There is no mic drop. There is no forgotten artichoke. There is no power. There is no winning. There is no time left pretending to be what I’m not. There is no explanation that can make sense to a reasonable person.

There is no going back now.

Josh looks me in the eye as he waits for my reply. Hopeful. Waiting to feel relieved by a simple explanation that I can’t give him. A strange calm descends on me like a lazy fog drifting across the sea. I return his gaze. “You’re basically the only person who calls me Gretel.”

Josh’s entire face drains. “What?”

“My name’s not Gretel,” I say. “It’s April. As you’ve probably guessed.”

Josh’s eyebrows furrow at the same time his mouth falls open. “What the hell? How come? What? I mean, why? What? I don’t understand.”

I take a breath, preparing myself for the talk I’ve been planning in my head. My stomach sucks in under the netting of my dress. I’ve been rehearsing this all week since I decided to tell him, but now the words sit like sludge on my tongue, pleading with me to tell a lie instead, one that will make things easier. I blink slowly and Josh’s concerned face flickers in my vision. “Well,” I start, “it’s sort of strange because—”

But I do not get to say my prepared speech because there’s the dinging of a spoon on glass and the conservatory grinds to a silence.

The usher is standing on a chair. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he claps, calling us to further attention, “please come through to the wedding breakfast.” He points the way out of the conservatory down a short hallway filled with oil paintings.

“Err,” I say, as everyone starts moving toward the door. “Well you see...” But there’s no time to explain as Joshua and I are pushed gently forward by the crowd, past the oil paintings, and through to the dining hall. I shrug as I don’t know what else to do, and try to take Josh’s hand to reassure him. He pulls it away though and my stomach plummets further.

Our drama cannot stop the tidal wave of wedding convention, however, and we walk stiffly to the handmade sign explaining where we’re sitting. All the tables are named after trips Chrissy and Mark have taken together. We’ve been allocated “Aussie”—decorated with photos of the couple’s trip there last year. As we approach in tense silence, I see Chrissy’s put us with her lawyer lot and I overestimated how drunk they all were at the hen because—

“April! How are you?” Janet asks, standing up to say hello like we’re the best of friends.

April April April April. I watch as the word hits Joshua like a bullet. I want to reach out and shield him, but he takes the hit, sitting down like nothing has happened, though he’s gone paler than fresh snow, and pouring himself a giant glass of wine.

“This is my husband, Jonathan.”

“Hi, this is my, er, boyfriend, Joshua.”

We all shake hands over the table decorated with the standard two bottles of white and two bottles of red. Joshua and I lie trapped in the strict social conditioning of appropriate wedding behavior. I reach for a bottle of wine and he doesn’t help pass it to me, just pours his own glass down his gullet with shaking hands. I pour myself a generous glug.

“Hi, nice to meet you. How do you know the couple? Where have you come from?”

I tell everyone my name is April as we all reintroduce ourselves, and I watch as each time makes Josh flinch. I wonder how long he’ll make it through the meal. It’s insane he’s even sitting down and eaten his bread roll. Every time I introduce Joshua as my boyfriend, my heart stings, knowing this will be the last time I get to say that—which seems all the more painful considering this is really the first time I’ve ever been able to introduce him as my boyfriend. Joshua has already drained his glass and, not looking at me, he picks up the bottle of red and pours himself more.

I try to catch his eye again but he’s determined to devour a second bread roll and we get lost in pointless small talk until the starters arrive, comparing who lives where in London.

“Oh, Greenwich? Lovely.”

“Herne Hill. Oh that’s just lovely.”

“Hampstead? How lovely.”

A line of teenage waiters appear, presenting each of us with a tiny plate of food that is more artfully splattered “jus” than food. The table quietens as the hungry lawyers and their partners tuck into their starters, giving us the chance to implode.

“I still really don’t get the Gretel thing,” Joshua whispers over his plate of mozzarella and tomato salad. “Look, I have to admit, I’m freaking out a bit.”

“The thing is,” I tell him, spearing a baby tomato onto my fork and speaking pretty rationally considering everything. “As I said, my name has never been Gretel.”

“I don’t understand. I thought maybe April might just be a nickname or something...?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “It’s not that. I straight up lied about my name.”

“But...”

“I didn’t want you to know my real name, so I said I was called Gretel.”

There isn’t one single part of Joshua’s face that isn’t utterly horrified. I can’t stand that I’ve made someone hurt this much. The guilt arrives like a wrecking ball. I caused this. I made this person feel this awful. Me. April.

“Why?” he asks, shaking his head.

“I told you it was Gretel and then, once I’d done it, I didn’t know how to undo it. And I got to know you and we kept seeing each other, and then it all got out of hand.”

“But why the hell would you lie about something like that to begin with? I mean...” He shakes his head faster, unable to complete the sentence. “You know what. No. I don’t care.” His chair is scraped back. His body is leaving it. “Excuse me,” Joshua says to the table. “I need a moment.” He rushes off so quickly that the decorative basil leaf wafts off his plate and onto the floor.

He crashes into a waiter collecting empty plates. I watch the back of his head weave through the tables and feel white-hot pain pulsate throughout my body at the sight of him leaving. Can I follow? Do I follow? How do I make this better? Will he come back? But the entire table is watching so, despite my inner unraveling, I smile at everyone around me like he’s just popped out.

Janet gives me a thumbs-up. “He seems nice,” she says, the ball of cherry tomato in her cheek like a hamster. “How long have you been going out?”

“Only officially for a few weeks,” I reply, thinking it’s funny how capable you can be of behaving normally when your life is so not in a normal place.

Jonathan leans over, teeth already stained with red wine. He waggles his finger at me drunkenly. “Ooo, very new. Don’t freak him out by trying to catch the bouquet later.” He laughs and winks, like he’s just given me the best piece of life advice in the universe.

Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t be too much. Don’t be too little. Don’t scare him off. Don’t make him feel like you don’t care. Don’t be too slutty. Don’t be too prudish. Don’t be too insecure. Don’t be too self-contained. Don’t be too fat. Don’t be too thin. Don’t be you. Never be you. You don’t want to die alone so don’t be fucking you.

I look around at the sea of circular tables, dotted with couples. All holding membership cards to the club I long to inhabit. The Belonging Club. The antidote to loneliness. The safety net of someone essentially nodding at me and saying, “Yeah, you’ll do.” That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be sitting alongside someone at a table covered with white linen, feeling slightly bored by the story they’re telling the person on their right because I’ve heard it a thousand times before. All my life, I’ve wanted to be loved. I wanted to have someone pick me as their specialist. I wanted to feel safe in my being-lovedness. For someone to not be put off by the parts of me that were hard but that I couldn’t help. But I never got the chance.

And so I wanted to be powerful, instead; to finally have the ball in my court. I wanted others to hurt the way I’ve been hurt. I wanted to have just one moment of feeling like I’ve won.

But it turns out I don’t have it in me. I could’ve destroyed Joshua today. I could’ve laughed at him and his hope and his misguided faith. I could’ve reveled in the crackle of power that comes with holding someone’s heart in your palm. I could’ve hurt him and humiliated him like so many have hurt and humiliated me. But, even with everything I’ve been through, I don’t have it in me.

I’ve hurt too much to hurt others.

I like that I’m not Gretel.

I like that I’m me.

And I like that, despite everything, no matter how hard I’ve tried these last few months, I’ve found it impossible to run away from myself.

In fact, I love that.

“Excuse me,” I say to the table full of couples who think I belong now. I get up from my tastefully decorated chair. “I need the bathroom.”