Page 57 of A Lot Like Adiós
Chapter 13
With the interior of the car lit by the streetlamps over the West Side Highway, Gabe eyed Michelle in the driver’s seat and asked the thing most pressing on his mind.
“You wanna tell me why you own a car when you live in Manhattan?”
Michelle sputtered out a laugh. “How long have you been wondering that?”
“Since you picked me up at LaGuardia.”
Her lips curved in an easy smile as she watched the road. “I needed it when I was living in the Bronx, and it seemed easier to keep it, since I drive up to visit my family a lot. Sometimes I leave it there and take the train, but as you’ve seen, I have amazing luck at finding parking spots.”
“It must be brujería. There’s no other explanation.”
She laughed again, and the sound reached inside him and alleviated a weight he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying.
The day had been a whirlwind of emotions, but Michelle had been a steadying force for him through it all. It had also been that way when they were kids. After getting into it with his dad, he could always rely on Michelle to cheer him up.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering too,” she said.
“Oh?”
She cut him an apprehensive look, and he had a feeling he knew where this was going. “You said this morning that you hadn’t talked to your parents in nine years.”
“That’s right.”
“Did something... specific happen?”
He raised his eyebrows. “No one told you?”
“What do you mean?”
“My sister’s wedding. Your parents were there. Monica and Junior too.”
Her face scrunched up in thought. “Where was I?”
“In Paris with Jasmine.”
“Oh right. Something happened at the wedding?”
Gabe leaned back in his seat, stunned. “I can’t believe they didn’t tell you.”
Her face shuttered. “They knew how your leaving affected me, so I can only guess they made a secret pact to never mention you again.”
He reached over and put a hand on her thigh, sliding it up and down in a gentle, soothing motion. “I hate that I hurt you.”
“Likewise,” she said quietly. “I should have been a better friend.”
“You know, I used to fall asleep narrating emails to you in my head,” he confessed.
“You did?” She said it like she didn’t believe it.
“I missed you so much, Mich.” For some reason, in the darkened car, with the white noise of traffic all around them and the smoothly flowing Hudson River stretching alongside on the left,it was easier to confess the depths of his feelings for her. “Especially when it was quiet.”
She snorted, but her expression softened. “It’s never quiet when I’m around.”
“Exactly.” A smile curved his lips, unbidden. “You used to fill the silence, with stories, questions, memories, whatever. I always knew what you were thinking and feeling. And then, suddenly, I didn’t.”
“I emailed you,” she murmured. “More than once.”
