41. 41 Parker
41
41 PARKER
I LOVE YOU ALWAYS FOREVER
“I simply do not understand,” Simon said as we walked away from The Ledge, “how you have backslid so drastically, so quickly .”
I cut him a sidelong glare. “You know what I don’t understand?” I stepped around a couple that had stopped to kiss in the middle of the sidewalk, treating them to a glare, too. “Why my best friend feels like now is the time to call me out.”
Simon jogged a few steps to catch up to me. I put effort into slowing my step, just now realizing I’d been speed walking. He fell in beside me. “Now, now. Don’t be like that,” he said once he’d caught his breath. “You know I adore you—worship you, even—and want nothing but the best for you.” He ignored my skeptical look and continued. “Which is why I—”
“Which is why you’re in full support of my fleeing the scene before Gigi could see me.” I reached over and squeezed his arm. “Thanks, man. You truly are the best.”
He looked at my hand, then back to my face. Then, he stopped. Just stopped. In the middle of a crowded sidewalk. Raising his chin against the onslaught of swears and glares as the crowd parted around him, he said, “No.”
“Sorry,” I said to the disgruntled people as I backtracked to join him. “So, so sorry.” Once I reached him, I grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the flow of traffic. “What do you mean, no ?”
“No,” he said again, folding his arms over the rubber duck print of his button-down. “I did not cancel my Saturday night plans of an everything shower, a face mask, and a Love Island marathon, get all prettied up for the public, and drag my cute ass out of my apartment to watch you be all, Character growth? Don’t know her. ”
“Simon,” I started, but he put a finger up and shook his head. “Nuh-uh. You don’t get a pass here, doll.”
I leaned a shoulder against the cool brick wall and crossed my arms over my chest. My mind replayed the evening, from convincing Simon to go to the show, to the very moment the lights illuminated Gigi onstage. She’d been captivating, magnetic. From the first note, to the very last.
Closing my eyes, I relived the second she spotted me in the crowd. I still didn’t know how—there were hundreds and hundreds of people in the audience. But her eyes found mine as if she’d known I was there all along, she was waiting for the right moment to catch my eye. And, oh, had it been the right moment.
I could still feel the way her voice vibrated through me as she sang, burrowing in and filling me up. I could still feel the words making themselves at home.
I missed you .
I missed you, too , I wanted to say. I miss you.
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked Simon, dragging myself back to the present. “What would I have even said?”
His eyes softened. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he handed to me. I took it, puzzled until it blurred in front of my eyes. “Shoot,” I whispered, wiping at my tears.
“I think,” he said, putting his arm around me, “that there’s still plenty to say.”
Sniffling, I leaned my head on his shoulder. He hugged me tighter as my mind replayed the evening. After Gigi had spotted me, I ran. Too vulnerable to stand there any longer, but too stubborn, too masochistic to leave, I’d gone upstairs. There, I watched the rest of the show with my sister, ignoring the looks of concern she and Vaughn and Simon passed each other over my head.
One thing—one single thought—crystalized as I watched Gigi perform tonight:
I’d made the right choice.
Leaving her, forcing her hand, it had been the right choice. She was radiating happiness on that stage tonight. It was where she belonged. I knew—I knew —she wouldn’t have taken the gig if I’d stayed. Because, in her mind, it was me or the band.
I’m choosing you .
The memory was a knife beneath my ribs. Squeezing my eyes shut, I braced against the pain. That Gigi, the one who was so willing, so sure she had to sacrifice one thing she loved for another…if only she’d known about tonight. If only she could’ve seen into the future, glimpsed herself on that stage.
She’d have changed her mind then.
She’d have regretted choosing me.
I shook my head, moving away from Simon. Blotting at my tears with his handkerchief, I squared my shoulders. “No,” I said, certainty like iron in my bones. “There’s nothing left to say.”
Then, with one final, fortifying breath, I pushed away from the wall and walked away, leaving the could-have-beens behind me.