Janie saunters into the bar that night, minidress, wild hair, and we all stare, because absolutely none of us expected her to show her face around here ever again, not after what she did to Brad. We freeze, Brad most of all, condensation from our beers dripping down our hands. I grab Brad’s hand under the table, rub my thumb over his fingers. He squeezes back and I’m suddenly aware of every inch of our touching skin, jolts of electricity running through me. So I was happy when I heard he and Janie broke up because it meant I had a shot, go ahead and sue me.
“I’ll take a glass of chardonnay,” Janie says to the bartender, like she’s trying too hard to be casual, and I roll my eyes. Who orders wine at a bar where it comes out of a nozzle? I never got what Brad saw in her, anyway, but now they’re over and I’m the one holding his hand under the table, so she can order whatever she wants, it won’t make a difference. “And a round of shots for my friends back there,” she says, gesturing toward us, and our freeze breaks, all of us suddenly looking everywhere but at Janie.
“Hi everyone,” she says as she approaches, and we give anemic greetings in response as the smile on her face falters. Good, I think, happy to feel like I’m not the one on the outside for once. But then Brad pulls his hand away from mine, and god, the look in his eyes when he looks at Janie, and I can feel it, my chance slipping away, and my stomach plummets.
“Look, I know Brad and I just broke up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, right? We’re all adults here.” She looks to Brad for reassurance, and he gives her a nod in response. She starts to pull up a chair to the end of the table, and I don’t know if it’s the alcohol already coursing through me or the panic of losing my shot with Brad, but I shoot to my feet and I look her in the eye and I say, “Why should we be adults when you’re the fucking slut who cheated on Brad with some rando whose name you don’t even know,” and behind me, the table gets even quieter.
“Yikes,” someone mutters, and Janie looks like I’ve slapped her. She opens her mouth to respond and I see with satisfaction that she’s got lipstick on her tooth, but before she can say anything, the bartender sets our tray of shots on the table. I don’t take my eyes off Janie as I reach toward the tray, grab a shot, down it in one, victorious. I can’t see him, but I’m sure Brad is beaming at me, grateful for defending him. I go to put the shotglass back on the table, but I’m drunker than I thought and my feet get tangled and before I know it I’m tripping and the shotglass is shattering on the floor beneath me.
Groans behind me. “Out,” the bartender says firmly. “Now. All of you. Go.”
“This place is overrated anyway,” I say, and turn around to face my friends. “Next location?” But none of them are looking at me, they’re all looking away like we looked away from Janie, and a sliver of unease works its way down my spine.
“You told them I cheated on you?”Janie says, furious eyes on Brad, who squirms uncomfortably as I look over at him. “Funny, because first of all, that was after I told you we were over, and second of all, you were the one who said we weren’t exclusive when you were trying to explain to me why you fucked Michelle,” and Michelle goes white and so do I, because if he was going to fuck someone else why would it be Michelle and not me, when I’ve been here waiting patiently for so long, and my stomach hurts, and the alcohol is threatening to come back up, and Michelle’s boyfriend Joe drops her hand, gets up from the table, says “I fucking knew it,” and Michelle follows him out the door but I cannot process the words coming out of her mouth because Brad fucked Michelle and now Janie is leaving and Brad is following her instead of staying with me, and everyone else is leaving too, and Why do you always have to be such a bitch, one of them says to me, and then everyone is gone and I stand in the bar, alone.
“You too, sweetheart,” the bartender says, and I don’t even argue with him about “sweetheart” the way I normally would, and I step outside, Brad fucked Michelle but I shove that way down deep where it can’t hurt me, and I’m already looking for another bar, for new friends, for a situation I won’t fuck up this time, a different crowd, a different life, should I move somewhere else? And I can already see what will happen, that tomorrow I will text Brad but he won’t respond, and I’ll try the others but they won’t either, and the silence will grow until it’s a gulf, there will be new group chats that include Janie but don’t include me, and six months from now, I’ll walk by this bar drunk, alone, and I’ll glance in the window and for a split second I’ll think I see everyone gathered around a table, laughing together without me, and even though I’ll realize it’s just the alcohol and I don’t know those people at all, I’ll feel the pang of something missing before I shove it down and head out searching into the night.
