Maya Chen had perfected the art of looking engaged while being completely detached. She smiled at the right moments during the ceremony, laughed at the toasts, and moved through the reception like water present but untouchable.
"You're doing that thing again," Sienna whispered, appearing at her elbow with two champagne flutes. The bride was radiant in her reception dress, having changed from the elaborate gown that had made Maya's eyes sting during the ceremony.
"What thing?" Maya accepted the glass, though she'd barely touched the first one.
"The thing where you're here but not here. The thing where you calculate the exact minimum participation required to not seem rude." Sienna's dark eyes were knowing, not accusatory. "It's my wedding, Maya. You're allowed to feel something."
Maya felt everything that was the problem. She felt the weight of Sienna's happiness and her own sharp awareness that happiness was temporary, that every beginning contained an ending. She felt the absence of her mother, who should have been here fussing with Maya's hair and crying at all the wrong moments.
"I'm feeling things," Maya said, aiming for lightness. "I'm feeling that the chicken was surprisingly good for hotel catering. I'm feeling that your Aunt Rosa has had too much tequila. I'm feeling"
"My college friend Ethan just arrived," Sienna interrupted, her tone shifting to something careful. "The photographer I told you about. He's been in Iceland for three months and flew back just for today."
Maya followed Sienna's gaze across the reception hall. She spotted him immediately tall, slightly rumpled despite his suit, with the kind of tan that spoke of real sun, not salon beds. He was scanning the room with an intensity that made her want to hide and be found in equal measure.
"Don't," Maya said.
"Don't what?"
"Whatever you're planning. The setup. The 'oh, you two should talk' thing. I know that look."
Sienna had the grace to look slightly guilty. "I'm not setting anything up. I'm just saying he's interesting. And you haven't been interested in anyone since"
"Since my mother died and I remembered that everything ends." Maya drained her champagne in a very uncharacteristic gulp. "I'm going to the bathroom."
She made it three steps before a body moved into her path. She looked up way up into blue-green eyes that held equal parts amusement and apology.
"Sorry," he said, his voice warm. "I'm trying to find Sienna. I'm the worst kind of wedding guest late and lost."
"She's" Maya turned to point, but Sienna had vanished with suspicious convenience. "She was just here."
"Convenient." He smiled, and it transformed his face from handsome to something more dangerous. "I'm Ethan. The friend who doesn't know when ceremonies start, apparently."
"Maya. The friend who wishes ceremonies didn't start at all."
The words were out before she could stop them, too honest, too sharp. But instead of the awkward laugh or concerned expression she expected, Ethan's smile deepened.
"A fellow cynic at a wedding. Are you hiding too, or just passing through?"
"Is there a difference?"
"Absolutely. Hiding suggests you're avoiding something specific. Passing through suggests you're avoiding everything in general." He tilted his head, studying her in a way that made her skin prickle with awareness. "I'm going with passing through."
Maya should have made an excuse and left. She should have deployed one of the dozen polite conversation-enders she'd perfected over the past two years. Instead, she heard herself say, "What about you?"
"Definitely hiding. I've been on a glacier for three months. This many people in formal wear is overwhelming." He glanced around the reception with theatrical concern. "I'm not sure I remember how to make small talk. What if I forget and start talking about ice formations?"
"Ice formations are probably more interesting than most wedding small talk."
"See, that's what I thought. But apparently telling the mother of the bride about crevasse dangers isn't appropriate cocktail conversation."
Maya felt her mouth curve an actual smile, unbidden. "You didn't."
"I did. In my defense, she asked what I'd been doing, and I answered honestly. Now she thinks I'm unhinged." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Want to help me prove I can have a normal conversation? Consider it a wedding gift to Sienna keeping her weird friend from embarrassing her further."
Every instinct Maya had cultivated over two years screamed at her to decline, to retreat to her safe corner of detached observation. But something about Ethan's self-deprecating humor, his obvious discomfort with the crowd, the way he'd read her "passing through" comment so accurately it caught her off guard.
"One conversation," she said. "But if you start talking about ice formations, I'm leaving."
"Deal. Though I should warn you, I have a lot of material about glacial movements."
"Of course you do."
They found a corner table that had been abandoned by guests lured to the dance floor by the DJ's transition to top 40 hits. Maya sat with her back to the wall always her preference and Ethan folded his long frame into the chair across from her, looking relieved to be off the social stage.
"So," he said, "what do we talk about if not ice formations?"
"I don't know. What do normal people talk about at weddings?"
"How they know the bride and groom. Jobs. The weather." He made a face. "All of which sounds terrible."
"Agreed."
They sat in surprisingly comfortable silence for a moment, watching the reception swirl around them. A group of bridesmaids took a selfie near the cake. Sienna's new husband spun his grandmother across the dance floor. The DJ announced the bouquet toss.
"I met Sienna in college," Ethan said suddenly. "Art history class that neither of us wanted to take but needed for credits. She made the lectures bearable by providing running commentary in the worst fake British accent you've ever heard."
Maya felt her smile return. "That sounds exactly like her."
"You?"
"Roommates freshman year. She was the most aggressively friendly person I'd ever met. I thought she was exhausting." Maya's voice softened. "She saved me, actually. I was homesick and overwhelmed, and she just… decided we were going to be friends. Didn't give me a choice."
"The best people never do."
Something in his tone made Maya look up. Ethan was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read not pity, not curiosity, but something like recognition.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing. Just… you got sad for a second. Around the eyes."
Maya's defenses slammed back up. "I'm not"
"It's okay." He held up his hands. "I'm not trying to therapist you or anything. I just notice faces. Occupational hazard."
"Right. Photography."
"Portrait photography specifically, usually. Though lately I've been doing a lot of landscape work. Hence the glaciers."
"You couldn't resist mentioning them, could you?"
"I really couldn't."
The conversation flowed easier after that. Ethan told her about Iceland not just the ice formations (though there were some) but the isolation, the strange midnight sun, the way time felt different in that much space. Maya found herself talking about her work as an art therapist, something she usually kept vague at social gatherings.
"So you help people heal through art?" Ethan asked.
"That's the simplified version. Mostly I help people access emotions they can't verbalize. Art bypasses some of our defensive mechanisms." She paused. "Kids, mostly. Trauma, grief, anxiety."
"That sounds heavy."
"It is. But it's also…" She searched for the word. "Honest. They haven't learned to perform wellness yet. When a kid paints their fear, it's real."
"And adults?"
"Adults are better liars.
To themselves most of all."
Ethan was quiet for a moment. "That might be the truest thing anyone's said to me in months."
The reception began to thin as the night grew late. Maya noticed with shock that hours had passed. They'd moved from their corner table to the empty terrace when the DJ's volume became unbearable, and now they sat on the stone ledge overlooking the hotel's garden, city lights glittering beyond.
"I should go," Maya said, though she didn't move. "It's almost two."
"Or," Ethan said, "we could stay and watch the sunrise. The terrace faces east."
"That's ridiculous."
"Completely ridiculous." He looked at her, and the playful edge in his expression had shifted to something more serious. "But I've been on a glacier for three months talking to exactly two other people, and this is the best conversation I've had in recent memory. So maybe ridiculous isn't so bad."
Maya should have said no. Should have recognized this for what it was connection, the kind that led to attachment, which led to inevitable loss. But she was tired of being safe. Tired of passing through her own life.
"Okay," she whispered. "Let's watch the sunrise."
Ethan's smile was like dawn itself slow and illuminating.
They talked through the night. About his parents' divorce and her mother's death. About his fear of stagnation and her fear of change. About art and loneliness and the lies people tell at weddings about happily ever after. They were honest in the way strangers could be, knowing this moment was contained, temporary.
When the sun finally broke over the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink, Maya felt something crack open in her chest not breaking, but expanding.
"Thank you," Ethan said quietly. "For staying."
Maya turned to look at him, this beautiful stranger who'd somehow slipped past her defenses. "Thank you for the ice formation talk."
"I never actually talked about ice formations."
"But you could have. That's what matters."
He laughed, and the sound was bright with joy. Then his expression shifted, became uncertain. He leaned in slowly, giving her time to retreat.
Maya panicked.
She stood abruptly, nearly stumbling. "I have to go."
"Maya"
"Thank you for… this was…" She couldn't finish the sentence. Her heart was pounding, her mother's last words echoing in her head: You're so afraid of living, Maya. When are you going to take a risk?
Two months later, the aneurysm had killed her.
"I'm sorry," Maya managed. "I can't."
She left before he could respond, before she could change her mind, before she could make the mistake of hoping this feeling could last.
Behind her, the sun continued to rise, indifferent and beautiful.