The Toast Only She'd Catch
I put one line in her wedding toast built just for her to catch. Everyone else laughed. I still don't know if she did.
the venue's basically empty now. staff stacking chairs, someone's mom looking for a lost cardigan. I'm on the curb with a to go slice of cake in a little white box I didn't ask for and don't want, still running the toast in my head, the whole thing, word for word.
it was a good toast. everyone said so. the story about us at fourteen, the joke about her terrible taste in shoes, the part where my voice caught a little at the end, real, not performed. nobody noticed the one line in the middle. table nine, second course, the line about how some friendships know exactly when to step back and let someone new take the good seat. I said it warm. I smiled through it. she was three feet away in white and I watched her face half a second too long waiting to see if it landed.
it's the seat I used to have. the one her new person has now, the one who planned the shower I heard about from a group chat two days after it already happened.
I don't actually think she caught it. that's the part I keep circling. I built a whole knife and handed it to a room that just heard a nice toast, and the only person it was aimed at was too happy to notice.
the cake's gone soft in the box. I don't have anywhere to put it down.