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Nodding, he takes a seat on the swing next to me. “Me too.”
I study his profile. When we first met, we were no more than five or six years old. My parents owned a home mere blocks from this playground. Al’s maternal grandmother lived across the street.
We pinkie swore we’d be brother and sister forever since we were both only children.
“You’re a big deal chemist,” he tells me.
I’m not surprised that he knows. Al was one of the few people who encouraged me to follow my dream of a career in science.
“You’re not,” I volley back.
He lets out a hearty chuckle. “You tried your best, Gilbert. If you hadn’t tutored me in biology in middle school, I never would have made it to high school.”
That’s a blatant lie. Al was smart, but struggled in the sciences, so I offered to help whenever he visited his grandma.
His life was always based in Manhattan. It started in an apartment where his parents raised him together until they divorced.
Then, Al would split his time between his dad’s home on one side of the island and his mom’s miles away in another neighborhood. When Al needed a break, he’d come to Queens to see his grandma and me.
My folks welcomed him into our home as if he were my brother. That connection landed my dad his dream job working for Al’s father in Manhattan.
That job was both a gift and a tragedy of epic proportions.
Our dads died together in a plane crash on what should have been a quick flight back from Rhode Island to secure a deal that earned my dad his first commission in the seven figure range.
Their deaths tore our friendship to shreds, and even though we tried to glue it back together a few times after that, the pieces never quite fit together again the way they had before the crash.
“How’s your mom?” he asks the question I knew he would.
He loved my mom as much as he loved his own.
“She’s happy,” I tell him with a smile. “Still married. She’s going to be a grandma soon.”
His gaze drops to the front of my dress. “You’re pregnant?”
I laugh. “Abby is.”
He knows about Abigail, and my stepfather. I filled him in during one of our awkward café meet ups when we were attending different high schools.
I glance at his left hand. “How’s Jodie?”
His gaze follows the same path as mine. “Very happily married to someone else. Our wedding never happened.”
Surprised by that, I slow my swinging by dragging a foot in the sand. “What happened?”
His brown eyes latch on my face. “Life. Death. Work.”
Nodding, I sigh. He met Jodie in high school, and I always thought they’d go the distance. “Life can be hard.”
He tosses his head back to look up at the night sky. “Fucking hard, Gilbert.”
“I know.”
“Carrie,” he begins before he pauses to take a breath. “I’m still sorry about that night. If I hasn’t stormed out of that party…”
“No,” I stop him because we’ve endlessly circled one particular night for years. We were both eighteen but living very separate lives.
It was a graduation party for my school. Al stopped by with two of his teammates from their school’s basketball team, but they all left within minutes. Abby was there briefly before she took off with friends to go to a bar with her fake ID. I didn’t have one, so I stayed behind. It was one of the worst decisions of my life.
