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“Oh, no, Gabriel. I didn’t know. I thought you were okay.” Remy laughs at Maggie Smith, then cries some more. “I really thought you were okay. How did I not notice?”
“I never wanted you to notice, Remy. It’s the best news that you didn’t.”
“Oh myGod, it is not the best news. I’m supposed to love you. You’re supposed to notice things.”
“Trust me. It would not have made anything better if you had.”
“You can say it, though,” Remy insists. “You can just say what happened. You know that, right? It’s okay to say it out loud.”
I tiptoe out and go back to the guest bedroom. On the way, I pass the kitchen. Mason wraps his arms around Charlotte from behind, his chin on her shoulder. “This is so fucking hot, you sweet little thing.”
“It’s macaroni.” She turns her head to kiss his cheek. “It’s noodles and cheese.”
“It’s hot.” His voice softens. “I want to see you with our baby.”
Can I…even have that with Gabriel?
I don’t know.
For the next few days, Mason’s penthouse is all emotions, all the time. Gabriel cries in the kitchen, laughing at Jameson while tears run down his face. “This is the fucking worst. You’re not even funny. Oh my God.”
“You’re hilarious. You should do stand-up,” Jameson says. “You’d burn the house down.”
“Bringthe house down. Please, God, no more fire jokes.”
He cries in Mason’s small library, a photo album propped open on his legs, Mason looking at it with him. “You were so good at it. Look at your medal.”
Mason puts a hand on Gabriel’s back. “They gave everyone a medal. I wasn’t anything special.”
“Yeah, you were. You were fast. And you loved it. I wanted to love it, too. I was going to go out for the team.”
“Jesus, Gabriel. You’re going to make me—stop. You hate nature trails. You’d have hated cross-country. Fuck,Ihated trails.”
“You ran on the road all the time.” Gabriel turns a page in the album. “All the time.”
He cries in the heated pool when we all go out one afternoon, the autumn air cool and the water warm.
“I didn’t know how heavy I felt until just now.”
“I knew,” Jameson shouts from the hot tub.
I hold him in the water and feel a million miles away.
It’s good. It’s normal, really. Sometimes people can’t feel their feelings until they know they’re safe, and it’s obvious that Gabriel didn’t.
Not until now.
He had to step in to save his brother, and he never had a chance to let go.
I’m happy for him, as much as a ghost can be happy.
Lydia and Nate circle around one another, bickering and teasing and going off to separate corners of the penthouse and making up again. Nobody makes any attempt to hide what’s going on from them, least of all Gabriel, and I think that’s good, especially for Nate. He might have some feelings come loose one day, too.
I’m the one who’s not normal.
A week after Gabriel rescues me from the FBI, I don’t get out of bed. It’s the day of my dad’s funeral. Lydia didn’t want to go. Catherine’s going to be there for our mom.
This goes on for an hour, maybe two, before Lydia knocks on the guest bedroom door and comes to perch next to me.
