Page 106 of Derivation

“I’m sure, yes.” Gabi smiled at her. “Do you need any of my reasons?”

“No.” Sarai chuckled. “I do need a bite of your burrito, though. Yours looks better than mine.”

Gabi pushed her own paper plate over toward Sarai and waited for Sarai to slide her plate over toward her. Then, they ate in silence for a few minutes, and Gabi looked over at the playground, where she saw a swing move subtly in the breeze.

“Want to do something after we eat?” she asked.

“What did you have in mind?” Sarai asked back.

CHAPTER 28

“How did we squeeze so much in? I swear, it felt like I was there for, like, an hour,” Gabi said.

“I know. I think we were in intense tourist mode. You had twenty things on your list, and I wanted you to see as much as you could. Plus, it was Amsterdam, so I wanted you to experience going out at night. I think we slept for a few hours in there at some point.” Sarai laughed.

“Maybe you did. I don’t think I got any sleep. I was lying on that mattress on the floor, looking up at your dorm room ceiling, hoping that I didn’t talk in my sleep and no one had told me.”

“You worried about that?” she asked, laughing again as they walked over to the swings.

“I thought I might say something embarrassing.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Anything would’ve been embarrassing if I had been asleep while saying it, but I thought I might have a dream about you or something and end up giving my crush away.”

“What kind of dream would you have had, exactly?”

“I had pretty vivid dreams back then, especially if something big was happening in my life. That trip was pretty big. And I know what you’re really asking, but I doubt I would’ve dreamt about that. Maybe a kiss or something; I don’t think it would’ve been a sex dream.”

“Well, that’s disappointing,” Sarai replied.

“Yeah? You would’ve wanted to wake up to me moaning your name or something?”

“Yes,” Sarai said, laughing a little louder.

“What would you have even done about that? I can’t see the super cool, older than me Sarai Kaplan joining me on my floor mattress and going for it.”

“Oh, I would’ve just pretended like I heard nothing, but it would’ve been a massive boost to my ego.”

Gabi laughed and pointed to the swing.

“Sit.”

Sarai did as she was told and expected Gabi to sit down on the swing next to hers, but she didn’t. Gabi moved around behind her, and a second later, Sarai was being pushed by her date. She smiled softly at the feel of it. She hadn’t been on a swing like this in years; maybe since before high school. Sarai couldn’t recall her previous swing ride, but she knew she’d remember this one forever.

“So, this has been a pretty amazing second date,” Gabi said after a minute of nice silence.

“It has been, yes,” she agreed.

“And we’ve talked a lot about our past; that weekend, specifically.”

“Well, that weekend is our past,” Sarai replied.

“Yeah, because you didn’t come visit me in Paris or let me come back to Amsterdam.”

“I wasn’t in charge of you. You could’ve come back. I was leaving soon, and–”

“My point is…” Gabi interrupted. “I’ve been thinking about that weekend a lot, for obvious reasons, and last night, after we hugged at my bedroom door and I was alone, looking up at another ceiling, I asked myself whether I would’ve wanted things to have happened differently.”