The storm calmed after an hour-long rant about how men never know how to handle her.

Justin was a guy Christina had been speaking to on Instagram for the past two weeks. He hadn’t responded to the boob-pics she sent him from the lounge bathroom. So, it was forty-five minutes of hair-holding as Christina retched over the toilet, bracing herself on the cool tiles, sweat beading on her hairline. Somewhere in there, I snuck out to order some room service and a Bloody Mary. I could have predicted this crash-out a mile away.

Finally, after a shower, we were both sitting at the resort bar, bare-faced, in floral maxi-dresses. The bartender was short and muscular. Young, probably around 21. He had a wide smile that was made for Hospitality. Christina leaned over the bar, pushing her breasts together. “Can you make me a special drink?” She said breathily, looking up at him through her lashes. “I’ll drink whatever you give me.”

“Certainly, miss,” He said, winking and turning around to pick out a base liquor.

“Oh my god, he’s giving me rum. He wants me,” she whispered loudly in my ear.

“Obviously, he does,” I replied.

Christina’s eyes narrowed slightly and she went back to sipping her half-finished Piña colada. “So, I think we should go book the catamaran tour first thing tomorrow,” she said.

“Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

“Are you mad or something?”

“No! I’m just a little tired.”

“Well, you’re being a downer. This is our first night here!” Christina smiled and mouthed Gracias to the bartender as he slid a murky, root beer-looking cocktail across the bar.

“I’m sorry. I’ll have more energy tomorrow.” I turned toward the mirrored bar and made eye contact with the bartender.

He smiled back and sidled toward me. “I think I’d like to try one of those blue things I saw you making earlier… the one with the lemon?”

“Ah, so you’ve been watching me!” he teased. I chuckled.

Christina was quiet for a second, whipped out her phone for a quick scroll.

“Actually, I don’t think you should order that,” she said, flicking her gaze back toward me.

“Wha -“ I started to ask.

“We need to be up to book the sunset catamaran early tomorrow. That guy at the front desk said the tours fill up fast. You can’t handle your booze, and I don’t want it all to fall to me.”

I opened and closed my mouth wordlessly.

“You know what I’m saying, right? We don’t want to go too hard on the first day.”

She looked at the bartender. “We’ll have two club sodas with lime, please.” Pushing her rum cocktail to the side with her index finger as if it disgusted her, she turned herself back to face me and jutted her chin out.

I accepted my non-alcoholic beverage. Balance had been restored. I contemplated how I was feeling as we padded slowly back to our suite down the glistening hallways. After some of our fights, I’d fantasized about moving back to the East Coast and her finding out from an out-of-office reply.

“Look, I just need some space,” I’d said two years prior. “I have different needs than you do.”

“Oh, I totally understand,” Christina responded, closing her eyes and nodding. “By the way, do you want to do a bottle?” After I had texted her back that morning, saying we needed some boundaries, she suggested we meet for a steak salad lunch at our place. The wine was a new addition.

“Ummm… I have a meeting at 1.”

“It’s just that it’s so much cheaper than, say, having two glasses each.”

“I guess…”

“One bottle of Malbec, please!” Christina barked at the server. “Anyway, I just want you to know that I love you so much. You are my bestie, and if you need space, that’s what you need! I’ll have to adjust. I want you to feel safe and comfortable with me.”

“Wow, Chris, thank you.”

That afternoon, with only a few bites of gristly steak salad in my stomach, I drank through my meeting with Christina and woke up on her couch with my pencil skirt twisted tightly around me.

What could I say? I needed this.

We made it back to the room, and I drew the shades, stripping off my dress and changing into a loose t-shirt. I pulled back the woven duvet and silky sheets, resigning myself to a good night’s sleep. Just as I was closing my eyes, I felt the bedding rustle and the unmistakable weight of another human next to me.

My body stiffened, and I called out, “What’s up, Chris?”

“I just want to sleep with you tonight, is that ok?”

“Ahhhhmmm… no—,“

“Please! Please. All that stuff with Justin messed with my head really badly, and I’m in such a shitty place. I won’t take up your side of the bed, I promise, I won’t even touch you. I just can’t be alone tonight. Pretty please?”

“… ok, fine.”

As I lay there, eyes adjusting to the darkness, Christina started to snore quietly. I slipped out of bed and onto the crushed velvet couch across the room. I closed my eyes and listened to the chorus of tree frogs. I sank into the fabric and thought to myself, “She’ll feel better once we book the catamaran.”

At six AM, I was still wide awake. I watched the shadows creep across the floor as the fresh, morning sun filtered through the drawn curtains. Christina was still out, and would be for some time. I got ready as quietly as I could, throwing on a light, cotton dress and flip flops. I grabbed my keycard and headed down the pathway.

As I approached the beach, everything seemed to slow. The sand was shimmering. The waves gently lapped on the shore. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the last time I felt true peace. I squeezed my eyelids shut on the realization that I couldn’t remember.

I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Where did you go?” Christina demanded.

“Just for a walk, you know me… I can’t sleep in strange places.”

“I woke up, and you were just… gone. You have to tell me before you leave the room.”

“OK. Sorry. I honestly thought you would be sleeping longer.”

“It’s fine, whatever. I had such weird dreams last night. Let’s go make that reservation for that fucking thing tonight — what did you say it was?”

Three weeks ago, we were side-by-side at Christina’s desk, scanning through the list of different catamaran options, weighing every point on their list of “What’s Included,” and crawling through each review on TripAdvisor. Her idea. I was never much for comparison shopping. I tried to tell her. She rolled out a chair. “Sit,” she had said. “You don’t know how to travel. I need to teach you.”

“We register at the Concierge Desk,” I said. “Let’s go!”

A group of resort workers passed us and smiled. I stretched my jaw and heard a click. Christina piped up, “You know what, bestie? Let me do this. You go back to the room and take a nap or something.”

“Huh? Are you sure? Why?”

She let out an easy chuckle, and a kind look spread across her face. “It’s no big deal! You were up early, and this won’t take long. I’m happy to get us registered, and we can meet up a little later for brunch by the pool! Sounds like a plan?”

I gave her a quick hug and made my way back to the room.

And then, I was back in middle school, staring at a birthday cake with only two slices missing. Junior high, running as fast as I could away from the community pool, all the other kids refused to get in if I was there. I was 20, alone in a dingy basement apartment in the city, refreshing my Facebook page to see if anyone had responded to my invite to a housewarming party. Life felt like one long inside joke I wasn’t allowed to be part of.

Christina made friends wherever she went. She was vibrant. Opinionated. Cheeky. Charming. Early in our friendship, I found myself mirroring her and picking up some of her conversational tricks. At the same time, I noticed she had started dressing like me. She shopped for more tailored dresses and blazers and started darkening and shaping her eyebrows, just like me. She found out I went to therapy for my anxiety, and she immediately went online and found her own therapist. “Finally,” I thought, “A real friendship.”

Once I made it back to the room, I decided to lie down in a bed without anyone else in it. I changed back into my oversized sleeping t-shirt and snuggled in. The blackout blinds squeezed out most of the morning sun. I was asleep within minutes.

Hours later, I woke with a deep sense of dread.

Did I have a bad dream? I looked at the bedside table, and my phone was sitting there. I reached over and tapped the screen.

Twenty-seven missed calls and texts.

We were about to begin our descent, thank God. It had been a long six hours pretending the $1,300 last-minute upgrade was worth it. If it had been up to me, we would have set up shop at the sports bar, nursing overpriced pints and maybe an Airport Burger (a term I’d coined for any greasy food indulgence).

But, no… this was a “Special Ladies Trip.” No expense to be spared. We sat in the Members Lounge, scrolling on our phones and chugging free wine as the warm, glowy lighting lit up rain pellets on the big windows that peered over the runway. It was high-brow. Grown-up. That was the theme of our take-off, according to Christina.

“We’re not going to be like those dumb, twenty-year-old bitches who don’t know how to vacation properly. We are going to spend money, because we HAVE money,” she announced earlier that week. “Ugh, and I hate that bathing suit on you.”

I shimmied out of the turquoise one-piece with a gossamer sarong. I thought it looked elegant, but if I chose it after Christina vetoed it, I’d only have to hear about it for our entire lunch hour. It wasn’t on theme, anyway.

Christina always decided our themes.

As our plane tilted toward the runway of Daniel Oduber International Airport, Christina was bobbing in her seat. “Top me up! Top me up!” she crowed at the flight attendant. His cold smile didn’t reach his eyes. He glanced at me quickly and then back to Christina. The empty mini-bottles of champagne clinked in the turbulence.

“Ma’am, I cannot top you up. We are beginning our descent,” the attendant said.

“Well, what the fuck did I pay thirteen hundred dollars for?” Christina flopped back into the seat and turned toward me. “Can I just say, you are the best friend I’vesssever had. And I’m so, so glad that you agreed to come on this trip with me.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Because, you know, and I’ve wanted to say this for a while… as your friend, I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t mention something. About your new man. Connor. There are some things…”

“Things?”

“Red flags…,”

Oh, Christ. Just as she was about to launch into a half-baked psychoanalysis of my three-month situationship, the pilot came on the intercom:

“Well, folks, thank you so much for flying with us today. We sure do hope you enjoyed your flight. We will be touching down in Costa Rica in about ten minutes. If this is your final destination, enjoy all the beauty that Papagayo has to offer. Thanks for flying with us, and have a wonderful day.”

Christina started bobbing in her seat again. “I never got to take these vacations with anyone! My sister and her friends used to go every year, but I didn’t really mesh with their friend group.”

I felt a pang, picturing 20-year-old Christina scrolling Facebook, looking at her younger sister on a beach, with a ton of friends. I put my arm around her shoulders. “Well, we’re gonna make this one to remember.”

Christina stopped bouncing for a second to look into my eyes and squeeze my hand. She beamed at me, “I fucking love you, bestie.”

A sprinter van was waiting for us after we cleared baggage claim and customs. Stepping out into the Costa Rican afternoon, I relished the sun on my skin.

My moment was short-lived. Christina instructed the van operator on how to stack our luggage. “… No, it’s the blue one on the bottom and the red one… NO, not that red one.. yes, the tiny little red one. Squish that to the side. HEY! Get in the van!”

I threw my backpack onto the cold, faux-leather seats of the van and stepped into the air conditioning. Christina piled in next to me, and we rode silently through the countryside, occasionally filming on our phones. The Four Seasons Papagayo was about an hour away from the airport, nestled under a deep canopy of palm trees. The grounds were perfectly manicured, featuring wading pools, cream towels stacked high on pool chairs and cabanas draped with translucent fabric. The air smelled like flowers and sandalwood.

Every nerve ending in my body cooled, and the muscles in my back relaxed. Work made things awkward between us back in Toronto. What we needed was a nice break to blow off some steam. A resort worker handed us a bright green cocktail in a champagne glass, topped with a huge slice of pineapple. “Welcome to the Four Seasons, Miss Megan and Miss Christina. Won’t you follow me to your suite?”

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my GOD!” Christina whispered loudly in my ear and I smiled. It felt good to be with someone who didn’t have to pretend to be unimpressed. “You are gonna be SO HAPPY that I made you cancel that reservation at Secrets. This is going to be sooo much better.”

Christina slipped a hand into mine and let her pinky finger rest, then stroke my wrist once.

“Yeah, I mean.. it was half the price…”

“Oh, who cares? Listen, you make a great salary and you deserve to spend it. This trip is like two months’ pay. What’s that, in the grand scheme of things? I don’t want to feel like I FORCED you to do this or something… that actually hurts my feelings—“

I stopped the runaway train before it started, “No, no… I meant that I’m happy we upgraded. Really! You’re right, I need to loosen up.”

She smiled, “OK, good. I just want to have fun this week.”

“Me, too.”

We had arrived at our room. It was a Canopy Plunge Pool Suite. The palm leaves on the terrace waved in the warm breeze as the ocean peeked through. The room was spacious and airy, with beachy accents and wooden furniture. The Plunge Pool overlooked the ocean view, branching off the terrace slightly, with terra cotta tiles, jets bubbling away.

We tipped the employee (generously, Christina always insisted they would do ‘favours’ for you later if you tipped them well upfront) and began settling in. About a half hour passed, and the silence in the room stretched. I popped my head around the corner into the main space.

Christina was sitting with her back to me at the small table on the terrace, staring intently at her phone, which was resting on the table, unlocked.

I took a tentative step toward her. “Chris?”

She whipped toward me, and as she did, I saw her body had been blocking the view of a bottle of tequila, a quarter gone. A used shot glass was sitting in front of her. Her eye makeup was smudged, her face was puffy, and she was breathing heavily. “I… ju-just… checked my DMs and… Justin SAW my message… but…he didn’t respond. What the FUCK is wrong with him? Why would you tell me to send that message? I’m sending him a voice note.”

She poured another shot and downed it. As she was shifting to turn closer to me, she fell off her chair, hard, on her ass.

Now, sitting across from him in the beige vinyl booth, she watched him remove the pickle on top of his sandwich, and her eyes f…

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Joan sat on her small back patio, scrolling through lo-fi hip-hop playlists. She stared at the lighter in front of her, resisting the urge to light up her emergency joint. Instead, she lit the Cintronella candle next to her. The distance is good. If I stay too close, I’ll wring her neck. And backhand him in the face.

The candle warmed her face as she lea…

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I’ve been a frequenter of grimy bars since I was fourteen, but never one quite like this. Any second, a brawl could erupt, and I could be shanked. There was a time in my life when I felt like that would be a perfect way to die.

The tacky, multicoloured Christmas lights lining the bar gave off a lurid glow, illuminating the weathered patrons.

I arrived with The Guy. “Stay close to me tonight,” he warned in the cab. “There are some sketchy characters in this bar we’re going to.”

See, I thought to myself, he loves me.

We took our seats at a table of his friends. Well, one table of his friends. In this group, the men sat apart from the woman. I sat next to him. I felt all their eyes travel me, from toes to tits to teeth. The hoppy air gathered in my throat. Most people were still wearing Ski-Doo jackets and toques. They all murmured half-assed “hellos” to me and immediately shifted the attention to the hockey game. Tractor beam. Breaking the silence would only get me berated on the ride home. So I sat with a big fake smile plastered on my face, sipping a rum and Diet Coke. The men occasionally cracked a joke, laughed raucously and fell back into silence.

The Guy disappeared. There was generally about fifteen minutes where I could track him at a party or a bar before he made his move. He would be out chain smoking and discussing things I was not privy to with people I wasn’t allowed to meet. If I tried to come join him, I was met with a deep sigh and an eye roll. Tonight I didn’t care to try. I was so sick of the constant smell of cigarettes on everything I owned. I stayed inside and made my way to the ‘women’s table’.

They were kind enough to push out a stool for me and offer me welcoming smiles. There was some camaraderie here, as we stole glances at the husbands at the bar, deep in a conversation with the two female bartenders. “He’s never that interested in anything I have to say,” chuckled Suze, the woman to my left. She said it like a joke, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. The tension within the bar pulsed around me. It was only a matter of time before we were infiltrated.

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She counted – twenty-three tabs.

Joan had saved her roach; she puffed contemplatively and blew out the open window onto the street her apartment overlooked.

She splashed a fingerful of Chivas into her lowball glass and sipped, enjoying the burn. The warm lamplight in her emerald-walled apartment cast her favourite painting in a glow. It was a f…

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For the thousandth fucking time, it should be accrued in this year’s budget!!!!!!!!

Joan quickly backspaced the inappropriate email and composed a new version.

She breathed out for three controlled counts. Closed her laptop with …

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The next twelve hours passed like a stop-motion film. Everything was in high-definition, movements were erratic and my skull was full of Pop Rocks and Coca-Cola. I sat at the edge of the small plunge pool in our suite, my foot dangling into the warm water as I stared out at another Papagayo sunrise. One thing was for sure… this trip had brought me clari…

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I took the long way here.

That much I know.

I crawled, I shuffled.

Kept my belly down low.

I sank deep into a pressurized state.

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I grew hate.

But, of course, everything takes it’s toll.

And I started to believe

Without you, I’m not whole.

The plan was never to lose control.

But somehow I just couldn’t slow my roll.

So I put on a sho…

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