Page 3 of This Is Why

Bailey studies Tyler for a long time. “Gabe looks just like him, doesn’the?”

I finally release the death grip I’ve had on my attention and look across the room. Why does he have to be so handsome? Couldn’t he have taken up drinking and smoking and aged horribly over the last couple years? That way I could continue to feel indifferent about him instead of this inexplicable desire to cross the room and be near him? It’s the same pull I felt when we were in Key West. It’s like we’re connected by an invisible cord that’s not just pulled taut between us, but shrinks incrementally each second, drawing us together.

“It’s almost spooky how much they look alike,” I say, answering Bailey’s question.

“How did you guys meet?” Michelleasks.

“It was when you went down to the Keys by yourself, right?” Bailey scrunches up her nose, trying to remember the bullshit story I gave her about the magical day Ty and I spent together—the one followed by him disappearing in the middle of the night with not one word spoken betweenus.

I nod. “I got it in my head that I needed to spend a week alone by the beach with nothing more than my bikini and a drink. I met Ty. The chemistry was amazing, but that could have been the pina coladas. We spent the day together. Then the night together. Then he disappeared and I never saw him again. Until now.” And every time I look at my son. And all those lonely nights over the years where I would replay our day together over and over before I fell asleep. But those things are neither here nor there.

Michelle sighs dreamily. “Remember when I kept running into David and you told us it was the Universe trying to get us together?”

“I do remember, but this is not that, my friend. This is an unhappy coincidence with an unhappier ending.”

Bailey sits up tall in her seat. “Oh, shit. Lex. He sawyou.”

“What?” My gaze goes right to Ty and damn it, his eyes are locked on mine with nothing but complete and utter recognition dawning across hisface.

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