Page 61 of Guy's Girl
This gets another laugh out of her. Short, throaty. “Right. Well. Sometimes, it’s great. Sometimes, I feel like I have access to this secret club, one I’ve worked my entire life to join. I mean—I grewup with three brothers and a sister who hated me and a mother who would sooner put on a pair of waders and spend the whole day fishing with my father than put on a stitch of makeup. Femininity never interested me.Girlsnever interested me.”
Ahead, the road slopes upward. They begin to climb.
“When I got to college, the first people I met were the boys. Practically overnight, we were best friends. It felt... it felt like proof. Like God was telling me I was always meant to live among men.”
Adrian’s breath deepens as they climb.
“But the thing about being a woman in a group of all men—” Ginny pauses to exhale. “The thing about being a woman in a group of all men is that no matter how close you are, no matter how many secrets they share with you, no matter how comfortable they get around you, no matter if they can fart and burp and cuss and talk shit and not think twice about your presence—you’re still a girl. And you will alwaysbea girl; and for that one simple, stupid, arbitrary fact, you will never be fully a part of them.”
Her words make Adrian’s chest ache. He wants to reach for her hand, to reassure her—about what, he isn’t entirely sure. He keeps his palm flat to his side.
“Sometimes,” Ginny says, “the loneliest place isn’t standing by yourself. It’s standing just a few inches away from what you want.”
They reach the top of the hill. “Ginny—” Adrian starts.
“I’m just...” She shakes her head. “I’m just sick of it.”
“Of being the only girl?”
“No.” She shades her eyes with one hand, looks right up at Adrian. “Of never being the one that they choose.”
Her face looks so open, so alone. Adrian wants to lay his palm on her cheek. He wants to run his fingertips down her bare shoulder, the way he would when they lay naked in his bed after their dates.
I would choose you.
The words pop into Adrian’s head unbidden. He tries to wipe them away, to gum up the cracks in the wall he keeps bricked so tightly together, because he knows they aren’t true. He can’t choose her. He can’t choose anyone.
But it’s already too late.
“What happened?” Adrian asks quietly as if to cover the thought. “With you and Finch?”
A car whizzes past. Ginny’s hair flutters around her chin. She doesn’t look away. “The same thing that always happens,” she says. “I fell in love with someone who could never love me back.”
They skip the ruin pub crawl. “We’ll come back later this week,” Tristan promises. “I think we’re all pretty jet-lagged today.”
We’re all pretty jet-lagged, Ginny thinks. Code for:Gin is too drunk and pissed off.
“We should drive to Lake Balaton tomorrow,” Adrian says as they climb back into the Audi. “It was one of my favorite day trips as a kid. It’ll be a gorgeous drive in this car, and we can swim and relax and rest up for a proper pub crawl the next day.”
“Done,” says Tristan.
On the drive back, as Ginny sobers up, she begins to suspect that she shared too much with Adrian during their walk by the river. And yet, she thinks as she glances at his profile, as he stares quietly out the side window, she talked about her doubts, her insecurities, and he barely even blinked.
He’s like that, Ginny is starting to realize. Unruffled. Unruffle-able. Kind to a fault. Like a stone in a great river, taking anything that comes at it without shock or complaint. She could probably tell Adrian that she once murdered a man, and he would simply wrinkle his brow and ask how she hid the body.
Lake Balaton is exactly as beautiful as Adrian remembers. Nearly fifty miles long and as crystalline turquoise as a thermal bath, Balaton is the country’s largest freshwater lake. Lush green hills circle the water, peppered with red-roofed towns and sprawling vineyards. The occasional harbor nestles into the lakeside, filled with teetering sailboats and inflatable rafts.
They used to take trips here as a family—Adrian, Beatrix, his mother, and his grandparents. Besides Christmas and Easter, these day trips were one of the few things Adrian remembers doing with his entire family. As a child, he assumed this separation was due to how busy his mother was. Now he can’t help but wonder if it was purposeful—if his grandparents were a painful reminder of the husband she lost.
They park near Siófok, Balaton’s infamous party town. As they head down from the parking lot to the beach, Adrian guides them toward a stand filled with colorful water toys: kayaks, paddleboards, giant inflatable flamingos.
“Three paddleboards and two kayaks, please,” Tristan asks the rental attendant in English.
“Two paddleboards, not three,” Ginny says over her shoulder. She’s staring out at the waves. “I’m sharing with Adrian.”
Tristan glances at Adrian, who shrugs.Sure.
The attendant tilts his head, not understanding. Adrian steps in to translate, handing over a wad of blue and red forint as he does.
