Callie’s StoryChapter EightStanding at the front desk with my purse on the counter, I rooted for my phone, hoping Blaine had called.
Not that I expected a phone call—it had been a week since he’d ended things—but a small part of me held out hope that he would see the error of his ways.
I hadn’t been able to check for messages during the five hours it took to get us to the island resort, because I’d been stuck driving. Again.
Courtney and Willow had designated me as the driver for our girls’ weekend because I was the one who wouldn’t get us lost, had AAA, and had checked the ferry schedule.
Court claimed “work fatigue” every chance she got, even though she was only an intern, and Willow didn’t have a car. The three of us were recent college graduates, but I was the one they deemed a grown-up.
And at the moment, I felt anything but. Right then I felt like a fraud. Court and Willow expected me to be put-together, because I always was … but right then I just wanted to have a good cry.
“Sorry, this resort doesn’t have cell service,” the front desk clerk said sympathetically as I pulled out my phone. “We have a land line, though, if it’s urgent.”
“Seriously?” I huffed and dropped my phone back in my bag. Not for the first time, I wondered where Willow had dragged us. She’d claimed this was an island oasis, but right then it felt like a prison. The lobby was decorated in thrift store cast-offs, with a bohemian bartender. “How do you not have reception?”
“We’re too far out for cell towers,” she said. “You know, our website clearly says that we don’t have cell service or Wi-Fi.”
I gave her a tight smile, knowing I was being the bitch my friends had accused me of being, earlier in the car—though it wasn’t my fault Willow had no sense of direction.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” the clerk asked.
“Actually, yes, I wanted to book a massage for tomorrow. Anything available?”
Flipping through an old-school appointment book, she pursed her lips before asking, “How does 11:30 work?”
“Great,” I said. I had nothing on my agenda except to find a way to forget about Blaine and the year we had been together.
“Sixty or ninety minutes?”
“Ninety, please.”
“You’re all set, then.” She handed me a card with the appointment time. “Your masseuse is Liam, and the spa cabin is easy to find on the map,” she said, handing me a paper with a highlighted cabin.
Walking toward the lobby, I saw Courtney downing her hot toddy. Must be nice, I thought. I could never let myself relax like that.
Maybe tonight—after I unpacked, made dinner for the three of us, and got in my pajamas—I’d be able to decompress with some wine. But at four in the afternoon? Not me.
“You should really stop giving Willow such a hard time,” Courtney said, her fingers circling the rim of her mug. “It was a really intense car ride.”
“She graduated with honors,” I said. “She could do anything. I just don’t like watching my friend waste her life.”
“I don’t think it’s for you to decide,” Courtney countered. “I know things have been hard since you and Blaine broke up—”
“No you don’t, Court,” I said. And she didn’t. Courtney had never had a real boyfriend. In fact, her entire life was a low-key luxury, the sort I had never known.
She’d never had a real job before. The pressures at her magazine internship were nothing like the ones at my advertising agency, especially since I didn’t come from money like she did.
I, on the other hand, had no parents to fall back on if I blew my rent money on Uggs and a new Coach bag. I had put myself through college, and everything I had now, I had earned for myself. Sure, it made me more intense about certain things, but I’d been forced into responsibility way before Courtney and Willow had.
Of course I wanted Willow to get out of her job at the coffee shop. She needed a 401k.
“We’re only twenty-two; let’s act like it,” Courtney said, and took her mug back to the bar.
I watched her walk away. Our friendship had spanned the length of college, but right now I felt so misunderstood—by Blaine, by Courtney, by Willow. I just wanted somebody to take care of me. I was tired of managing everyone else, only to have it bite me in the ass.
Willow walked into the lobby, smiling warmly.
“What took you so long?” I asked, wincing at my own words. I wanted to be nicer.
“There was the hottest guy in front of me and I couldn’t help flirting.”
“How hot?” Courtney asked.
“Like hotter-than-Kyle-at-work hot,” Willow said, knowing Court’s not-so-secret crush.
“I am so over guys,” I said tucking my blond hair behind my ears. “This weekend I am avoiding them at all costs.”