“Fine.” I sulk on my way to the shower. I turn the water up as hot as I can stand it, eager to feel much of anything.

Michelle does my makeup and Elizabeth combs through my hair, pinning it in a cute but messy updo. “This is exactly what you need. A girls’ night!” Michelle giggles. “We’re going to find you someone even hotter than Devin tonight!”

Elizabeth clears her throat and squeezes my shoulders. “If you’re ready…”

I blink away the tears. “I’m not.”

“Okay,” Elizabeth’s voice is warm and soothing in my ear. She’s had her heart broken. She knows how much I’m hurting right now.

“Well, then just enjoy torturing all those guys in this dress,” Michelle muses, applying lip gloss to my pout. “I’m going through a penis-free phase too. Let them eat their egotistical, idiotic, unreliable hearts out.”

I’m a mute passenger along for the ride, not paying attention to where the Uber is taking us until we’re already standing in the parking lot. I stare up at the bar’s neon sign and my stomach twists like a pit of angry snakes.

“Not here. I can’t,” I plead with Elizabeth, shaking my head hard enough that some of my hair escapes the pinned mess on my head.

“It looks a little rough, Lizbit,” Michelle says next to me. It’s not the dive bar I object to. It’s the fact that it’s Devin’s dive bar that I have a problem with.

“I swear, it’s not as shady as it looks. It’ll be fun. They have karaoke tonight!” Elizabeth sings.

“This is where Devin and I had our first date,” I confess.

Elizabeth’s kind eyes go wide. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Austin didn’t say…” Her voice trails off and she pulls her phone out of her purse. “I’ll grab another Uber and we’ll go somewhere else.” She stares at her phone, biting her lip in concentration. Regret fills her eyes and guilt twists her lips. “The closest one is over twenty minutes away.” She blows out a defeated sigh.

“Should we go grab a drink while we wait?” Michelle asks. I balk, not wanting to go inside. “I’m sure Devin’s not here.”

I wince at the sound of his name. I look over to Elizabeth, silently pleading with her to wait outside with me.

“One drink?” she asks.

I check my watch, then look up and down the dark street. There isn’t anywhere else to wait. I glue a fake grin on my face. “Sure. Why not?”