36 | Girls Night
TESSA
Melissa organized a girls’ night.
That was the first strange thing.
Melissa didn’t organize girls’ nights—she showed up to girls’ nights that other people organized, arrived twenty minutes late, and somehow still managed to make it feel like she’d done everyone a favor by coming. But calling ahead, making a reservation, sending a location pin with two days’ notice?
I mentioned it to Hailey on the walk over.
“Maybe she missed us,” Hailey said.
I looked at her.
“Maybe,” Hailey allowed, “she has an agenda.”
“Thank you.”
The bar was nice enough—low lighting, cocktails with decorative rosemary sprigs, the kind of place designed to feel intimate.
The air smelled faintly herbal, sharp under the sweetness of citrus.
Melissa was already there when we arrived, cocktail half-finished, phone face-down on the table.
She stood to hug us both, warm and effortless, and I told myself I was being uncharitable.
“Finally,” she said. “Sit down. I already ordered the good olives.”
For the first hour it was easy.
Hailey’s bathroom renovation had entered its fifth week with no end in sight.
I talked about Bailey and an escaped rabbit and the specific chaos of a Monday with three overlapping appointments.
Melissa laughed in the right places and asked follow-up questions and topped up everyone’s drinks when they got low.
Normal. The rhythm of people who’d known each other long enough to fill silences without trying.
Then the second round arrived and Melissa looked at me with that particular brightness.
“So,” she said. “How’s things with Theo?”
Something tightened slightly in my chest—not fear, just awareness. Like a thread pulled a fraction too tight. I shifted in my seat, adjusting my grip on the glass.
“Good,” I said.
“Yeah?” She tilted her head slightly. “You trust him?”
“Of course.”
“Right. No, obviously.” She nodded quickly, like she was agreeing with herself. “It’s just—you know. Given everything. The thing he did when you were younger.”
“That was a long time ago.” I kept my voice even.
“Totally.” She picked up her glass, turning it slightly between her fingers without drinking. “I just—I hope he’s changed. For your sake.” A small pause. “I remember how sad you were. How much you needed me to help you get back up.”
My stomach tightened—not quite irritation, not quite surprise. It settled low, under my ribs, uncomfortable and hard to name. I took a sip of my drink just to have something to do, the cold glass grounding in my hand. I held it where it was.
“He has,” I said. “I know he has.”
“Good.” She smiled. “I hope you’re right.”
Hailey set down her glass. “Where are you going with this?”
“Nowhere.” Melissa’s tone stayed light. “I just don’t want her to get hurt.”
“Theo wouldn’t hurt her,” Hailey said. “He’s one of the most decent people I know.” She looked at me. “Don’t listen to this.”
“And how do you know him that well?” Melissa asked. Something sharpened underneath the pleasant tone. “I’ve known him almost my whole life. Even longer than Tess.”
“He helped with our house. Lent us money last year when Nate’s car went bad.” Hailey said it simply, without drama. “Transmission. More than we had. He just gave it to us, no ceremony, never mentioned it again.” She paused. “That’s not something you fake.”
“No, absolutely.” Melissa’s smile was smooth. “I wasn’t saying anything bad about him. I just care about Tessa.”
“I know you do,” Hailey said pleasantly.
The olives arrived. Hailey had a story about her neighbor’s cat. Melissa had something about a coworker. The conversation drifted, and I let it, and the tightness in my chest slowly loosened without fully going away. It lingered, faint but present, like a bruise you only notice when you press on it.
Twenty minutes later, mid-sentence about something else entirely, Melissa said:
“Have you two talked about it at all?”
I stopped. The tightness came back, sharper this time. “About what?”
“Just—you know. The history. What happened back then.” She was looking at her drink, not at me.
“I don’t really want to dig into it,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”
“Right, no, of course.” Too quickly. “I just meant—” She stopped.
A beat.
“Are you planning to? Talk about it?”
“Probably not.” I watched her face. “We’re good. I don’t see the point.”
“Good.” The word came out fast—faster than it should have. She caught herself, softened it. “I mean—yeah. Maybe that’s for the best. Why open all that up again?” A light shrug. “Old wounds and all that. Sometimes the past is better left where it is.”
I looked at her.
She looked back. Steady. Warm. Completely unreadable.
Hailey refilled her glass without comment.
A few drinks later the conversation moved again—lighter, easier—and I let myself drift with it. I ordered another drink. The warmth spread slow and even through my chest, softening the edges of everything. I told myself the low hum of unease in my chest was nothing.
Then Melissa leaned forward with the conspiratorial energy she reserved for good gossip, and her whole face changed.
“Okay. Completely different topic.” She looked between us. “Charles.”
Hailey raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”
“I went on a few dates with him.” She glanced at me.
Hailey’s head swiveled. “You dated Charles? Tessa’s Charles?”
“Ex-Charles,” Melissa said.
“I knew,” I said. Which made Hailey turn to stare at me too. Something loosened in my chest—the relief of a subject change that was actually funny. “She asked me.”
“And dated is generous,” Melissa continued. “Two dinners.” She shuddered with feeling. “The man is—uninspired doesn’t even cover it.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. It came easier than it should have.
“Lights off. No variation. Three minutes if you’re lucky.” She lifted her glass. “I’ve had more exciting experiences at the dentist.”
Hailey’s mouth fell open. “Three—”
“Four if you were lucky.” Melissa shook her head mournfully. “I don't know how you dealt with it.”
I was laughing properly now, the wine warm in my chest, the earlier tension thinning, dissolving into something lighter. “I didn’t know what I was missing.”
“And now?” Melissa looked at me—casual, almost casual, something sharpening briefly behind her eyes.
“Now I know,” I said simply.
She smiled. “Good.”
Her eyes stayed on me a beat too long.
Then she looked away, and the moment passed, and Hailey was already asking follow-up questions about the dinners and Melissa was delivering details with the precision of someone who had been waiting to tell this story, and I laughed until my eyes watered and forgot, for a little while,
the thing I was trying not to think about.
Near the end of the night, while we were sorting out the check, Melissa said—almost as an afterthought, the way she always did her most deliberate things:
“Oh. Fourth of July. My parents’ place—we’re doing a bonfire. The whole group.” She looked between us. “You’re both coming obviously. Bring Nate, bring Theo. It’ll be fun.”
“We’ll be there,” Hailey said.
I said I would too.
“Perfect.” Melissa signed her portion of the bill. “Like old times.”
----
I walked home alone.
The night was warm, the air soft against my skin, streets still alive enough that the quiet never fully settled. Somewhere down the block, someone laughed too loudly. A car door slammed. Life, normal and untouched.
I went slowly with my hands in my pockets and tried to identify what was sitting in my chest.
It wasn’t doubt about Theo. I was certain of that. I knew who he was—I’d watched him show up, consistently and without ceremony, for months. For years, if I was honest.
It was something smaller. More specific.
Have you talked about it?
Maybe that’s for the best.
We hadn’t talked about it. About the dance, about the years after, about the specific shape of what had broken between us when we were teenagers. It hadn’t felt necessary.
Things were good.
Things were real.
But sitting with Melissa’s questions still faintly echoing—the ones that had come too fast and stopped too abruptly, the ones that had felt less like concern and more like something being carefully managed—I found myself wondering.
Not whether I trusted Theo.
But whether not asking was peace—
or just avoidance that had learned how to look like it.
I didn’t have an answer.
My phone buzzed.
Theo: Home yet?
I looked at the message for a long moment.
Me: Almost.
Theo: Good.
Theo: I miss you.
Something in my chest shifted—subtle, but real.
I put my phone away and kept walking, and let the question sit where it was—unanswered, not urgent, just present enough that I knew it was there.
Maybe we should talk about it?
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