She’s so fucking pathetic.
She never should have gotten involved with Tanner in the first place.
He’s her roommate’s ex, which is both a total cliché and a violation of Girl Code. It’s what makes it even more disappointing that now, when she should be having the time of her life on the trip of her life, she is doing this—scrolling through pictures on Instagram of some girl she doesn’t even know, some girl named Ainsley.
She keeps repeating the name in her head, a mantra. Ainsley, Ainsley, Ainsley and Tanner, Tanner and Ainsley.
Caroline can practically see the wedding invitations now.
Of course, it might not get that far. Maybe Ainsley, she of the shiny hair and colorful sundresses and golden skin, is just some distraction.
That’s what Tanner had said last night at least, when he and Caroline were having their whispered argument in the hostel.
I was drunk, it was just a little fun, we’re on vacation!
He’s said that every time he’s done some stupid shit on this trip. Bought dodgy weed from an even dodgier guy? It’s a vacation! Forgot to double-check his booking at one of the hotels, so they ended up sleeping in a park? I mean, it’s an adventure, right? It’s supposed to be a little unpredictable.
Got caught with his hands up some other girl’s dress in a bar bathroom last night?
Harmless fun! Vacation! No big deal.
Caroline hated when he said shit like that because it made her feel stupid and small and uptight, and she wondered why every time a guy fucked up, he did exactly this—made a girl think somehow it was her fault, that if only she were cooler and more fun, he might be satisfied.
Sniffling, she scrolls on.
Ainsley, with her perfectly flat stomach in a bikini in Italy. Ainsley, making some kind of symbol with her hand with her sorority sisters. Ainsley, brazenly holding a glass of red wine while sitting on a very white couch.
Caroline knows she needs to stop, but she can’t. And she knows that Tanner and Ainsley are, even now, probably fucking in Ainsley’s nice hotel room, because Caroline had seen the text while Tanner was in the shower this morning.
3 still good? Ainsley had written.
U kno it.
She’d waited all day for the moment when Tanner would suddenly have some errand to run, some friend from UMass to meet up with, some excuse for where he’d disappear to, some reason why Caroline could absolutely not join him.
It ended up being “friends of his parents.”
Who didn’t know he had a girlfriend. Too complicated to explain, he didn’t want to make her feel awkward, he’d be back in a couple of hours, and then they could go drink beer on the beach. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Caroline doesn’t know what she hates more—how lame that story is, or how she hadn’t called him on it, how she had just smiled through numb lips and watched him go.
Then she’d packed her stuff.
Except, she knows buying an earlier ticket home is going to eat up the rest of her money, and it’s all just so fucking unfair and stupid.
Because when Tanner gets back, when she texts him and tells him she’s leaving him, he isn’t actually going to care that much. If anything, it might come as a kind of relief. After all, he has plenty of money. His trip will go on, and there will be other Ainsleys, and all Caroline will have from the last two weeks is a sunburn and a sad story.
She takes another sip of her beer, which has gone warm and flat.
Outside, it’s started to rain, the sound echoing on the tin roof. Bikes whiz by, sending up sheets of water and filling the open-air bar with the smell of diesel and burnt rubber.
She doesn’t want to leave.
There is so much more she wanted to do here, more to see and explore. She supposes she could always go back to the hostel, pretend she’d never seen the text, suck it up, and at least get something out of—
“Are you okay?”
Startled out of her misery, Caroline looks up to see a woman sitting on the stool next to her. She’s pretty, with bright red hair framing an angular face and big green eyes. Her shoulders are bare and a little burned, and she has that kind of windblown, sun-streaked look that makes Caroline think she spends a lot of time outside.
“Yeah,” she answers, sipping her beer even though she doesn’t want to. “Just … a guy thing.”
“Ah,” the woman replies, nodding. “Boy trouble. The cause of at least eighty-five percent of all crying jags in bars.”
That makes Caroline laugh. The woman seems nice. Friendly. There’s an ease and confidence about her that Caroline wishes she could project, too—like she could fit in anywhere, talk to anyone.