At Rosa’s question, I glanced at my margarita glass. I still had a fair amount left so I brought it to my mouth and chugged. “Now I’m ready for another,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
Peyton clapped her hands. “Now that’s the kind of dedication I’m looking for.”
Rosa rolled her eyes at both of us but she raised her hand to get the waiter’s attention. “We should probably order soon,” she said, shooting a worried glance at me. I knew what she was thinking—this was a lot of alcohol on an empty stomach.
“One more glass,” I told her. “Then we can get food.”
Her expression told me she didn’t like that plan, but she didn’t argue with me. This day was my pity party, after all.
“A toast,” Peyton said, raising her glass. Rosa and I followed suit. “To Grace finally taking a much-deserved day to herself.”
“I will definitely drink to that,” I muttered, tapping my glass to theirs. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a personal day without a damn good reason. But even a few days after that terrible conversation with Liam in my kitchen, I was stillstruggling. I wasn’t sleeping well and I spent each day with a thick knot of worry in my belly. Keeping a smile on my face for the kids in my class was getting more and more difficult.
Hence our girls’ day off. We’d started with some retail therapy, stopped in for mani-pedis, and now we were enjoying a late lunch at one of our favorite Mexican places. The food wasn’t terribly authentic, but the margaritas were killer, and on a day like this, alcohol took precedence.
As I slurped on my delicious margarita, I looked up to see Peyton and Rosa making strange faces at each other. They were both widening their eyes and raising their eyebrows, like they were trying to communicate with each other through expression alone.
“Uh, guys?” I asked. “What the hell are you doing?”
Peyton winced at getting caught but Rosa just turned her leveled gaze to me. “I wanted to ask you about what happened, but Peyton thinks you don’t have enough alcohol in you to talk about it yet.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. As shitty as everything might feel right now, I was so lucky to have these two friends. All of a sudden, my laughter turned into a sharp sob. Damn it. I was so flipping emotional lately.
“Hey, hey,” Rosa said, eyes widening. “Don’t cry! We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“See?” Peyton hissed at her. “I told you she didn’t have enough to drink yet!”
“It’s fine,” I said through my sniffles, reaching for a napkin to blow my nose. “I kind of do want to talk about it.” I hiccupped into another sob. “I don’t know why I can’t stop crying.”
“Because you’re having a hard time,” Rosa said gently. “Let’s order you some enchiladas and you can get it all off your chest.”
I managed a watery smile. This was the way my friends always worked—Rosa tried to fix things with food while Peyton thought alcohol was the solution to most of life’s problems.
We put in our order, accepted another pitcher of margaritas, and then Rose turned to me. “Sweetie, what happened?”
I sighed. “I don’t even know. We had this amazing time in New York.” I had told the girls all about the hotel date in the car on our way home from the airport. It had killed me not to talk about it during our flight, when I could think of nothing else, but Andy was on the jet with us.
“You seemed really happy that day,” Rosa said softly.
“Yeah, well, it all went to hell pretty fast.” I released a sigh. “His ex showed up.”
“His ex?” Peyton gasped. “Like, the ex-wife? His baby mama?”
I nodded miserably. “Josie’s mom. And he didn’t even tell me. I heard about it from her at school the next day.”
Peyton narrowed her eyes. “Okay, that’s shitty. He could have given you a heads up.”
“That’s not even the half of it.” I told the girls about the terrible week when I barely heard from him and then how awful it had felt when Chloe showed up in my classroom.
“I know it’s stupid,” I said, tracing condensation off my margarita glass with a fingertip. “But the whole time she was talking to me, I felt like I was eighteen again. Like I was some delusional little loser who had no idea that the guy I’m crushing on couldn’t give a damn.” I frowned. “I’m so pissed at myself. I thought I’d gotten over that crap, you know? I’ve worked really hard these last few years on building up my confidence and recognizing my own self-worth.”
“I think most people probably had someone like that in high school,” Rosa said. “The person who knows how to hit all of our weak spots. Sometimes those wounds stick with us.”
“Give yourself a break,” Peyton added. “Youhavechanged a lot, even in the time since I’ve met you. You’re much more comfortable in your skin than you were when you moved here.”
I tried to make those words stick, but it was hard to believe that I’d grown up at all with the way I’d reacted to Liam in my kitchen that day.
The server arrived with our order and we attacked the food like starving people. Apparently shopping and drinking copious amount of alcohol can really work up a girl’s appetite.
