Page 83 of Our Last Resort

More images.

Of Gabriel, who went to wash his hands right away. Who assured me that everything would be okay.

Gabriel, who, the next morning, couldn’t tear his gaze from Sabrina’s body.

Who said: “Sabrina, we—” and never finished his sentence.

Sabrina, we had a fight?

Sabrina, we did something terrible?

I take a sip of coffee.

It’s good.

Who gives a fuck, right?

But it is.

I’m not going back to the hotel.

Harris made it clear that he wouldn’t look kindly upon anyone who left the Ara. Sure. But there is simply no way I’m going back to the suite. I mean, what am I supposed to do?

Confront Gabriel about the hair clip?

Pretend nothing happened? In a few hours, lie down in the bed next to his?

For the first time in my life, I can’t imagine sharing space with him.

The feeling is odd, foreign. There was a time when he only had me, and I only had him.

Somehow, that was enough. We made sure it was.

Like at his wedding. Annie was an only child, but each of her parents had multiple siblings, and those siblings each had multiple children, so her side was all aunts, uncles, and cousins. Gabriel’s side was me.

His engagement to Annie was short. Those two planned their wedding in three months, with the help of Annie’s parents and, crucially, their money.

Annie’s inherited wealth was behind every detail: Annie’s custom-made dress, Gabriel’s lovely tux, the reception at a former brickyard in upstate New York by the Hudson. It should have been impossible to book that venue with less than a year’s notice, but Annie’s mother pulled some strings, possibly bribed a wedding planner or two, and there we all were, on a gorgeous and muggy afternoon in July, watching Annie walk down the aisle.

Was Gabriel a little too quiet for a happy groom? I’d pushed the idea out of my mind. What did I know? It was the first wedding I’d ever attended. Gabriel must have felt overwhelmed. I couldn’t blame him. He had to hold his own amid Annie’s boisterous family, her rowdy cousins, her father and his interminable, corny speech.

As dinner was winding down, and while Annie posed for photos with her bridesmaids, I found him off to the side, gazing at the Hudson. I tapped his shoulder, reached for both of his hands. He squeezed them back.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

Gabriel looked in the distance at his bride. Her strapless dress, her bare shoulders, her professional makeup, her hair pinned back on the nape of her neck.

“Really good,” he said.

It sounded like the truth. After leaving Émile, marriage was the biggest leap of faith Gabriel had taken. In the yellow light of a New York State sunset, a slight breeze in his hair, he seemed—perhaps for the first time in his life—sure of himself.

“I’m happy for you,” I said.

I’m exhausted. The coffee is good, but it’s not helping.

I take it with me and drain the cup as I walk along Main Street.

One of the two motels beckons me.

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