Page 57 of A Night to Remember

“How do you think? I looked at his fucking browser history!”

I try to maintain focus on her, to keep her car keys and six-pack of organic low-sodium elderflower tonic water where I can see them, but my mind is spinning. Gabe was obsessed with me? He looked for me online? This information ought to terrify me, but instead I feel a weird giddiness, like when your teacher is announcing the winner of a school essay contest and youknowyou’re going to win. Or like when the editor of certain online science fiction magazine tells you he’s going to publish your story, not that I would know.

But this isn’t a D.A.R.E. essay contest or a magazine publication. I know Gretchen is trying to attack me, but instead of feeling chagrined, I feel… flattered.Chosen. This isGabe Wilson, the sweetest, sexiest, funniest guy I’ve ever met, and he wantsme. Has always wanted me. Even when I was a pretentious high school student insisting on reading books Ididn’t understand. Even when I was sweaty and smelled like french fry grease. Even though I’ve been keeping him at arm’s length ever since we got together.

He loves me, I think in an ecstatic rush. I feel elated and terrified, like I’m poised at the top of a roller coaster. Gretchen and the grocery store immediately fade into the background. All I can think about is Gabe.

Gretchen is going on and on—I catch phrases likedisinterested loverandemotionally detached—but I’m not listening. I turn from her abruptly and make a beeline to the exit.

“I was jealous before Isawyou,” she’s snarling at my back, “but no one would pick drab littleyouif they could haveme. He’ll come to his senses soon enough. And I’ll be waiting.”

I pause between the open automatic doors—unafraid, for once, that they will automatically crush me—and turn to stare into her furious eyes.

“Is that a threat?” I ask, forcing my voice to stay steady.

“You better believe it, bitch,” she replies. I sweep the store again for hidden cameras, then walk away.

He loves me.Gabe Wilson loves ME.

As soon as I get home, I slump into an armchair without bothering to take off my coat, bag of Meyer lemons still clutched in my hand. I stare in a daze at the opposite wall as if Gretchen really did clock me with elderflower tonic water. Mom looks up from the afghan she’s crocheting and says, mildly, “Everything okay, sweetie?”

“I ran into Gabe’s ex at the grocery store,” I begin. “She… she basically blames me for their breakup. She acted like he was never sufficiently intoherbecause he couldn’t stop thinkingaboutme.” Saying the words aloud intensifies that belly-deep squirm of excitement and terror.

Mom rests her work on her lap and pushes her reading glasses up to her forehead. “Do you think that’s true?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. I can’t keep a tremor out of my voice. “But I think… I think he might…” I can’t say the wordloveyet. Instead I simply burst out, “Oh, Mom, what am I going todo?” My heart starts hammering in my chest, sending vibrations up my throat that make me want to scream and throw up at the same time. Only a maniac would turn down Gabe Wilson. Gretchen knows exactly what she lost. But if Gabe and I stay together, then what will happen tome?

I turn to look at my mother, desperate for guidance. At first her eyebrows tilt up sympathetically, then her expression hardens.

“Kayla, do you love this boy?” she asks bluntly.

“I don’tknow!” I whine petulantly. I slump even further into the chair, letting my coat bunch up around my ears.

“I don’t believe you,” she replies. “I think you know how you feel and you’re scared. Your father was scared too.”

My eyes widen. She almost never talks about my father. She certainly has never compared us.

“We met in college. You know that,” she says, and I nod slowly. “He was a writer like you. Not stories,” she replies to my unspoken question. “Articles. He was a journalism major and editor of the student newspaper. Sharp as a tack and funny as hell. He could make me laugh without saying a word.” She smiles now, likely remembering some ancient inside joke.

“I thought he worked at the meat-processing plant,” I interject.

“He did, when you knew him. He went to college on a football scholarship. But he got injured our junior year and went on painkillers and, well, that was the end of that. He got addictedand eventually needed more and more just to get through the day.”

“I never knew that,” I say quietly. “I mean, I knew he slept a lot, and was sick a lot, but I didn’t know it was because…” I trail off. I try to recall him, but he’s mostly an indistinct blur hovering at the borders of my childhood. Except, of course, when he would read to me at bedtime. That’s when he would come alive: he could do any voice, from Gandalf to Ma Ingalls, explain any joke that went over my head or any technology a 21st-century kid couldn’t grasp. It’s thanks to him that I know whatportandstarboardmean, even though I live in land-locked Missouri, and that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe. And then he was gone.

“He was scared to get married. Scared to have you. He was afraid that he would end up letting us down because of the drugs. For a while I managed to convince him that we should face his problems together, but in the end he thought he knew what was best.”

“Well…” I start carefully, working to process this new information. For as long as I can remember, the only emotion I felt towards my father was anger. Not for my sake—I barely knew him—but for my mom’s. And I always assumed that she was mad at him too, though she never said so. But now I can hear her affection for him in every word she says. I try to tread lightly.

“He was right, though, wasn’t he?” I ask as gently as I can. “You might wish he was here now, but wouldn’t it have been best if you had never met him to begin with? It would have spared you so much pain. And you could have been the artist you were meant to be.”

“No,” she says sharply, startling me. She looks me straight in the eye. “I have no regrets. My art suffered because it wasn’tas important to me as the people I love.Heneeded me—youneeded me—and I couldn’t ignore that.”

She pauses to let her words sink in. I think of how I’d left my job when she’d gotten sick. I missed the job and was frustrated at home, but I’d never once resented her or questioned my decision. She was more important. It was as simple as that.

“You did what you had to do,” I reply. “Given the situation. Of course. And I’m so grateful to you for raising me. And of course I’m grateful to be alive. But still, don’t you thinkyourlife would have been better if you had never—if you could go back in time and tell your nineteen-year-old self?—”

“Kayla!No. Terrible things can happen no matter what choices you make. But I loved him—I still love him—and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Even though I know how it ends.” Tears start sliding down her face. I stare at her and try to understand, but her experience is totally beyond me. I simply can’t imagine having the courage to love someone you knew was going to break your heart.

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