Page 29 of A Night to Remember

That’s it. Just half an hour of Allison Ambrose’s misspent youth. Even the appalling fact of almost being attacked by three men barely registers with her now. But Allison was never the type to dwell on what might have been. I, however, feel like the room is spinning around me. It’s like my entire worldview has changed in a split second.

“I need to sit down,” I mutter, leaning onto a bar stool.

“Babe, are you okay?” Allison takes a step towards me, full of concern.

“Yes—no—I thought—so he didn’t take advantage of you?” I croak out in a hoarse whisper.

She laughs incredulously. “Gabe Wilson? Takeadvantageof me? Of course not! He was always so into you!”

“And you didn’t… you and he didn’t…”

“Kayla, what on earth are you implying?No. He was a total sweetheart. A perfect gentleman.”

He’s a sweetheart. AndI’mthe psychopath. Or, at the very least, an extreme asshole. Hands shaking, I pull out my phone and somehow use the Force to complete the multi-step process to unblock Gabe’s number. Recover our message history. Look, finally, at the texts from him that I had ignored that night. And it’s all there, everything I did and didn’t want to know:

I found Allison and she’s a mess. I think we should take her home. I can drive her or you can

Did you see my last message? I just helped her into my car. I’ll wait for you to come out

Okay, she’s going to start puking soon, I can feel it. I’ve got to go, but I’ll come right back, all right? And don’t worry, I’m totally sober—you know I would never drink and derive

I drop my phone on the bar and bury my head in my hands. He’s the boy I always thought he was—funny and kind and dependable, capable of producing a calculus pun at the drop of a hat—and I threw him away. I treated him like shit because I was so afraid of falling for him, and never once—never once—did I think about what that did tohim. He had only ever gone out of his way to be nice to me, to make me laugh, to please me. What must he have thought when I dropped him with no explanation? God, what must he have felt when I shouted at him at the café just a few weeks ago? Any normal person would have told me to fuck off. They certainly wouldn’t have turned around andhelped me save my house. I feel so enormously guilty that I think I might be sick.

“Head between your legs,” Allison says, instantly recognizing the signs. “Why are you freaking out? Did you not date him after high school because ofme?”

I nod weakly, bent over the bar stool.

“But I barely even knew him,” she continues, rubbing my back. “Why didn’t you just ask one of us what happened?”

“I didn’t want to embarrass you,” I mumble into my knees. “I didn’t read his texts from that night and then afterwards I blocked his number.”

“Oh, babe,why? I’m so sorry if I did anything to keep you two apart. I had no idea. It was nothing. It’s barely even a story.”

“I think I was just scared,” I whisper, too quietly for her to hear me over Jason’s thumping romantic-dancey-Eastern European beats. Queasiness sweeps over me in waves as I realize what I have to do.

“I have to talk to him,” I blurt out, snapping my head up so quickly that I almost clock Allison in the chin.

“You may want to wait a minute. It looks like he’s arguing with his friends,” Tom interjects.

“No,” I insist. “He’s a good guy, and I acted like a piece of shit. I have to clear the air with him. Now.” I lay my hands flat on the bar and push myself to my feet. I take a huge swig of my beer, for courage, and decide to take it with me as a security blanket. I have no idea what I’m going to say to Gabe. But my conscience, previously burdened by being attracted to someone who might have hurt my friend, now feels like a burning stone inside me. The only way I know how to cope is to come clean. He deserves that much. Even if he hates me for it.

“K—” Allison calls after me, but I’m already making my way across the dance floor, moving like I’m underwater. I feel a strange sense of purpose. I can see that he is, in fact, having some kind of altercation with Adam and Ryan Hutchinson, but feel no misgivings about interrupting. I stop just behind Gabe’s broad back and clear my throat.

“Wilson, can I talk to you for a sec?”

15

Gabe

No,Johnson, you cannot talk to me for a sec. This is the worst possible time. See those two guys behind me? They think you’re trash, becausethey’retrash, and one of them is in a position to take your house away just for spite.

This is what I think when Kayla comes up to me. This is what I try to communicate to her silently as she stares earnestly into my eyes.

Adam and Ryan both fall silent. “Speak of the devil,” I hear my brother mutter. I know he’s watching carefully to see what I do. But if I send her away, I’ll risk damaging whatever chance I may have with her. Plus that serious look on her face has me worried. Something inside my chest clenches. I make a choice.

“Not here,” I mutter gruffly. I take her by the arm, more roughly than I mean to, spin her around, and march her as far away from Adam and Ryan as we can get in this place. We wind up near the bathrooms, around the corner from the main bar and dance floor. I stop near a bulletin board advertisingused IKEA furniture and yoga from underqualified teachers. She wheels around and looks up at me. She doesn’t seem to have registered that I was fighting with Adam and Ryan, or that I’ve just treated her more forcefully than I ever have before.

“I made a mistake,” she says, clutching her beer bottle to her chest. “The night of Steven O’Connor’s graduation party, I saw you leave with Allison after we danced together. I thought you wanted to sleep with her because she was drunk. And because I put the brakes on. But I’m pretty sure I was wrong.”

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