So I kept going.
“You were stuck-up.”
“Then Mark married me,” I said. “And Miriam handed him a new story. She said I was judgmental, cold, and impossible to love.”
Mark looked up. “Daphne. Not here.”
“Yes, Mark. Here.”
His jaw tightened. “This isn’t fair.”
I almost laughed. “You mean public? Because unfair was coming home to a husband who’d already put me on trial. She lied because that’s who she is. But you believed her because it was easier than asking me for the truth.”
“Daphne. Not here.”
He flinched.
Miriam stepped forward. “Don’t blame me because your marriage failed.”
I turned to her. “I blamed myself for years. You don’t get that gift anymore.”
Her face hardened.
“For years, I thought Miriam stole you,” I told Mark. “Tonight, I understand something. She only opened the door. You walked through it.”
“Don’t blame me because your marriage failed.”
Miriam’s eyes filled with angry tears.
“You’re all listening to this?” she cried. “She paid a man to stand beside her!”
“Yes,” I said. “I did. I hired Norton because I was afraid to walk into this room alone. Not because I needed a man to make me valuable, but because I needed one person beside me who hadn’t already been told I was worthless. I had no idea he knew who you were.”
A woman near the photo booth stood up.
“She paid a man to stand beside her!”
“She did it to me too,” she said. “You told everyone I cheated on my scholarship essay. I didn’t.”
A man near the punch table added, “You told people I got my job because my uncle knew someone.”
Mark stared at Miriam. “How much of what you told me about Daphne was true?”
Miriam grabbed his sleeve. “You’re choosing her now?”
I lifted the microphone. “No. He doesn’t get to choose me now.”
“You’re choosing her now?”
Beth, the reunion chair, stepped onto the stage and picked up the printed program.
“Miriam,” she said, “you’re not giving the closing toast.”
Miriam froze. “You can’t do that.”
“I just did.”
Beth looked at me. “Daphne, would you be willing?”
I saw Norton in the crowd, giving me the room.
“Yes,” I said. “I would.”
I stood at the microphone and looked at the room that had once made me feel small.
“You can’t do that.”
Then I raised my glass of untouched punch.
“To everyone who spent years believing someone else’s version of themselves,” I said, “may you finally hand the pen back to the person who lived the story.”
For a second, nobody moved.
Then Beth started clapping.
Someone else joined.
Then another person followed.
Beth started clapping.
Soon, applause filled the gym.
Miriam grabbed her purse and left.
“Mark,” she snapped. “We’re leaving.”
He didn’t move.
She stopped at the door and looked back at him. “Are you coming or not?”
“We’re leaving.”
Mark looked down at her hand, which was still gripping his sleeve. Then he gently removed it.
“No,” he said quietly.
Miriam’s face twisted, but no one chased her when she left.
***
A few minutes later, I walked outside.
I’d almost reached the parking lot when Mark called my name.
“Daphne, wait.”
I stopped, but I didn’t turn around right away.
I walked outside.
That was new for me.
Before, I would’ve turned quickly. Eagerly. Gratefully.
This time, I took my time.
He stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was wrong.”
“Yes,” I said. “You were.”
“I was wrong.”
He swallowed. “I forgot who you were.”
“No, Mark. You let someone else tell you.”
His eyes shone. “Can we talk? Five minutes?”
“For years, I begged for five honest minutes from you.”
“I know.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t. Because if you did, you would’ve given them to me before I had to defend myself in front of strangers.”
“Is there any chance?” he asked.
“For what?”
“Can we talk? Five minutes?”
“For us.”
I almost smiled. “There hasn’t been an us for a long time. There was you, me, and Miriam’s voice between us.”
Behind him, Norton stepped outside with his keys.
He stopped when he saw Mark. “Everything okay?”
I looked at Norton. Then at Mark. Then back at the gym doors.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready to go.”
Mark stepped closer. “Daphne, please.”
“There hasn’t been an us for a long time.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t get my time now because the room finally stopped believing her.”
Norton unlocked the car but didn’t open the door for me.
I opened it myself.
Before I got in, I turned to Mark one last time.
“You should’ve asked me for the truth when it still mattered.”
Then I got into the car.
As Norton pulled out of the parking lot, I looked back at the gym.
I opened it myself.
***
For 20 years, I thought that room belonged to Miriam.
It had only been waiting for me to stop letting her hold the microphone.
I hired someone to stand beside me for one night.
But I left with the woman I should’ve stood beside all along.
I left with myself.
