Page 116 of Our Last Resort

Sabrina puts her hand on the door handle. At the last second, she seems to reconsider. She walks the five steps that separate her from Gabriel. This time, her hand lands on his shoulder. She leans toward him, and, swiftly, but with care, presses a kiss to his cheek.

It means so little, at their respective ages—Sabrina’s young, younger than he is, for sure, but she’s notthatyoung—a kiss onthe cheek. Sabrina will forget about it in a few seconds, he’s sure of it. But to him, it’s a gift he didn’t know to yearn for, a turn of events he wouldn’t have been able to imagine.

Gabriel doesn’t say it like that. He recounts the kiss chastely. “She gave me a little peck on the cheek,” he says. “It took me completely by surprise.”

His body language fills in the blanks for me. His pupils are dilated. He wipes his—presumably damp—hands against his shorts.

The door shuts behind Sabrina.

Gabriel knows he should be happy that it happened at all. He should treasure what he has, the memory of this woman’s lips on his skin.

But he sits on his bed in the empty suite, his knees weak with need. He wants more, more, more.

Which leads him to the third day.

On the third day, Gabriel and I are scheduled to go for a hike. But first, breakfast.

Of course, the Brenners are there, too. This time, no argument. They’re sitting in complete silence. William doesn’t even look at his wife. He stabs at his scrambled eggs, turns the pages of his newspaper brusquely. The paper bristles each time he flips over to a new section. When he turns his attention to the sports pages, they rip between his fingers.

Sabrina plays with her yogurt parfait but doesn’t eat. She keeps her eyes on her food. Her manner is muted, like she’s sorry for even being present. Like she wants to pay back the world for the air she dares to breathe.

“It broke my heart,” Gabriel says. “And it made me angry, too. I just felt like I should do…something.”

“So, what? You ditched me?”

Gabriel closes his eyes for a second.

“I wasn’t trying to…make anything happen. I just—”

“It’s okay.”

“No. Wait. I need to explain this.”

He searches for his words.

“Do you have any idea,” he says, “what kind of hell dating is, for me?”

Back when we still wrote to each other, visited each other, he’d occasionally hint at some kind of romantic (or, at least, romantic-adjacent) life. “I had drinks with a woman who works at such and such”; “I watched that show with [insert stranger’s name].” It wasn’t much, just enough to keep me from asking further questions. But now I realize that I don’t know, really, how much intimacy was involved, if any.

“Has there been—I mean, have you not—”

What am I trying to say here?

Have you not been with anyone in nine years?

I don’t just mean sex. Has there been no warmth in your life? No companionship?

He waves his hand in the air.

“There was a woman…seven years ago, I think? And a couple other ones after that. But I mean, nothing that lasted. Nothing good.”

Gabriel shakes his head.

“I still try, sometimes. But I never know what to expect. I’ll meet up with a woman, and all she’ll want to talk about is Annie. Or she has a podcast. Or she just wants to tell me she knows I killed her.”

He swipes a hand across his face.

“With Sabrina…I wasn’t planning to seek her out, or anything. But it had been so long since anyone had looked at me like that. Like I was…worth looking at. This is going to sound so stupid, but I wanted to be there for her. And I knew she wouldn’t talk to me if you were here. So, yeah. Sorry. I guess.”

---