on my lonely ring finger. It wasn't me to sit in the dark and fester, but as I did just that, I wondered if trying on the ring Aidan gave me years ago was my attempt at closure, because I stuffed it in the box and hid it back inside the drawer, burying it with other boxes until I was ready to unpack the past again.