Page 125 of See You Next Tuesday

“I can’t.” She stood, and he did too. “I don’t trust you, Gabe. I love you, but I don’t trust you.”

“No.” He wiped his eyes. “No, I don’t believe you.”

“I’m so sorry,” she cried, and then he was pulling her into his arms, and he was kissing her, and she kissed him back, and she didn’t want this to be the last time, but she knew that it had to be, because this hurt too much, and how could she be with him when this hurt so fucking much?

He held her close, hugging her tightly.

“You’re my great love,” he told her. “Don’t you remember? You’re my great love.”

She pushed away from him. She had to get out of here.

“Come on, Gabe.” Her voice was ragged. “You had a girlfriend when you said that to me.”

His shoulders slumped. It felt like he finally understood what she was saying.

“So it’s over?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s over.”

Chapter 20

Three months later

Gabe hit snooze on his alarm.

Again.

He had to be in the office in twenty-seven minutes; the drive took him twelve. He had nine more minutes to lie here.

He hadn’t dreamed about Anya all week, which was the worst. Sometimes in the dreams she screamed at him, or sometimes they were kissing in his bed, or in his car, or in an imaginary field of bluebells underneath a sunny sky. Sometimes he was just looking at her—watching her across a train platform, calling her name, but she couldn’t hear him. Sometimes the dreams felt like real life, how angry she was, how much she hated him, the crushing shame he felt about everything he’d done to deserve it. But then, sometimes, it was like she had amnesia—like he’d done everything right. Like he’d asked her out that first day in New Hampshire, like he’d kissed her in the snow in Ohio, on the beach in Vieques. He’d taken her dancing in Las Vegas, they’d had dinner with her parents every weekend, he’d gotten to spend real time with Judy. He was by Anya’s side at the funeral, and at shiva, and every sleepless night after. He shared her grief. He made it better.

Real life wasn’t like that. In real life, he made everything worse.

At first, he was convinced he could fix things with Anya. That first week after the breakup, he’d called her crying, he’d offered to quit his job, he’d told her he’d do anything. But she never picked up her phone; he left it all on voicemail. He didn’t even know if she’d ever listened—until Simone told him, gently, that the messages were really upsetting Anya and asked him to stop. Fuck, he’d thought. Add this to the list of ways I’ve hurt her.

So he didn’t call, didn’t text. And he didn’t quit his job, because working long hours was the only thing that took his mind off how much he missed her.

Ironically, this was the slowest time of the cycle, the lull between winning the primary and the heat of the general. There was still a lot to do—endorsement events, a convention to plan, endless swing state visits, and fundraising, always fundraising. Cable news panels where Gabe appeared almost daily, smiling and witty and charming, never letting his heartbreak reflect badly on his boss. He was a professional. One of the best to ever do it. Most days, he fantasized about disappearing and never being heard from again.

“Gabe, you got a second?” Lev stepped into Gabe’s office. Gabe desperately wanted to say no, but he didn’t think that would stop Lev from taking as much time as he wanted.

“Sure, Lev. What do you need?”

“I’m looking over the budget for the convention. Do we really need a union print shop for the signs? This bid is four times higher than the alternate.”

Because the union printer pays its workers a living wage, Gabe thought but did not say.

“Is it a problem?” Gabe asked. “We can afford it. Our fundraising numbers were through the roof last month.”

“Most of that was for the PAC,” Lev said condescendingly. “Hal asked me to look for budget cuts.”

“If you want to save money, we could cut back the number of private planes we’re chartering to fly donors to the convention,” Gabe quipped, but Lev didn’t smile.

“Is there any downside to cutting the union printers?” Lev asked.

Gabe exhaled. “Not a huge one. The convention center is all union, so labor will be happy on the whole. The president of the printers’ union could raise a stink, but honestly, if we invite him onto one of the private flights, that’d probably take care of it.”

“Huh,” Lev let out a little laugh. “That’s actually a good idea.”