She sighed, picking at the strings of mozzarella on her plate. “A month before my dad died, I told him about Nick. It felt like going to Confession, bearing my sins and asking for absolution. Do you know what he told me?”
A playful glint shone in her glassy eyes when she said in Italian, “Finché c’è vita, c’è speranza. As long as there’s life, there’s hope.” Then she sucked a tooth and added, “Then again, when I was 15 I found him in bed with my French teacher, so maybe he’s not the best source of wisdom.”
My head swam at her confession. “Do you ever think about what it would have been like, to take a leap of faith and go with him?”
“I used to, every hour of every day. But now … now I only doubt my life decisions two, maybe three times a day.” She grinned wryly. “Questioning your choice already?”
“The minute he walked out the door,” I looked at her plaintively. “How long does it take, to move on from a love like that?”
“Well, it’s been seven years, so …” she glanced at her bare wrist sarcastically. “Any day now.”
Alex
“This is stupid,” Victoria said. “Why wouldn’t Buttercup marry Humperdinck?”
Connor’s eyes bulged out. “Because he tried to kill her!”
“No, he tried to have her killed,” I clarified. “He outsourced.”
“It was still attempted murder,” Connor said.
"Solicitation of murder," Victoria and I said in unison.
“Eventually he realized she was more valuable alive than dead,” Victoria said. “Her mistake for not making herself irreplaceable from the start.”
“But,” Connor sputtered, “Westley is her true love!”
“What does that even mean, true love?” Victoria blew her lips. “What’s their long term plan? Is she gonna run away with Westley? Humperdinck can track a falcon on a cloudy day, he could find a huge pirate ship, especially with his four fastest ships. She’ll spend her life with a smelly pirate and horny crew instead of enjoying an advantageous marriage with a handsome, rich prince. Hard pass.”
“Maybe the prince isn’t perfect … but if she’d given him a chance, maybe if he hadn’t been so fucking rushed, he could have shown her that Florin was a beautiful city, and proved he wasn’t the asshole everyone thought he was.”
They were kind enough to avert their eyes.
Grace
“Life isn’t a fairy tale, you know? I’m not Cinderella who needs Prince Charming to rescue me from my awful life,” Kate slurred. “I never wanted to be a princess, anyway.”
“Me neither,” I bellowed, raising my hand for a dramatic high five. How much had I drunk? “Elijah and I wanted to be superheroes.”
“You are, though, aren’t you?” she said, her tequila-glassy gaze getting serious. “Why would you need a prince? You created an alter ego, your butt looks amazing in spandex, and you spend your days rescuing people in distress. You saved your own life, Grace.”
You saved your own life, Grace.
Her words — and the relief of her unexpected friendship — made my eyes brim with tears. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, her sharp engagement ring pressing into my palm.
As I pulled my hand away, my blurry gaze landed on the Elysian tequila bottle and squinted at the label. “Holy heck, is that …”
Kate released an aggravated sigh.
I lifted the bottle to examine the label more closely, though the details swam in my vision: a sunrise over the mountains, blocked by the silhouettes of pine trees. “It looks just like your painting.”
“It sure fucking does,” she said bitterly. “I read in an interview that Nick suggested the name Elysian after the Greek mythological version of heaven. When they ask him what he thought paradise looked like, this is what he described.”
“So … did he hire you to paint this?”
“Nope,” she lifted her chin defiantly. “If I’d been paid to paint that label, I’d be able to buy this fancy shit instead of pilfering it from the Clarkes’ stash.”
Alex
When the movie ended, Victoria nudged me awake with her outstretched foot. Connor had already left to return his roommate’s car.
For just a moment, I forgot I was back in San Francisco. Before my brain came online, the music from the credits rolling gave me hope I’d crashed on Grace’s couch.
The wind rushed out of me. It was over.
She poked me again with her foot, then walked to the door to let herself out. “Fall apart here all you want, but at the office tomorrow, the armor goes back up.”
Grace
“If it was so long ago … why are you telling me this now?”
“Because Mallory is useless when it comes to heartbreak. Her best advice is always that the best way to get over a man is to get under another. You need somebody who gets it.”
“I …” and then the tequila pushed the confession out. “I didn’t think you liked me.”
“I didn’t at first,” she said plainly, and I winced at her honesty. “I thought you were honing in on my best friend. But I came around, because Mallory is an excellent judge of character,” she gestured between us. “And because that’s what girlfriends are for: Pedicures, text memes, and picking up the pieces of each other’s broken hearts when men are giant idiots.” She laughed. “And having conversations that pass the Bechdel test. Just not tonight.”
Then she picked up her phone. “Now I’m gonna call Paul to pick my wasted ass up. He’s not the Sexiest Man Alive …” Kate made sarcastic jazz hands as her mouth turned up wryly, “but he runs a great drunk bus.”
