I wish I could run right out of this restaurant and onto the beach and not stop running until my brain stops spinning and my insides feel calm again. I shouldn’t have skipped the gym this morning, but my knee still isn’t feeling amazing and skipping really was the best choice for my body. Maybe not for my brain.
But I can’t just leave dinner, so instead of running, I select appetizers for my plate and pretend I’m fine. Like there isn’t a swarm of bees in my head.
“Abby, tell me what you do for work,” Gray prompts her. She tells him, and they talk about their jobs, eventually steering the conversation toward why Abby is here at the resort at all. She tells him it’s supposed to be her honeymoon and Gray asks Abby if she wants him to dox her ex for her.
I wish I could appreciate watching them get along. Under the buzzing, there’s a vague sense of rightness, these two pieces of my world colliding. Gray and Abby have met before, but it was over a decade ago, and we were all very different people. Seeing them chat and laugh has me imagining a future where the three of us can enjoy each other’s company more often, but that would mean that it’s a future where Abby and I are together.
And I can’t tell if she wants that.
A small hand presses on my thigh, and I snap out of wherever I just went, giving my attention to Abby.
“Your leg was jiggling like crazy,” she says. “Are you okay?”
Her voice is low, like she’s trying to steal a private moment for us in front of my brother. I nod, probably too enthusiastically because she narrows her eyes at me like she doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t remove her hand from my thigh, her thumb stroking a comforting up and down rhythm. My leg isn’t shaking anymore, and my insides feel less wild.
I reach under the table and lay my hand on hers, squeezing it for reassurance of her presence. She squeezes my fingers too, and it steels me for where I’m about to move the conversation to.
“Hey, uh, how’s Dad?”
Gray lowers the yakitori stick that was angled toward his mouth. His jaw is slack, but his whole body is frozen. I can feel Abby’s eyes on me, too, and she squeezes my hand under the table so hard that my fingers pinch together awkwardly.
Gray’s eyes shift to Abby and then back to me. He straightens, setting his food down. “Hey, so, what the fuck?” he asks.
“What?”
“You never ask about Dad. You have told me in many ways that you have no interest in hearing about him and that if I bring him up, you will leave the room. Are you looking for a reason to escape?”
“No. I’m…I’m just…”
I glance at Abby. How do I explain that what Abby said today about regrets has been gnawing at me? That she unknowingly pointed out the flaw in my logic about living my life without regrets.
I don’t know if I’ll get to the end of my life or if my dad will get to the end of his life and I’ll wish I had done something different. But spending the last eight days with Abby has made me realize how unpredictable life can be. If someone had told me three years ago that Abby and I would reconnect like this, I would have laughed in their face, but here we are. And here I am, hoping she wants to give us another chance despite the mistake I made eleven years ago.
So maybe…just maybe…there’s a version of my life where I regret not having a relationship with my dad because he made one mistake. A big, hurtful, family-ruining mistake—but Gray was able to forgive him, and maybe it’s possible that I could too.
It feels like an impossible mountain to climb, but plenty of things seem impossible before they happen.
“I’m just wondering,” I say. It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s all I can manage.
“Okay…yeah, he’s, uh, he’s good. He just came and visited me actually. He was in town for work and we got dinner and went to Alcatraz. Lived there for years and never went, but all it takes is one out-of-towner and all of a sudden, I’m a tourist.”
“I’ve always wanted to go there. San Francisco, not Alcatraz,” Abby says. “Mostly to see the bridge, but I wanna see The Painted Ladies.”
“Oh yeah, we went and saw those houses. Nancy really wanted to?—”
“She was there?” I interrupt, my heart racing. My palms start to sweat and my throat feels too tight. “That woman? She came with Dad?”
“Well, yeah, they’re?—”
“I do not care. I asked about Dad. I didn’t ask about that woman.”
“They’re married, Miles. How am I?—”
“I’ll be right back,” I say, interrupting him again, abruptly getting up from the table to go to the bathroom. I don’t really need it, so I stand in front of the sink and splash some cold water on my face.
I thought I could do it. I thought I was evolved enough to be able to just ask about my father, hear a thing or two about him, but apparently I am not. One mention of the woman he left our family for and I feel like I’m eighteen again, finding out for the first time that he’s leaving us behind for his new life. Pressure builds behind my eyes, but I look up at the ceiling. I’m not going to shed a single fucking tear for that man.
There’s a knock on the door.
