After I paid $77,000 for my brother’s wedding, he sent me to the wrong city in Italy “as a joke.” I landed in Naples while they were celebrating in Florence. The next morning, he texted: “LOL, I just didn’t want you there.” My mother added, “This is your fault.” I didn’t argue. I smiled… and sent her a gift—four feet tall, delivered by courier. She called me in tears: “Can I please pay you back?”

I sat with that number until it lost meaning and became shape. Seventy-seven thousand dollars. More money than my father left me when he died. More than a down payment in the county where I lived. More than Ethan had probably ever saved in one place in his life.

I thought of the photos already circulating online.

Florence lit up my brother’s smile in every one of them. White roses. Golden chandeliers. Candlelight kissing the rims of crystal glasses. Camille in ivory silk and lace, radiant in the gown I had partly covered when the boutique “unexpectedly” increased her alteration fees. Ethan in a tux, hand at the small of her back like he’d built the evening himself.

People were tagging me.

Where are you???
Thought you’d be maid of honor lol
Alyssa did you do all this? It’s gorgeous

I didn’t answer any of them.

Instead, I clicked through image after image and watched myself disappear in real time.

The welcome dinner was at the terrace restaurant where I had negotiated the per-head rate after the original quote came back absurd. The string quartet on the lawn? My contact. The custom stationery? Paid after Ethan swore he’d hit a limit. The late-night gelato cart everyone was posting with little heart emojis? My idea, my vendor, my invoice.

Ghost sponsor. That was the phrase that came into my mind.

I was haunting a wedding I funded and wasn’t allowed to attend.

Around three in the afternoon, my friend Noelle came over with Thai takeout and the expression people wear when they know enough not to say “Are you okay?”

Noelle and I had met in college in the least cinematic way possible—fighting over the last open outlet in the library during finals week. She had copper-colored curls, a laugh that came out in bursts like she was surprising herself, and a moral compass so functional it made other people seem underfurnished.

She set the food on my counter, took one look at my face, and said, “Tell me everything, but if you try to defend them, I’m leaving.”

So I told her. Naples. The text. My mother’s voice. The photos. The seating chart draft without my name. The money.

When I got to the total, she put her fork down very carefully. “You gave your brother seventy-seven thousand dollars?”

“Technically forty-eight in direct transfers and the rest in covered vendor costs.”

“Alyssa.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”