Page 55 of A Night to Remember

“No,” I admit, taking deep shaky breaths. “But now I know why.”

It’s true that I’ve asked her to go to this stupid fucking dance with me maybe a hundred times. At first I’d tease her by havingSpringsteen’s “Hungry Heart” playing when she’d climb into the Navigator for one of our late-night rendezvous. Then I’d upped the ante by serenading her with a modified form of “Hungry Eyes”.

“I’ve got a hungry heart,”I crooned into her ear during lunch at the café,“I feel the magic between you and I-yah-yah-yaiiii.” She laughed and pushed me away.

“First of all, that doesn’t rhyme. Second, it should be ‘between you andme.’Meis the object of the prepositionbetween. That kind of thing drives me crazy.”

“So the whole falling-in-love montage inDirty Dancingwas ruined for you because of bad grammar?”

“Totally.”

“You know this could be an opportunity to do a little dirty dancing of our own,” I’d said seductively, kissing her fingers.

“I don’t think your family wants to see that,” she protested. “Besides, Jason might play that song, and I’d have to wrest the microphone out of his hands to explain the difference between the subjective and objective case. I might even use the wordsolecism.”

“My God. No one deserves that. Not even Adam.”

Though now I think he definitely does. Because even though my mom and dad and extended family might not be exactly welcoming, they are at least adults. They would treat my date with courtesy, whatever their private opinions might be. Adam, on the other hand, would likely treat her like a 49ers fan who blundered into a phalanx of Chiefs supporters. Kayla must have been trying to spare us all exactly this kind of scene.

My parents are still firing questions at both of us, but I don’t answer. The only person I can think about now is Kayla. Kayla, who felt the need to clear the air with me about a decade-old misunderstanding but then was compelled to lie to me to avoid poisoning my relationship with my shitty brother. And ratherthan respect her privacy, I had pushed her and pushed her and pushed her to tell me the truth. And protested when she wanted to keep our relationship discreet. And all but accused her of cheating on me.

“I have to go,” I mutter, trying to extricate myself from the relatives still clustered around Adam and me.

“This is about that woman, isn’t it?” I hear my father say sternly as I push past him in search of my car keys.

“Adam, can’t you leave him alone for once?” my mother says. “Gabe, where are you going?”

Good question. My first thought is to justget out, but as I steer the Navigator over my parents’ lawn, around the pick-ups and luxury SUVs parked helter-skelter in and around the driveway, I know that I have to see Kayla. I have no idea what I’m going to say to her, but just like the day I almost hit her, the day she came back into my life, I’ve put myself in the wrong, and I have to find a way to make it right.

The café is dead,predictably, and the few people who are there are more or less glued to their phones, likely monitoring Super Bowl updates. I spot Kayla towards the back, chatting with another waitress, her arms crossed in front of her, a water pitcher dangling from her hand. She looks, as always, impossibly pretty, from her sensible ponytail to her beat-up sneakers.

The bell over the door signals my arrival. She seems surprised to see me, but recognizes immediately that something is wrong.

“Can I talk to you a minute? Alone?” I ask her. She nods, hands the pitcher to her colleague, and leads me through the kitchen to what must be Meg’s office.

“What’s up?” she asks softly. “What happened to you?” She gently touches my forehead and I wince slightly. Adam must’ve landed a punch there, but it hadn’t hurt until now.

Instead of answering, I ask, “Jeff thought I wasAdamthat day, didn’t he? It wasAdamhe was protecting you from.”

Her eyes grow huge. “Gabe, I swear, I never had any kind of relationship with?—”

“No, no, I don’t think that.” I run my hands down her arms and lace her fingers through mine. “But he confronted you, didn’t he? Told you to stay away from me?”

She squeezes my fingers, but looks down to avoid my eyes.

“Johnson, it’s okay. He already told me.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says, looking at me again. “I hated not telling you, but telling you would’ve felt even crappier. I didn’t want to?—”

“I know,” I say, pulling her into a hug. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t let it go. I should’ve trusted you.”I love you so much, I think, rubbing her back as she wraps her arms around me. We stand like that for minutes, or maybe hours. I hold her, and she holds me.

I’ve spent so little time with her, really: stray moments here and there in high school, a few intense weeks now. The thought that she might soon leave again breaks my heart.

“Do you think there’s any way,” I begin, “that you would stick around a little longer? Just a few more months, until I pass the bar?”

She squeezes me tighter and nestles her head against my chest. “Don’t you think that would make it even harder?” She doesn’t have to say whatitis.Itmeans parting. Saying goodbye. Or goodbye for now.

It’s the first time she’s admitted, out loud, that our relationship is not just casual. I feel intensely relieved that at least I won’t be pining for someone who’s completely indifferent.I want to tell her that even though I like my work at the courthouse, I don’t actually care what fucking job I do. Or where I live. I just want to livewith her.

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