Chapter 2Not Your Billion Dollar ATM

Brock jumped back as if scalded, hitting his thigh with a loud, theatrical “Whoops!”

“My bad, my bad! Tongue-tied, folks!” Brock waved his hands toward the crowd, a greasy, unrepentant grin plastered on his face. “Mrs., you know how it is. Garrett and Jocelyn were the campus Golden Couple back in the day. We’re all just used to it.”

He turned back to me, his tone shifting from joking to something truly vicious.

“Listen, Mrs., don’t be too sensitive. Yeah, you might not have the same spark as her, but you’re the main event now, you’re the real deal. You have to be the bigger person. Don’t make the rest of us laugh.”

A burst of drunken laughter erupted from Garrett’s fraternity brothers.

My knuckles were white against the cold metal of the microphone.

This was Garrett’s friend, celebrating a wedding I paid for. He was eating nine-hundred-dollar-a-plate food and publicly humiliating me by saying I was less than Garrett’s perfect, tragic first love.