You said college wasn’t going to be goodbye, Gabe. Well, this sure feels a hell of a lot like goodbye.
Heart breaking, she’d ripped up the ticket—just a printout, but it gave her some small satisfaction—and told him to leave and never come back.
And he had.
Until now.
Michelle sat right there on the floor and pulled up the email again, staring at the words.
Hi Mich.
The greeting pinged the memory of her name on his lips, with a soft ch, like Mish. She kept reading.
It’s Gabe.
Her Gabe. Her best friend. Once.
It’s been a long time.
No shit, Sherlock.
I didn’t know Fabian had reached out to you, and we’ll understand if you pass on this.
The Victory campaign had been Michelle’s greatest professional achievement, and also the beginning of the end of her time in corporate America. Somehow, Gabe’s business partner had found out Michelle had worked on it, and Gabe was giving her an out. He didn’t think she’d take the job because of him.
But then there were those final words.
I’ve missed you.
“Fuck you, Gabriel Aguilar,” she whispered at the phone as tears welled in her eyes.
How dare he miss her? He was the one who’d left, the one who’d ignored every single email or text she’d sent him.
Sure, she’d accept some of the blame, but after the initial anger faded, she’d tried to reach out. To bridge the distance. And he’d never replied. And now, thirteen years later, he showed up in her work email out of the blue wanting to hire her?
Michelle had imagined this moment so many times over the years, often while lying awake at night, consumed by anxiety over things she couldn’t control, reliving the final moments of their friendship.
In some of her fantasies, she bumped into him by chance on the street, like she still randomly ran into former classmates all over New York City. Sometimes she saw him first, and she’d stop, turn, and say, “Gabe?” with a mix of wonder and surprise. A light laugh and an “Oh my god, how are you?” And then a hug, both of them shaking their heads, a sort of Wow, what a small world moment. Other times, she imagined him spotting her first, her name on his lips. In her dreams it was always her full name, Michelle, which didn’t make any sense, because once they’d gotten to middle school, he’d started calling her Mich most of the time.
When she was really in a mood, she imagined running into him somewhere like a bar, and stalking up to him with an indignant “You bastard!”
Never had she guessed he would reappear like this.
Michelle blinked hard and stared up at the ceiling. She hardly ever cried, and she certainly wasn’t going to shed any more tears over him. Taking deep breaths until the pressure behind her eyes abated, she dabbed at the corners with the tips of her fingers to wipe away the moisture.
She should say no. She was a freelance graphic designer now, and she didn’t even take marketing jobs anymore, no matter how much some of her current clients hinted that they’d be happy to pay for those services.
She should ignore him. After all, that’s what he’d done to her, wasn’t it? She’d been fine all this time without him. What could he possibly add to her life now?
Then a more disturbing thought occurred to her. If she turned him down, what was to stop him from hiring the rest of the team who’d worked on Victory? Clearly Gabe and his partner knew about her old firm, Rosen and Anders, which meant they could easily reach . . .
Nathaniel.
“Fuck,” she hissed between her teeth.
Not Nathaniel. Anyone but that backstabbing asshole.
Getting up, Michelle went to her dad’s desk and grabbed a yellow legal pad and a pen. She took them to the sofa and plopped down on the worn leather cushions. It was time to make a Pros and Cons list. Normally she’d involve Ava in this, but she didn’t want to tell her cousin about Gabe’s email just yet.
After writing headings on the page and drawing a line down the middle, Michelle wrote “Marketing burnout” in the Cons column. She’d quit for a reason, after all.
Below that, she added “Working for Gabe.” They’d collaborated well on school assignments, and on the long-running fanfic they’d never finished, but they were older now. Plus, she’d be working for him, and she didn’t know how she felt about that.
Pressing down hard with the pen, she scrawled “Screw over Nathaniel” in the Pros column. She’d be damned if he got a job that should’ve been hers.
Again.
The pen tip hovered over the page, and before she could overthink it, she wrote “Closure with Gabe” underneath.
Because even after all this time . . . yeah, she missed him too. And more than that, she wanted—no, needed—to know why. Why everything had gone so wrong between them. Why he’d left and never come back.
This might be her only chance to get it.
And then, in a fit of vindictive pique, she wrote, “Ruin his life.”
Okay no, that was too much. She crossed it out.
What did she really want?
She wanted to see him. To spend time with him. To find out if there was anything left to salvage . . .
With a lump in her throat, she wrote in tiny, reluctant letters, “Friendship 2.0.”
Their relationship was complicated, mixed with love and affection, anger and hurt, and unfulfilled desire. But when she thought about Gabe, it was like a cavern opened up in her chest, a gaping emptiness where her heart and vital organs should be. If she had the chance to replace even a bit of what she’d lost, she had to take it. Maybe if he could just be in her life again, somehow, she wouldn’t feel the ache of loneliness as acutely as she had since he left.
Sure, she had other friends. She had her cousins. But she didn’t have anything like the friendship she’d had with Gabe. Someone she could be silly around, and say all the weird ideas that popped into her head. Where she knew he’d never . . .
Well, she thought he’d never leave her. That they’d always be friends, best friends, forever.
She’d been wrong.
Michelle blinked hard at the list. How about that? The Pros column outweighed the Cons.
In the back of her mind, a plan began to form.
The new gym location would be in New York City, and Gabe would have to come back at some point. She could arrange to see him in person, but where? He wouldn’t have an office here. Would they meet at a gym? A café, where so many freelancer meetings took place? A hotel lobby?
Michelle couldn’t envision herself getting the answers she wanted in a public place. Gabe was squirrely when it came to talking about his feelings, and she wouldn’t put it past him to act like his silence over the last thirteen years had never happened. She needed to catch him off guard, to keep him in close proximity for longer than a consultation meeting. In the past, she’d let other friends crash on her sofa during their visits to New York, so it would be perfectly normal to offer the same for Gabe.
The plan solidified in her mind. This was it—she’d insist he stay with her, mostly to work on the project, but also to wear him down until he told her why he’d completely abandoned her.
The renovation on her bathroom was due to finish soon. Her tiny one-bedroom apartment was the perfect place to achieve the closure she so desperately needed.