by Anna Antonia
Did I make the wrong decision? Did I? Did I sink us before we had a chance?
Panic hummed low in my blood. I had to leave. Suddenly standing up, I declared, “I’m going to go for a drive. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Do you need me to pick up anything while I’m out?”
My mother’s gaze met mine. Her opaque stare didn’t give me a single hint as to what she thought of my abrupt abandonment of Dr. Phil’s gems. “Why don’t you pick me up a soda while you’re out?”
“That’s it?”
“That’ll do, Missy.”
“Okay. Coke it is.” I leaned over and kissed my mother on the cheek. Love for her washed over me like a soothing rain, dampening enough of my panic so that I could think straight again. I would’ve enjoyed nothing more than to have her come with me to Paris so we could see all the sights together.
But I already knew she wouldn’t come, no matter how much I pleaded, unless she could buy her own ticket. My mom had stubborn notions when it came to her only child and daughter.
She provided for me. I didn’t provide for her. Period. Except maybe the occasional soft drink. Knowing how my mom felt about things, how was I going to ever get her to accept a house from me?
I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
I changed into a pair of jean shorts, making a mental note to make sure I washed them so I could take them with me on my trip. Although it was warmer today than it had been, I grabbed my jacket just in case. I didn’t want to end up freezing my tail off along with my arms. A jaunty wave to my mother and then I was off.
Although I didn’t have many warm emotions when it came to my hometown, I had the urge to drive by familiar haunts. Maybe it was because I knew once I left town I’d never be the same again. The city library, of course, and my elementary school brought nostalgic joy. I skipped over my middle school because Hell should be avoided at all costs.
And then I found myself at Pine Woods.
I drove through the campus, seeing a few students here and there, but it was mainly empty. Parking my car near the ticket booth, I made my way to the bleachers. Nobody was around to see me or tell me to be on my way. The football field was also empty but standing at the top of the wide steps, I wasn’t seeing it as it was now.
I saw it as it was then.
I zeroed in on the exact area where Gabriel and his odious friends would sit every Friday. Each time he was in-between girlfriends, I remembered how the girls fought over who would get to sit next to him. Never in front of him, of course, but whenever his back was turned. A pinch here, a shove there, it was all classic catfight moves.
I still felt the jealous twist in my gut at the memories. I never understood how he could stand to be around those bitches, but apparently a short skirt never failed to work wonders.
If I only knew then what I know now maybe I wouldn’t have wasted my time with jeans and t-shirts? All that covered skin gone to waste.
Taking a seat, I’d forgotten how hard the metal benches were, but I hadn’t forgotten how much I’d wondered what it would be like to sit next to him, to have Gabriel’s arm thrown over my shoulders. To feel protected and treasured. Having had and lost it, I now knew it felt better than anything my teenage self could’ve imagined.
One last hug. One last kiss. It would never be enough.
Shivering, I leaned over my legs and worked to warm them up. I gazed blindly over the field, trying to figure out what I was going to do next about my career and the rest of my life.
I could pick up and move out west. Or maybe Texas. Austin was hot for the tech industry. Surely I wouldn’t have trouble finding something there. Unless I was blackballed by Lucas Gordon.
No, he’d probably be happy I was so far away from Gabriel. He’d probably give me a reference if I was so brain-dead to ask for one.
I’d rather starve than ask anything from him.
My thoughts meandered. I didn’t realize how long I’d been sitting there but the lights eventually came on over the field. It was long past time for me to get going. Goosebumps erupted and I was long regretting wearing shorts.
Yet, still I stayed.
Gabriel was right. I was a masochist for sure. All I could think of were the other sunsets when I’d waited for him.
I wrapped my arms beneath my knees and rested my head on them. I needed to get going but I lacked the basic energy to move.
Things will get better. They have to. I just need to take each minute as it comes. Eventually, I’ll get better. Eventually…
The bench vibrated beneath me. I heard the metallic thump of heavy footsteps. Someone was walking down over each row and heading in my direction. It was probably security telling me to get out. I turned around, apology hanging on my lips.
My heart flew out of my chest.
I touched the space, feeling it surge to life with agonizing speed.
“Gabriel.”
EIGHT
“Emma, if you’d wanted to play hide and seek again the least you could’ve done is let me know we were playing. That wasn’t very nice of you to keep that to yourself, you know.”
Although Gabriel’s voice was as light as ever, the stubble on his face and the circles under his magnificent eyes betrayed a much darker mood. He also wasn’t wearing his customary grey suit.
Instead, Gabriel wore unrelenting black.
And I’d never been more attracted to him then at that moment. I surged to my feet, gaze wildly looking around me and legs ready to take flight at any moment.
“My sweet girl, please don’t make me tackle you down the stairs. It will hurt and I’m too damned tired to make it sexy for you. We’ll both end up an even bigger mess and what will that accomplish, hmm?”
I didn’t know what to say. Nothing witty or cutting or sweet came to my tongue. So I stood there, waiting for Gabriel to reach me and take me to Heaven or Hell.
He shouldn’t be here looking like an avenging angel. Doesn’t he know it’ll just make me want him more?
My throat closed up the closer he came. I wanted to run to Gabriel so badly, to sit on his lap and let him cover me with a thousand kisses.
But I didn’t deserve that kind of comfort. Not anymore. So I stood there, prey to his predator. I should’ve dreaded the bite but I didn’t. I ached for it, for anything really, because Gabriel was here in front of me.
“I would ask you if you missed me but that wouldn’t be appropriate, would it? You know, because of the circumstances of you breaking your promise to me and running out on us.”
Gabriel hit the final step so that he was even with me. His gaze devoured me but he wouldn’t touch me. Tension and electricity thickened the tiny space between us. I crossed my arms awkwardly and looked back over to the field.
We stood that way for several minutes. My skin prickled. Being so close to him, smelling his delicious cologne, feeling the heat off his body, it was torture. I needed to be strong, distant. I pulled on the persona like an ill-fitting suit.
“Aren’t you going to say anything to me?” Obnoxious and terribly needy.
“You seemed to like the silence,” Gabriel replied smoothly. “As always, I’m only giving you what you wanted.”
I winced. I deserved it. I thought to walk around him but I was pretty confident Gabriel wouldn’t appreciate it. At all. So I stood there, leg out at an angle and body turned away from him. I felt as awkward as I looked.
And I’m sure I wasn’t fooling Gabriel one bit.
“You shouldn’t be here.” The stiff words were not ones I would’ve wanted to ever speak to him. Already I wished I could take them back.
I’m sorry. I’m missed you, Gabriel. You’re all I ever think about anymore.
“I can say the same of you.” A pause and then “Are we going to stand like this all night long or should we opt for something different, Emma?”
I casted a quick look over my shoulder. The one glance left me wanting. Gabriel was so hauntingly beautiful, especially with raw emotion staining his eyes
sinner’s blue. How long could I keep up the pretense?
Remember what will happen to Gabriel if you don’t. He’ll lose everything.
Arctic winter frosted each of my words. “It’s up to you.”
“Is it now? I was under the impression that everything was now up to you.”
There it was. Blistering anger. Hidden beneath his charming tone, it was ready to strike all while he wore a beautiful smile.
I ducked my head, feeling more than a little ashamed. My mother’s words came back to me. I knew then without a shadow of doubt she was right. I had made all the decisions about Gabriel’s life without his input. It was grossly arrogant to do and the worst of it was that I’d do it all over again.
I’d do anything to protect Gabriel—even from me.
So I lifted my chin and assumed the posture of someone completely in the right. “You should be in Melbourne.”
“And you should be at home sleeping in my bed.”
I turned to him and tossed a brittle smile his way. “I guess we’re both in the wrong place at the wrong time them.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“Don’t. Don’t reduce us to a pithy phrase.”
My confidence, shaky at best, disintegrated. Hunching my shoulders, I looked down at the immaculately maintained football field. My ill-fitting clothes of disinterest fell, leaving me emotionally naked. Now I couldn’t mask the sadness staining my words.
“I have to be like this. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t. You don’t have to do anything except what I tell you to do, Emma.”
“That sounds rather enlightened of you, Gabriel.”
My dry reply didn’t go over any better than before. “Cut the bullshit, Emma. You know exactly what I mean.”
I kept looking away, needing to hide my glassy gaze. “I guess I do.”
“Why the hell did you run away from me and leave me with this?”
Gabriel shoved his phone at me. I saw the text and winced anew at how cold and heartless it seemed. No, scratch that. Actually was.
Sorry. I’m okay. You don’t need to keep calling. Take care.
“Didn’t I tell you I was going to take care of it, Emma? Didn’t I swear to you that I wasn’t going to let my uncle break us up? So why didn’t you trust me enough to stay, Emma?”
The questions pierced my skin like a thousand needles. It was agonizing but not enough to kill me or make me drop to my knees. I somehow managed the impossible. I regained my calm and distant demeanor.
“I had to do what I did. You wouldn’t listen to reason and still won’t. You being here proves I did the right thing. Somebody has to make the tough decisions.”
Gabriel snagged me to him quick as a viper’s bite. His hand closed around my jaw gently but firmly. I was forced to look at my beloved and see what I had done to him. Unspeakable pain made his eyes bleak. He was dim, a flame nearly extinguished.
Yet, his gaze took in every single detail. There was no place to run. Not this time. The longer he looked at me the more I couldn’t continue to hide behind my calm, emotionless façade.
Everything I did is going to fall apart. How will I protect you then?
“Look at you,” Gabriel whispered while searching my gaze feverishly. “You came all this way and for what? To pretend that your heart isn’t breaking? I know it is, Emma, because I hear it.”
My feelings caught in my throat where they jabbed me like a thousand needles. It was excruciating to have one’s truths displayed so easily.
“Tell me your heart isn’t breaking, Emma. Go on. Tell me.”
I swallowed thickly. “If I told you that I’d be lying.”
He closed his eyes. I could finally see how much his control was costing him. Pale faced and shaken, Gabriel clenched his jaw and exhaled loudly. “Why couldn’t you trust me, Emma? Don’t you understand me yet? I’d do anything in the world for you. Anything.”
My stomach sunk like a stone. The agony in his voice made me feel like the worse woman alive. “Don’t you get it yet?”
“No, Emma. I don’t.”
“I couldn’t let you throw everything away. Not for me.”
If anything my answer enraged Gabriel past the splintered point of control. He took several steps back from me and punched the air. His foot connected with the bleacher as he kicked it over and over again. I’d never seen him so enraged, not even the night I came upon him drunk in his penthouse.
“How can you fucking say that to me? I love you, Emma, you selfish, blind, vicious woman! I love you more than anything in the goddamned world and you think that by leaving me like this that you were doing me a fucking favor? If that’s how you think, don’t ever do one for me again! I don’t need favors like that, Emma! Not from you!”
I locked my legs in place when all I wanted to do was go to Gabriel and hold him. Hurting him like this wasn’t something I ever wanted to do, much less see, but life wasn’t so kind.
It was hard and hateful—just like our star-crossed circumstances.
You deserve this. You deserve this more than anybody.
Trying to salvage the situation, I implored, “One day you’ll understand, Gabriel. And one day you’ll thank me for doing this.”
My love turned away. He yelled as loud and long as he could. It was the dirge of a fatally wounded man. I’d never heard pain expressed like that but I knew the sounds. They were ones I never let out but had felt every second since Lucas had left us with his ultimatum.
No. Even before that. They were the sounds of my breaking heart when I left his bed that first night.
Just like then, I stood back at the same crossroads. Was I going to go down the same road travelled again? Gabriel’s money, power, and position. Gabriel’s life, love, and happiness. What was more important?
I’d already packed up my life. I’d made my decision. I couldn’t break my word. And yet…
No.
I couldn’t keep myself away from Gabriel anymore. I couldn’t leave him to his pain as if I didn’t feel it too. Maybe I was damning us both but I took one step and then another until I was only a foot away. “Gabriel, don’t. Not for this.”
Damnit! Why couldn’t I get the right words out now?
His wild gaze scorched me for my verbal clumsiness. “When the fuck are you going to stop stomping on my heart? I have one, just like you, and when it hurts it bleeds. Just. Like. Yours.”
I whipped a hand up to my mouth. I didn’t have anything to say in my defense. All my reasons had seemed so logical, so right, but to utter them now would be profane.
Nothing makes sense to me anymore except making this right for him.
“I’m sorry, Gabriel. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted to…”
My words faded but my avenging angel was right there to fill in the dreadful space.
“You didn’t want to hurt me? What did you think was going to happen when you up and left? That I was going to think ‘It’s okay! Emma probably didn’t want to hurt me. I’ll just continue on with my life and live happily ever after!’”
I deserved his mockery.
“I’m sorry.”
“Emma, you chose to run away rather than fight for me. Did you even struggle with this decision or was it just easier to run away like you always do?”
His words slashed me but I did nothing to defend myself against their bite. I bled openly. “I’m sorry.” I dropped my gaze. “I really thought it was better this way.”
Silence and then “Would you really have never spoken to me again?”
Lie. Lie. Lie!
“Yes.” I couldn’t lie and that unshakable truth would hurt Gabriel the most. “I would’ve let you go completely.” I looked up and immediately wished I hadn’t.
NINE
Gabriel staggered back, apparently wounded beyond my darkest wishes. His back bowed and he dropped to one knee. My beautiful, tormented love raised a hand and held his head, shaking it as if he couldn’t believe t
he words I’d uttered.
Standing there, I’d never hated myself more.
Terrified of his rejection but more terrified of the hurt I’d caused him, I found a way to close the distance between us. I crouched before him, feeling that I’d aged a lifetime since we’d last been happy and blissfully in love.
The words came out halting, slow. “I’m sorry that someone like me loves you like this. You don’t deserve it. I want you to be loved by someone better, someone who’d never do this to you.”
Maddened agony glittered unashamedly in his eyes. “Fuck, Emma! Don’t you realize how much you kill me when you say things like that?”
“I’m sorry but I’d kill you more by staying. I’m poison, Gabriel. I kill everyone’s future. I can’t help it as much as I can’t change it.”
My mom and now you have both paid the price for having me in your life. I can make it up to her, but how will I ever make it up to you?
Bitterness bubbled beneath the surface as it always did. I wanted to be the person that enhanced the lives of those around me, but results didn’t lie. My mom was a brilliant student with a whole future mapped ahead of her before one discretion with a boy left her abandoned and responsible for an infant at far too young of an age.
And Gabriel…God, what more could I have done to my beloved Gabriel Gordon? He who had been loved and adored by many had the misfortune to attach his heart with a girl who’d only bring him suffering.
Maybe that was why it was so easy for me leave, to hide my real feelings. I never believed I belonged with them in the first place.
“You promised, Emma.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You promised that I wouldn’t have to pay for love. You promised.”
I paled, remembering the one night when Gabriel admitted his fear and I’d ignorantly believed that it wasn’t true.
***
“Sweet Emma, I wish this moment would never end.” Worry stormed throughout his striking stare. Before I could say anything, Gabriel stated solemnly, “I always pay for it, one way or another. That’s why you scare me, Emma.” He carefully pushed my hair away from my face. “I haven’t paid for it yet and that terrifies me.”