99 Days(61)

“Hey,” Gabe says, pulling a frayed gray polo over his head. I haven’t been in here all summer—haven’t been in here at all since everything first happened between us, actually, the night in May of sophomore year when Patrick dumped me.

I remember stumbling down the back staircase and into the kitchen, physically disoriented—it felt like a canyon had opened up between us, like in some old cartoon where a crack appears in the earth and the ground breaks apart all in the space of five seconds. Like strolling blithely off a cliff and not noticing until you look down. I stood there in a numb haze, barely registering the sound of the side door slamming shut, then the rev of the Bronco’s noisy engine as Patrick took off.

I didn’t realize I was crying until I saw Gabe.

“Hey, Molly Barlow,” he said, glancing at me once and then again more closely; he was making a turkey sandwich at the beat-up butcher block counter, twin slices of bread already laid out on a plate. His graduation was in a week and a half. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “No, nothing,” I said, wiping my face and thinking for a minute of claiming allergies before realizing he’d never believe me and that it didn’t really matter anyway. It was, after all, just Gabe. “Had a fight with your brother, we’ll work it out, it’s fine.”

“You people, had another fight?” Gabe put the knife down and licked mustard off his thumb. He looked genuinely surprised. “What the hell, huh? Like, are the rivers turning to blood?”

“Shut up.” I laughed a little, sniffled. “I mean, kind of. It’s the same fight, I don’t know.”

“About boarding school?” Gabe asked, then hesitated. “I mean, sorry, I’m not trying to crawl up your ass or anything.”

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Gabe said, crossing the kitchen to stand beside me at the sink. This close he was taller than I’d realized, my head just about level with his sternum. It was rare for us to be alone. “So . . . what?”

And I told him.

I told Gabe everything, about the recruiter and about Bristol, how all of a sudden Patrick and I had started speaking different languages out of nowhere like the freaking Tower of Babel or the French tapes Connie liked to listen to while she weeded her garden. How I didn’t know how to say anything to him anymore, didn’t know how to make him hear me. How I felt more alone than I’d ever, ever felt. “I didn’t even want to go to freaking Tempe at first,” I finished. “What’s in Tempe? Nothing. But I just. I just wanted to talk. And instead he, like . . . broke up with me.”

Gabe listened wordlessly, arms crossed and blue eyes focused. When I was finished, wrung out like a washcloth, he sighed.

“Look,” he said finally. “You know my brother. You know him better than anybody else, maybe. You know how he is. He gets something in his head and that’s the end of it, you know? He’s a f*cking donkey. He decides something’s not good for somebody—especially him—and that’s it. And you moving across the country, even for something awesome, even if it was something you really wanted to do? Definitely wouldn’t be good for him.” Gabe stopped then, just for a beat, and then he said it. “And I mean. For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow? It wouldn’t be so good for me, either.”

I stared at him for a second, not comprehending. “I—”

Right away, Gabe shook his head. “Forget it,” he said, looking shyer than I’d ever seen him—actually blushing, like he couldn’t believe what he’d said. “That was out of line, you’re my brother’s—”

“I’m not anyone’s,” I blurted. God, that was the problem, wasn’t it—like Patrick and I were one person, one soul or brain or whatever living in two bodies, so that whatever either one of us did had to be decided by committee. It felt suffocating, all of a sudden, or maybe it had felt suffocating for a long time and I’d just never noticed: You’re my brother’s. Like Patrick owned me. Like if he didn’t like something that meant I couldn’t do it, period. Bristol or anything else. “I’m mine, I mean. I don’t belong to—”

“No, of course, I know that.” Gabe shook his head. “You’re his girlfriend, I meant. Or, you were, I guess. Look, this is getting messed up. I just meant—”

“I know what you meant,” I told him, realizing in that moment that I did, just from the way he was looking at me. I glanced at the short hallway that led to his small, neat bedroom. I felt reckless and brave.

“Molly,” Gabe said, and his voice was so quiet. Down near the pocket of my denim shorts his fingertips brushed mine. His eyes had flecks of brown in them I noticed. I’d never been close enough to tell. When he ducked his head down to kiss me, his mouth was plush and friendly and warm.

“Holy shit,” I said, pulling back a minute or twenty later; my thoughts were careening everywhere, Gabe’s hands creeping up under my T-shirt right there in the kitchen of his house. I had never known that before, that having my stomach touched was a thing that could feel that good. I had never known I was this kind of person. “Okay, we should—” God, this was wrong, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this; it was supposed to be me and Patrick, a perfect moment right out of one of my mother’s dumb books. Not like this. Already I’d come too far to ever go back. “Holy shit, Gabe.”