When the knock that everyone dreads came, it sounded hard and insistent against the frail wood of our apartment door. Fumbling noises came from the room that my mom and sister shared before the lights flickered on, banishing the comforting ambiguity of th…

"Why won't you go to the wedding?" asked the sister of the groom, with an accusatory tone.

"It would be awkward for me."

"What about HIM?! His best friend not there??"

"I'm a GIRL. I can't go to the bachelor party."

"Go to the bachelorette party," she sai…

My eyes looked up from the photograph in my hand. It was of a picnic, the last place we were all together. I was standing in the park, looking at the exact location, a grassy spot beside the pond with the fountain under a tall oak that leaned a bit too fa…