“I would know,” he snaps in defense.
“Right,” she huffs dismissively. “Well then, you should know damn good and well that she shouldn’t have to spend a night hanging out with her gorgeous, world-famous ex-husband and his new girlfriend. What in the hell were you thinking?”
“Jesus,” Damon curses before looking between us apologetically. “I’m sorry, Nat. It was a stupid move. Say the word, and this ends right here.”
I think of my father in that moment and feel the full weight of the burden he’s had to endure himself, and I know a lot of his strength resides within me.
“I’ll be okay. Maybe they’ll make an excuse.”
Ironically, we find Easton and Misty waiting for us in the lobby. From the look on Easton’s face when he greets Holly and Damon, I expect an excuse to come, but I am surprised when he gives none. Just after successfully avoiding direct eye contact with Easton and Misty—while managing a cordial greeting—we file out of the hotel into a waiting SUV. An SUV with just enough room to accommodate all of us.
Once inside the car, I focus on Damon, or rather his hands, as he worries about the placement of them sitting next to Holly. My lips lift in amusement as our Casanova’s nerves get the best of him. He’s going to go for it.
“Okay, Damon, time to fess up. Where are we going?” Holly asks.
“Where else? A tequila distillery,” he replies, just before I leap for the SUV’s handle. Laughing, Damon wrestles me back into my seat as Holly’s dam bursts. I glare between them both after catching Easton pressing his lips together to stifle his own laugh.
“Worst best friends ever,” I grit out as Damon winks.
“Oh no, what’s the tequila story?” Misty asks, looking between us all and apparently clueless as to exactly what went down last night.
“Funny you should ask,” Damon speaks up just as a demonic threat escapes me.
“Say another word, Damon. I love you, but you’re a man child, and if you continue down this path, I’m not above making you disappear—here. Plenty of unexplainable things happen past the border.”
“That bad, huh?” Misty says as Holly lets out a nervous bubble of laughter, looking between all of us.
“Not to add insult to injury,” Holly spouts, opening her luggage-sized drawstring vacation purse and pulling out a bottle of tequila. She braves a look my way as she passes out some plastic-wrapped cups. “Sorry, babe,” she winces adorably as Damon takes and opens the bottle, “it’s the only liquor they had in a plus-sized bottle in the gift shop.”
“It’s fine. When in Rome, right?” I hold my cup out, dazed and defeated by the past twenty-four hours as Holly free pours, while a full circle Mexican fiesta dances in my head. I just want it to stop. I want this to be over with. With that in mind, I can’t help but glance around, reading the expressions of all who’ve agreed to this disastrous waste of a day while inhaling and exhaling the uncomfortable air circulating throughout the cabin.
It’s then I have a small epiphany.
Oh, life, you funny, inconsiderate, untimely motherfucker.
Full circle is right.
In the midst of this nightmarish situation, I realize it’s how our parents must have felt when we were just as reckless with their history, discarding it like it didn’t matter as we selfishly basked in our happiness. What’s worse is that at some point, we expected them to be okay with it.
Even if they found their happily ever afters, I can’t imagine ever being okay watching Easton happily move on with another woman—as I’m forcing myself to do now.
This is exactly what we would have pressured them into doing—putting on airs, trying their hardest to put their past away as they toasted us. This is the hell we would have subjected them to on every special occasion. Though our stories and endings—well, my ending—is far different from theirs, the dynamic is still the same, and frankly, it fucking sucks.
“I get it,” I spout ironically as everyone brings their cups up to toast.
“Get what, babe?” Holly asks as all eyes pin me quizzically.
“All of it,” I manage through a laugh, “but fuck it, Viva La Vida!” I tap glasses with all of them, looking them directly in the eyes as I was taught, in order to avoid bad luck. I make a point to do it, knowing I can’t possibly survive any more. We all toss the spicy liquor back right after toasting, save one jade-eyed man. A man who returns my lingering eye contact with a rapidly hardening gaze of his own before slowly lifting his cup and tossing back his shot. Breaking eye contact when Holly prompts me for my cup to refill it, I decline. I opt to stare out of the window at the landscape. I’ll be serving the rest of my time, my sentence, in Mexico—sober.