“I’m sorry,” he said instead.
Michael gave a curt nod, and the silence stretched between them, taut and frustrated.
Then, after barely thirty seconds, Michael sighed, and spoke again.
“It’s nice here.”
Griffin looked over at his friend, who was gazing across the park, taking in the squared-off trees, the fountain nearest them, the people passing through. Anyone else would think the change of subject was strange, but not Griff, because Griff knew Michael, and Michael hated to fight. Hated a harsh word, a tense moment. Even now, when his fiancée was basically threatening to call this whole thing off, when Griffin had said something to make it worse and not better, Michael wanted to keep the peace.
It’s nice herewas basically his way of saying,I’m letting what you said about her go. I’m going to talk about something else while the tension wears off.
“Mm,” said Griffin.
“Don’t you think?”
Griffin narrowed his eyes at the ankle-height arches that surrounded each patch of grass, tiny fences like those hard-to-see signs on the sides of buildings. Form, form, form.
“It’s fine,” he said.
Michael scoffed, kicked Griff’s foot lightly. “You should be appreciating this. Paris. Traveling. This is a big deal for you. Don’t let—”
“I didn’t come here to sightsee.”
Griffin had always been terrible at peacekeeping. But also, he was sensitive to this—Michael’s concern over how infrequently he left home. For a few years now, Griff had been cultivating the lie about a newfound fear of flying, which had worked pretty well for forcing Michael to come to him for occasional visits. For this wedding, though—Michael’s wedding—of course there was no question about whether Griff would come.
Another, shorter stretch of silence, and then Michael took out his phone, swiped across the screen, and tapped something in.
“Used to be called the Place Royale,” he said, reading off whatever page he’d opened. “This park, I mean.”
Griff said nothing, an electric pain shooting from his left hip to his left shoulder. This was suddenly so familiar: this pain, sure, but also this conversation. He thought of Michael, sitting in a teal-colored vinyl chair in an antiseptic-smelling room, reading aloud. His own life split in two, and he would still sit there, sometimes for hours on end, trying to sew up Griff’s.
“It’s an actual square. That’s interesting, right? 140 by 140.”
“Yeah,” said Griffin, a catch in his throat now. He breathed through the pain in his side.
He should have asked for her number. Her plan.
“Victor Hugo lived in one of these places,” Michael said, looking up from his phone and squinting at one of the facades, as though he knew which one. “Know who that is?”
Griff shook his head, but he squinted at the building, too.
“He wroteLes Misérables,” Michael added.
Mizz-err-ah-blays, he pronounced it, which Griff was pretty sure wasn’t right. He’d listened to a lot of French people talking into his earbuds, ever since he’d heard about this wedding.
But Michael always tried. Tried so hard at everything.
No matter what, he kept trying.
“Don’t know it,” Griffin choked out, but he was thinking about the last twenty-some hours. Being on that plane, checking into that hotel, walking a city with street signs that made no sense, Michael knocking on his door at four a.m.
He was disoriented, overtired, aching. His mind scattered and susceptible, forgetful of the things he’d worked on before he came here. He’d been focusing on the wrong things.
He hadn’t been focused enough on being Michael’s best man. On being the best for Michael.
He hadn’t been trying hard enough. Knocking on that door without a plan, not getting her number. How was that being there for Michael?
“Hunchback of Notre-Dame, too. You know that one, dude. We saw the Disney movie,” Michael said. “At my cousin’s that year for Easter, remember? When we were like nine.”
