Page 94 of See You Next Tuesday

And he was so beautiful—he was always so beautiful—but the way he smiled at her right then, the radiant joy on his face? Anya didn’t know if she’d ever seen someone so happy. She was overwhelmed by the notion that she could make someone this happy—especially someone she loved as much as Gabe.

“Can I ask you something?” he said. “You can say no. It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“What is it?” She squeezed his hand.

“Will you sing your mom’s prayer?” he said softly. “The one from Vieques?”

“The shehechyanu?” Anya’s voice caught. She hadn’t sung that prayer since her mother died.

Gabe nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this grateful to be alive.”

Text message transcript: Anya Katz and Kira Liu

Kira [1:14pm]: Happy Election Day!!!

Kira [1:14pm]: How’s it going so far? You crushing? Is my aunt gonna be mayor?

Anya [1:15pm]: Probably not since she’s running for county council, but she’s quite beloved so I can’t rule it out completely

Anya [1:15pm]: It’s going okay! Lowest turnout race I’ve ever seen, and it’s all mail-in ballots, so not really that much to do?

Kira [1:15pm]: There’s never anything to do on e-day, worst day of the race

Kira [1:16pm]: Any sense of when you’ll know something?

Anya [1:16pm]: A few hours, I think?

Anya [1:16pm]: The county clerk said she’d call me around five

Kira [1:16pm]: Cool, I’ll give you a call after that

Kira [1:17pm]: I want to run something by you

Anya [1:17pm]: !

Anya [1:17pm]: How mysterious

Kira [1:17pm]: Lol

Kira [1:17pm]: Talk soon

Text message transcript: Gabe Hunt and Hal Robbins

Hal [3:56pm]: Gabe. You haven’t returned my voicemails

Hal [3:56pm]: When can we talk? It’s urgent

Gabe [4:09pm]: Sorry about that, I’ve been traveling

Gabe [4:09pm]: I can call you in an hour or so

Hal [4:10pm]: Good. Speak to you then

Get-out-the-vote weekend flew by in a blur of phone banks and door knocks and Bobbie’s batches of lemon bars, which she baked rather more begrudgingly than she had before she found out about Gabe and Anya. Anya had never worked an all-mail GOTV before. It was so much simpler to track which ballots had already been mailed than to hound voters again and again to elicit promises that they really would go to the polls. Sierra and her band of volunteers were steadfast and militant in their march toward what they felt was certain victory; Anya didn’t have the heart to tell them she thought a win was a long shot. But then, there’d been years when Anya had been sure that nothing would ever happen between her and Gabe. Sometimes long shots worked out.

It felt impossible that just over a month ago they had never kissed, had never stayed up all night laughing and whispering, had never fallen asleep in each other’s arms. It felt equally impossible that they could grow even more close, but something palpable had shifted in these last few days since they told each other they were in love. It felt steadier to Anya, but also scarier? Gabe seemed to need her even more urgently, pulling her into hallways between call shifts, pressing her against the wall and kissing her as he ran his hands over her body, speeding on the drive back to the cabin at the end of the day, where they’d stay in bed for hours, then heat up dinner at ten or eleven p.m., whenever they emerged.

Anya was happy—she was deliriously happy. And Simone assured her this was all totally normal, this was precisely what Simone and Kira had been like in the beginning too. But something about it felt volatile to Anya, like there was no way to sustain that much heat without an inevitable combustion. It was such a wild swing from the lows of losing her mother to the highs of being with Gabe; sometimes Anya felt like she couldn’t quite find her footing. But whenever she started to spiral, Gabe would take her hand, or make a little joke, or bring her a blueberry muffin. He always brought her back to earth.