Chapter Six #2
It’s not mature, he wanted to say, to do this at the eleventh hour.
It’s not smart to do it when we are in a different fucking country for this, when there’s a boat rented and a restaurant booked and a half dozen other spaces and events bought and paid for for the next seven days.
It’s bratty and thoughtless and if she leaves you over some forgotten conversation with a woman she’s not even related to anymore, then maybe you’re dodging a bullet.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead.
Michael gave a curt nod, and the silence stretched between them, taut and frustrated.
Then, after barely thirty seconds, Michael sighed, and spoke again.
“It’s nice here.”
Griffin looked over at his friend, who was gazing across the park, taking in the squared-off trees, the fountain nearest them, the people passing through.
Anyone else would think the change of subject was strange, but not Griff, because Griff knew Michael, and Michael hated to fight.
Hated a harsh word, a tense moment. Even now, when his fiancée was basically threatening to call this whole thing off, when Griffin had said something to make it worse and not better, Michael wanted to keep the peace.
It’s nice here was basically his way of saying, I’m letting what you said about her go. I’m going to talk about something else while the tension wears off.
“Mm,” said Griffin.
“Don’t you think?”
Griffin narrowed his eyes at the ankle-height arches that surrounded each patch of grass, tiny fences like those hard-to-see signs on the sides of buildings. Form, form, form.
“It’s fine,” he said.
Michael scoffed, kicked Griff’s foot lightly. “You should be appreciating this. Paris. Traveling. This is a big deal for you. Don’t let—”
“I didn’t come here to sightsee.”
Griffin had always been terrible at peacekeeping.
But also, he was sensitive to this—Michael’s concern over how infrequently he left home.
For a few years now, Griff had been cultivating the lie about a newfound fear of flying, which had worked pretty well for forcing Michael to come to him for occasional visits.
For this wedding, though—Michael’s wedding—of course there was no question about whether Griff would come.
Another, shorter stretch of silence, and then Michael took out his phone, swiped across the screen, and tapped something in.
“Used to be called the Place Royale,” he said, reading off whatever page he’d opened. “This park, I mean.”
Griff said nothing, an electric pain shooting from his left hip to his left shoulder.
This was suddenly so familiar: this pain, sure, but also this conversation.
He thought of Michael, sitting in a teal-colored vinyl chair in an antiseptic-smelling room, reading aloud.
His own life split in two, and he would still sit there, sometimes for hours on end, trying to sew up Griff’s.
“It’s an actual square. That’s interesting, right? 140 by 140.”
“Yeah,” said Griffin, a catch in his throat now. He breathed through the pain in his side.
He should have asked for her number. Her plan.
“Victor Hugo lived in one of these places,” Michael said, looking up from his phone and squinting at one of the facades, as though he knew which one. “Know who that is?”
Griff shook his head, but he squinted at the building, too.
“He wrote Les Misérables,” Michael added.
Mizz-err-ah-blays, he pronounced it, which Griff was pretty sure wasn’t right. He’d listened to a lot of French people talking into his earbuds, ever since he’d heard about this wedding.
But Michael always tried. Tried so hard at everything.
No matter what, he kept trying.
“Don’t know it,” Griffin choked out, but he was thinking about the last twenty-some hours. Being on that plane, checking into that hotel, walking a city with street signs that made no sense, Michael knocking on his door at four a.m.
He was disoriented, overtired, aching. His mind scattered and susceptible, forgetful of the things he’d worked on before he came here. He’d been focusing on the wrong things.
He hadn’t been focused enough on being Michael’s best man. On being the best for Michael.
He hadn’t been trying hard enough. Knocking on that door without a plan, not getting her number. How was that being there for Michael?
“Hunchback of Notre-Dame, too. You know that one, dude. We saw the Disney movie,” Michael said. “At my cousin’s that year for Easter, remember? When we were like nine.”
Griffin did remember. Michael’s parents had included him in a lot of stuff, once upon a time, including some holidays with their extended family.
At first, it was awkward, the introductions around unfamiliar rooms, usually made by Michael’s mom, Paula.
This is Griffin, she would say so cheerfully, everything a pleasant exclamation.
He’s a friend of Michael’s from school! His mom is working today, so he’s hanging with us!
People always made a little noise at that, an intonation to their welcomes that suggested their pity. But Griffin never felt like he needed anyone’s pity, because he had Michael for his best friend, and that was more than a lot of people had.
I shouldn’t care about the way she looks at me, he told himself. I shouldn’t care about her hair up, her earrings, her nerves on the day of her wedding. I shouldn’t care about that anxious look she’s trying to hide.
“The bell tower, yeah,” Griff said, picturing the movie now, the redheaded, crooked-faced cartoon sitting on top of a gargoyle, looking out at a pink-and-purple-washed city Griffin could barely acknowledge he was actually in. “I remember.”
Michael nodded, and it was as easy as that: a settled truce between them.
Griffin’s criticism of Emily, his sharp reply about sightseeing—all of it, forgotten.
Sometimes, Griffin thought, this kind of conflict resolution was all that he and Michael were capable of now.
Any other option had been scorched away on a single, horrifying night fifteen years ago.
Michael’s phone had gone dark in his hand, the distraction of playing tour guide for Griffin faded. His gaze gone to the middle distance.
Layla Bailey, Griffin thought, like an idea he had to get used to.
“I can’t imagine losing her,” Michael said.
Griffin watched as his friend’s throat bobbed in a thick swallow.
And he knew, he knew what would come next: could almost see Michael’s next words before he said them, little flutters of black ash blowing across this blue sky.
Griffin braced himself.
“Or maybe the problem is that I can,” Michael finally said, his voice quiet.
And right then, Griffin was glad to have forgotten his sunglasses.
Glad to stare out again, unsquinting, into this too-pristine park and the huge, gallant buildings that surrounded it, all of it bathed in a ruthless brightness that made his eyes water.
He would burn this place, this moment, into his mind.
He would have an impression of it every time he closed his eyes, so that he wouldn’t be able to forget it next time, no matter whether Layla Bailey was near him or not.
No more nighttime walks or knee-jerk reactions, no more stomping down windowless corridors to knock on some woman’s door without a plan. No more longing for a dark dungeon to hide in.
Not for the next week.
What Michael needed now was a different Griffin: a daytime Griffin, a Griffin who’d trained for this, a Griffin who slowed down enough to think straight, a Griffin who showed his full face in the light, no matter who stared at it.
And if that was a Griffin he couldn’t quite remember, then he would remember the other things: the teal chair next to his hospital bed, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the reason Michael could imagine losing Emily.
He would find Layla Bailey again, and if she couldn’t fix it alone, he’d find a way to fix it with her.
He could do it for one week.