“No one asked you, Marv,” says Alyssa. She turns back to Finn. “You didn’t know he was here?” She has that concerned-head-tilt thing going on – no one knows what a mess Dallas made of Finn better than Alyssa. But I am not that person anymore, Finn tells herself. I am an adult with a life outside of Thunder Bay, in a real city with real bars where they don’t make you pay up front for your drinks. I have a house and a car and a lawnmower that I sometimes even actually use to mow the lawn. Hell, I even own not one but two sets of matching royal blue Egyptian cotton sheets. The world is my motherfucking oyster. There is no way I’m going to let Dallas take that away from me.

She shouldn’t be surprised that Dallas didn’t stay out in B.C. – his parents are here, and so is his whole giant Polish family, who all treated him like he was the second coming of Christ. Why wouldn’t he come back? Finn wonders if Nicki knows. If he’s seen Ross. “It’s fine, Lyss,” Finn says. “Like I give a shit about Dallas Vaughn. It’s not like I haven’t been with anyone else in the past, what, eight years?” I made sure of that last night.

“Hey, Dallas!” Marv hollers. “There’s a chick here to see you.”

“Go home, Marv,” Alyssa yells back, waving the bar cloth towards the door. Finn covers her ears, but she can still hear the footsteps approaching behind her. She has the childish desire to shut her eyes and make loud noises until he goes away, wishing like hell that she had changed out of her yoga pants. You always imagine how reunions with ex-lovers will go, how you will be beautiful and happy and have your shit together, and they will be the ones broken apart. You’re not supposed to smell like the last time you bathed was a month ago. You’re not supposed to look like your mother just went over a waterfall in a whisky barrel.

Finn takes a deep breath, fixing her face into what she hopes is a casually sexy expression. She spins the barstool around. And someone punches her right in the nose.

Next thing Finn knows she’s lying on a rotting couch in the back room of Barkley’s, her head throbbing. Alyssa is sitting beside her on a stack of empty beer cases, her fingers drumming against her stomach. “Wow,” she says. “Who knew you’d go down like that?”

Finn touches her nose, then breathes in sharply. “Is it broken?”

Alyssa laughs. “Man, southern Ontario has made you soft,” she says, handing Finn an ice pack wrapped in a bar rag. “Have you forgotten how to take a punch?”