“But—” I don’t understand. “You’re here withSadie.”
“And you’re here with Ian!” Gabe explodes, looking at me like I’ve totally lost it. “Jesus Christ, Molly. Obviously you’ve moved on. You can’t possibly be angry with me for trying to do the same thing.”
“I’m notangry,” I protest, though as I say it I realize that’s not true at all. Suddenly everything from last fall comes back in a rush: the loss and the loneliness, the dull certainty that he’d moved on without a backward glance, while—just like always—I was the one facing the fallout. “I needed you. And you weren’t there for me.”
Gabe’s face darkens at that, confusion and worry. “Needed me how?” he asks urgently. “Molly, whathappened?”
I shake my head again, knowing there’s no way to say it. Knowing in my bones that it’s time. I look at him for a moment, standing here tall and honest in the most beautiful place on the planet. “I was pregnant,” I finally say.
For a second Gabe just blinks at me, uncomprehending. “Wait, what?” he asks, shaking his head. “When?”
“When I got to school,” I tell him. “Last fall.”
“Last fall—” The realization creeps up his face, his lips thinning half a second before his eyes go sharp and wary. “So it was—?”
“You and me,” I say. “Yeah.”
He tilts his head to the side. “But we were careful,” he says, “right?”
“I thought so,” I say, shrugging. “I guess we weren’t as careful as we thought.”
“And you—?” Gabe doesn’t finish.
“I had an abortion,” I tell him. My voice doesn’t waver at all.
Gabe doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then his eyes go wide. “Holy shit,” he blurts out, like he’s only just connecting the dots for the first time. “You’re saying that’s why you called me? And I didn’t—fuck, Molly.” He shakes his head. “I am so fucking sorry.”
I shrug. All around us crowds shuffle along the observation deck in a colorful blur: families with balloons tied to their strollers, groups of teenagers shoving each other playfully, two middle-aged women using a cell phone camera to fix their wine-colored lipstick. I wonder if this is how I’ll remember this trip, as a long series of emotional crises conducted while strangers Instagrammed themselves all around me. “You didn’t know,” I remind him, all the hot fury burning just a moment ago drained suddenly out of me. “I could have kept trying.”
“It’s not your fault.” He lifts his hand to the back of his neck, like he’s checking to make sure his skull is still attached to it. He looks shell-shocked.“Shit.”He wraps his fingers around the guardrail and stares out at the city for a moment, like we’re back in the pine-scented quiet of Star Lake and nothere, in this bustling, cacophonous place. It’s full sunset now, the sky red and dripping; all around us, the world seems to glow. “I am really, really sorry you had to do all that on your own.”
“I wasn’t alone,” I promise him. “My mom and Imogen were both fantastic.” Even Roisin, who I barely knew back then, somehow seemed to figure out something was going on—she brought me Rice Krispies treats from the dining hall and a month-oldCosmoshe’d filched from the big recycling bin on our floor. “I was way luckier than a lot of people would have been.”
“I know,” Gabe says. “But still, I wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have tried to get you to change your mind or anything, I don’t want you to think that. I just wish I’d been there to hang out with you. I would have brought you all the fucking Red Vines in Massachusetts.” He lets a breath out. “I’m just sorry I wasn’tthere.”
He wraps his arms around me then, squeezes; I hold on just as tightly, breathe him in. “I’m sorry too,” I say into his chest, not even sure which part of it I’m apologizing for. All of it, maybe. But underneath the regret relief is blooming, slow and soothing: telling the whole truth is like aloe on sunburn, the balm of finally being totally seen.
I take a step back, or try to; Gabe catches my waist and holds on, like he doesn’t want to let me go. I hesitate as the air between us changes, getting heavier; my breath catches in the cavern of my chest. When he looks at my mouth I canfeel it in my elbows, the hot zing of desire. When my forehead brushes his cheek I can feel it behind my knees. It’s like my heart is being squeezed for juice as we stand here, dripping wet and sticky down my ribs.
Still: “We can’t,” I remind him again, though it feels physically painful to say it. But I’m not going to do that to Ian, even if I know—and I do know now, with a certainty that thuds like my own heartbeat—that things between us are never going to be exactly right. And it’s not because of Gabe, or because Ian isn’t wonderful. It’s because it’s time to be who I really am.
Gabe holds me for a minute longer, strong and steady. Then he squeezes one more time and lets me go. “We’re good?” I ask as the sky detonates in the distance. “For real this time?”
Gabe smiles at that, just faintly. Then he nods. “Yeah, Molly Barlow,” he promises, and I believe him. “We’re good.”
It’s almost ten by the time we finally make it back to Ian’s parents’ house, the wide, leafy street gone purple-dark and quiet. Both of us pause on the doorstep like there’s some kind of invisible force field preventing us from going in, Gabe shoving his hands into his pockets and me rubbing my arms against the chill. I want to stretch this moment out as long as possible. I want to cup it in my hands to protect it like a flame.
“Look,” Gabe says. We were silent all the way home on the Metro, up the steep hill back to the house, and his voice sounds deeper than I think of it as being, more grown-up. “Can I just—” He breaks off, taking a step toward me. Thinking again. “I don’t want to do anything out of line. I just want—”
“Yes,” I say, popping up on my tiptoes and wrapping my arms around his neck, hard and impulsive; Gabe holds on so tight and desperate I almost can’t catch my breath. I want to unzip my body and put him inside it, for us to become one person. I feel like I can’t possibly get close enough.
I don’t know how long we stand there frozen in place like two magnets, Gabe’s hand on my neck and my face pressed into the hollow at the center of his rib cage, breathing in his warm, slightly sweaty smell. All I want in the world is to keep him. But I know that he’s not mine to have. We’ve never quite managed to get it right, me and Gabe, the two of us all near-misses and missed calls and dangling conversations. I still love him so ridiculously much.
“Okay,” I say finally, taking a step back and breaking the moment, knowing I have to say good-bye. “Um. Travel safe, yeah?”
Gabe nods, clearing his throat. “Yup.” He and Sadie have an early morning flight, need to be at the airport before seven; on one hand I’m sorry I won’t get a chance to see her off properly, but on the other I can’t imagine what I could possibly say that wouldn’t taste like a lie or a betrayal. I’m adamage doer, no matter hard I try not to be. Maybe everybody is, in some way. “I’ll see you around, Molly Barlow,” he says quietly.
“Yeah,” I promise, swallowing down the longing, holding my hand up in one last wave. “I’ll see you.” The tips of our fingers brush again, so lightly I think I might have imagined it, in the moment before I turn and go inside.
