I didn’t want to leave her with this guy. He was probably no worse than anyone else she’d met up with, but I still felt responsible. Like I could steer the situation, control it. Maybe eventually talk her into just going home. I would have to take a cab home anyway, and it could drop her off on my way back. My mood was turning sour; tomorrow would already be marred by a hangover. I was stuck, regret on either side: past and future. The only thing to do was wade through the oblivious, gin-soaked now. I stirred my drink and thought of Clara’s prophecy again: If I were really going to fall before I would rise, it might be better to get the fall over with. Better to face it, collide into it head-on. Some other humiliation, some other way the world was going to use me. I already had a sense that these men would make us into something smaller, less human. They would want to make us into a story for when they retreated back to their lives—these two young sluts we met down in AC, throwing back Long Island iced teas like you wouldn’t believe—the way Matthew had made me his story. If I had learned anything it was that if you were someone’s story, they owned a part of you, took a piece of you away.

“Fine,” I said. “What the hell.”

“Yay!” Clara leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, close to the corner of my lips, lingering a second longer than she needed to. Her eyelashes brushed my cheek.

“Well, now, ain’t nothing better than two sexy women showing each other a little affection. Or a lot of affection, if you know what I mean.”

“We certainly do.” Clara gave me a theatrical wink.

“Well, I like the sound of that. Girls who know how to have a little fun.”

“You have no idea how much fun,” she said. I tried to ignore how sad it made me to hear her like this. She was so good at being what he wanted, at hiding herself behind clichés. And he was so easily pleased, so willing to believe that this was all she was.