Page 60 of Derivation

“What?”

“It’s hard, living with us, isn’t it?”

“No, I love living with you guys.”

“You can love it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. We’re a lot, I know. We’ve known each other forever, we’re around each other practically all the time, and we’ve never lived with someone who wasn’t part of the business, so it’s hard for us to remember sometimes that you weren’t. Now, you technically are, so that’s good.”

“I’m not really, though. It’s your company, Sarai. Violet is only paying me pennies because it makes this whole thing legal, and so far, all I’ve got is some notes about a wearable that I’ve yet to even start actually designing. I guess it can be a little awkward sometimes because I feel like I’m walking in on friends talking, but then, you’re all shifting gears to business talk, and I don’t have anything to add.” Gabi leaned back on the sofa. “You know, it wasn’t always easy for me to make friends.”

“No? Why?” Sarai asked, leaning back, too.

“Sarai, I was born here, but I moved to another country before school started. My parents had different positions in different places. When my dad was between postings, we’d come back here, yes, but I was seven, and I was the new kid in school. I showed up that first day speaking Spanish because my previous school was in Spain, and I was made fun of until he got another job. Then, it just kept going like that. I actually went to two different international schools. There was the one in Paris, yes, but we’d lived in London before that, so I started high school there. I stopped trying to make friends when I was young and got a little shy because it was easier to blend in than to try. That’s why that gap year was so important to me.”

“I don’t get it. You mean why you wanted to travel by yourself?”

“No, why I wanted to reinvent myself a little. When I met you and your friends in Amsterdam, I was still, I don’t know, warming up, but I wanted to come out of my shell. I wanted to meet people my age and have fun.”

“Did you?”

“Somewhat, yeah. When college started, I was making real progress. Then, my dad died, and everything changed.”

“You perplex me, Gabrielle Durand.”

Gabi laughed and asked, “How come?”

“Because you showed up in Amsterdam practically bragging about all that sex you’d had already.”

Gabi laughed again and said, “I did not brag.”

“Oh, yes, you did.”

“I wanted you to see me as an adult, Sarai. I could tell you saw me as a kid, but I wasn’t a kid. I might have only been eighteen, but I was a mature eighteen, and I don’t mean that because I’d had sex a few times.”

“How was it that you didn’t really have friends, but you had a girlfriend?”

“I didn’t say that I didn’t have any. I said that it was hard to make friends. I had a couple near the end of high school. One of them was that girlfriend.”

“You have friends now,” Sarai said.

“I do?”

“Yeah, of course you do.”

“You called me your roommate last weekend.”

Sarai sighed and replied, “I know. I’m sorry. I got a little tongue-tied. I don’t know why I said that.”

“You made it sound like I just stole Arlowe’s room and tossed you a crumpled-up rent check before I closed the door in your face.”

Sarai laughed and said, “I did not.”

“Pretty close,” she argued. “Made me feel like I didn’t belong at that party and should’ve just stayed home.”

“I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I felt bad and told Jen and Haley the whole story later.”

“The whole story?”

“Yeah, about Amsterdam, then how we met again at the bar, and how you live with us now, but I used the word friend this time. I felt worse when you walked away with Arlowe, so I went inside and got a drink that I hadn’t planned on, thinking you could just drive us home. I felt like shit when Enya told me that you and Arlowe had already left and that she was driving me home instead.”