Page 84 of See You Next Tuesday

“Anya, please,” Gabe pleaded.

“No.” She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, burying her face. “You shouldn’t be here.”

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t leave either. It felt better, a little, with her face between her knees, seeing nothing but the shadowed contours of her legs and oddly shaped slices of sunlight on the floor. Her breathing slowed, then steadied. A bird was calling in the evergreens off the back porch.

“I’m so sorry,” Gabe said. “I should have come sooner.”

She took a deep inhale. She remembered the day in Las Vegas when Gabe and her mother had gone bungee jumping, the wild grin on her mother’s face when they landed. Judy had said something to Gabe, and Gabe said something back, and then she threw her head back laughing. Her big, ungoverned laugh. Her windblown curls.

“What did you say?” Anya looked up at Gabe. Her tone was insistent.

Gabe looked mournful. “I should have been here.”

“No. To my mother.”

Gabe peered at her, not understanding. She had to make him understand, had to know what he’d said to make her mother laugh.

“When you bungee jumped,” she pressed. “When you landed, my mother said something to you, and you said something to her, and then she laughed? You remember, right? Do you remember?”

Gabe looked at Anya like his heart was breaking, and for one horrible moment, she thought he had no idea what she was talking about.

Gabe cleared his throat. “Um, she said ‘Thank you,’ and I said, ‘Don’t thank me, thank Isaac Newton.’ And then she laughed.”

“Oh.” Tears were streaming down Anya’s face. “Isaac Newton.”

“I loved your mom,” Gabe said, and Anya thought he might be crying too. “She was wonderful.”

“She was,” Anya sobbed. “She really was.”

Anya didn’t really know how it happened, but then Gabe was sitting beside her, and his arms were around her, and she was crying into his chest for what felt like hours as he rubbed her back with soft, slow circles.

“I hit my head,” she mumbled. “I thought I just needed to sleep.”

She knew she wasn’t making sense, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Do you want to sleep?” he asked. “Do you want to go upstairs?”

But she didn’t; she couldn’t move. Her body felt like jelly, and she was afraid that if she tried to stand she’d slide down onto the floor. She couldn’t think of the last time someone had held her like this—or the last time she’d cried like this. She felt empty, but not in a bad way. Like she was a sopping-wet towel that had finally been properly wrung out. She might be wrinkled and twisted and wrong, but at least she wasn’t so heavy anymore.

She sat up slowly, wiping her eyes, not wanting to think about how blotchy and unkempt she must look. She opened her mouth to say something, but she had absolutely no idea what to say.

His mouth twitched, the tiniest hint of a smile.

“So,” he said. “It’s nice to see you.”

She let out a small laugh, like someone had pulled the sound out of her. He looked so tired. It occurred to her how much he must have traveled in one night—a flight from LA to Seattle, a long drive to Anacortes, an early-morning ferry to Orcas.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asked.

“Last night?” He looked down. “Not much. I was pretty worried.”

Her eyes stung again. She needed him to know that she was going to be okay.

“Can we have breakfast?” she asked.

His face flooded with relief. “I cooked.”

“I know.” She put her hand on his knee. “It smells so good.”