The village exhausted Alice in the best possible way.
By the time we returned to the condo that evening, the earlier tension hanging around her had softened noticeably. Tulum had distracted her exactly the way I’d hoped it would. She’d spent most of the afternoon wandering through crowded market stalls and narrow streets lined with colorful buildings while asking too many questions about everything she saw.
The fishermen near the docks liked her immediately. Mostly because she smiled at people like she genuinely meant it. I’d watched her buy handmade bracelets from an elderly woman despite insisting she didn’t need them. Then later she’d argued with a fruit vendor over mango prices using Spanish while the man laughed directly in her face.
She’d looked happier today. And somehow that rea
