“she could have dropped you both off. whar's the worst she can do? cry hysterically?"the gears on the ute get stuck at the lights and will pushes tom's hand out of the way and and shoves it into the correct gear."it wasn't her" he mutters after a moment."sorry?" tom says."she didn't cry""then what?"it's too quiet except for the quiet for the crap engine sounding like a lawn mower."i cried"luca bursts out laughing beside will."yeah, well i did" will says. "And it's not the thing you want to do in front of a bunch on engineers.”
“I wish everyone would stop crying, Tom. Uncle Joe would be so angry about it." But she's crying herself now. "He'd be so angry at us, Tom, for crying so much when all he did was laugh.”
“Come here,” she says.“No, you come here.”“I said it first.”“Rock paper scissors.”“No. Because you’ll do nerdy calculations and work out what I chose the last six times and then you’ll win.”Will pushes away from the table and his hand snakes out and he pulls her toward him and Tom figures that Will was always going to go to her first.”
“Anabel shrugs. “Then take an earlier flight today so you get to see her at the airport, stupid.”Tom shakes his head. “I came to see both of you. To spend time with my womenfolk because I miss you like hell.”They’re both smiling and he knows he has said and done the right thing and that’s enough for him. Anabel reaches over and hugs him. “You’re the best brother in the world, Tom.”When she pulls away from the hug, she slaps him on the cheek. “Are you over it now?” she snaps. “Let’s go!” she says, grabbing their mother’s keys out of her hands. “I’m sick and tired of you people living interstate and overseas from people you want to be with. You’re ruining my life! All of you!”
“You don't die. You just... get really angry and then after you're angry you hurt a lot and then the best thing is that one day you remember something she said or did and you laugh instead of crying.”
“Do you miss being friends with Santangelo?" I ask her after the lights are out and we're almost asleep."What makes you think were friends?""Everything."I hear her yawn."Being enemies with him is better." she tells me. There's a long pause and I think she's going to say something more but she doesn't and it's just silence for a long while.”
“How would you like it if I said to you, 'It kills me to say this, but you're actually a tiny bit beautiful?" he had asked, pissed off. She hadn't said anything then, which was rare for her. "Would you have been lying?" She said after a long silence. "Lying about what?" More quiet. "About me being a tiny bit beautiful.""Shit, yeah."-But later that night, he had sent her a message on MSN. Of course I was lying. The "tiny" bit part, anyway.”