by Anna Antonia
“Gabriel? Are you here?”
A gallery of pictures hung in the long hallway. Several empty spots broke the perfect arrangement, making me wonder what happened to them. I had a sinking suspicion I already knew.
“Gabriel? Hello?”
He rushed out of a room further down the hall, dressed only in low slung pajama pants and carrying a bottle. “Emma? Is that you?”
I smiled, happy to see him again. “Gabriel, I came as fast as I could. What’s up?”
He rushed down the hall towards me. My welcoming smile faded when he hissed, “Emma, why are you here? How did you get here without me knowing?”
Gabriel’s blistering anger shocked me. The man before me was nothing like the man I’d come to know over the past four days. “You texted me to come over.”
“I didn’t.”
I held up my phone to show him the text. “Yes, you did.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched tight. I could see the muscles straining along his neck. “How did you get in?”
“You had me put on the list. At least, I think you did. The front desk…security…let me up. Are you okay?”
“No, how did you get inside here?”
“You left your door unlocked. Gabriel, what’s wrong?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. “You can’t be here.”
“Wait…what the hell is going on? Why’d you ask me to come here if you don’t want me here?”
His hand closed around my arm. He roughly walked me back down the hall and into the living room. He then immediately backed away and pointed towards the door. “Emma, leave. I don’t know what’s happened, but you can’t be…be…be here.”
I recognized the signs from when we were teens. He swayed ever-so-slightly on his feet. His speech was too careful. I shook my head in disgust. “Gabriel, you’re drunk.”
“Yes. I am. Now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity—go. Please.”
“Why are you drinking? Are things really that bad?”
“Emma! Not now. Please.” He took a swig from the half-empty bottle. His neck bent, the weight of his head apparently too much to bear. “I don’t want you here. Not here. Not in this place. Not now. Go home before I forget why…”
I should’ve listened. I should’ve turned on my heel and walked straight out the door.
“You texted me for a reason. What was it?”
“Not me. Gabriel didn’t do it. Gabriel wouldn’t do it because Gabriel doesn’t want Emma here in this place. Not here where he wasn’t the man he needed to be for her. Not here…understand?”
I carefully circled him, my hand out ready to steady him. “I don’t want to leave you, Gabriel. Not when you’re like this.”
My kindness was wasted.
“That’s too bad, Emma. I don’t have the energy to pretend to be that which I’m not and to hide who I am. I’m a right bastard at the moment and I’m afraid I won’t be able to control it. I don’t want to hurt you. Never you. Never my sweet, sweet, perfect Emma. Now go before I stop being the one I want to be and turn into the one that is...is…”
Gabriel flung his head back. His throat worked, Adam’s apple bobbing madly.
I ached to hold him against my breast, to soothe the anger and grief away. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”
His head popped back up. The vicious sneer denied it. “Shows what you know. Then again, you don’t know much of anything. Not when I’m hiding left and right. Have to or you’ll run away. Why are you so good at running away, Emma? Have you had lots of practice with lots of people or just me? It’s me, isn’t it? I’m dirt beneath your feet. Only you, Emma, only you would see me like that. Maybe I’m the idiot after all. Stupid Gabriel Gordon…”
I refused to answer the belligerent end of his questions and instead focused on the beginning. “I never asked you to hide who you are.”
“Sure you have.”
“No, really I haven’t. I accept you as you are—”
“Oh, will you be quiet already? I don’t want to see you right now. I certainly don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want you here. How many times do I have to tell you? Now will you remove yourself from my sight and from my home? Please, Emma? I don’t want to say anything to make you sad or mad and I know the real me. He’ll do it. He’ll do it because he always hurts those that would love him. Gabriel is a fucking monster. He’s a sick bastard that doesn’t deserve you, but he’s such a bastard that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep you. You really don’t want to know him, Emma. You shouldn’t. So go. Please!”
“No.”
Gabriel stared me down, cold and ruthless. I imagined it was the stare he gave to his enemies. “No?”
“No.”
His eyes became chips of blue ice. “I’m not asking you anymore.”
“And I’m not leaving. Not yet.”
Anger pulsed, poisoning the air with his fury. “You’ll leave if I make you. It won’t be nice if I have to do it. Now go.”
“No.”
Gabriel threw the near-empty bottle away from me, against the opposite wall. “Why can’t you just do it? Why do you have to be so goddamned defiant? I don’t want you here, do you understand? I don’t want to look at you and I certainly don’t want to hear any of your fucking attitude, all right? Not now! Not when I’m like this!”
My eyes flooded with tears. Pain lanced me. I’d seen this kind of rage years before, but never directed at me.
“Oh, great. Now she cries. Thank you for the additional memories, Emma. It’s not like I had enough of my own, now you have to add yours. Well, come on through. Place all your crap in my head! It’s not like anything I want really matters!”
I blinked back my tears, drawing up the strength I’d counted on for years to keep me visually unaffected. “I don’t know who you are right now. Why are you being like this?”
“Because I’m not bloody perfect. That’s why!”
“I never wanted you to be perfect.” I just wanted you to be mine.
“Oh, didn’t you?” Gabriel demanded with another sneer as he stalked my way. “Didn’t you?”
Although nervous, I refused to budge. I had to believe that he would never purposely hurt me. Not with his hands and definitely not with his words.
“I never meant to make you feel that way, Gabriel.”
“But you did, Emma. You did it every single fucking time you threw my money in my face. You did it every time I didn’t understand exactly where you were coming from. You did it when you walked away the first time. How do you think that made me feel? You were the only girl I ever allowed myself to—” Gabriel abruptly shut down.
The vicious words lashed me, making it impossible to draw more than a shaky breath. I didn’t know what to say to defend myself.
“I’m sorry, Gabriel. I was scared back then. I was afraid of losing myself in you…that you couldn’t see me. That I was just another in a long line of girls who’d made the mistake of loving you. I didn’t want that to be me. I couldn’t make that mistake.”
“Mistake, huh? Loving me would be a mistake. You’re right, my dear. Loving me is the worst. I really should let you go now. I won’t but I should.”
Everything was getting mixed up. My words were becoming weapons I didn’t want to wield.
“Gabriel, I…”
“Did it ever occur to you to maybe look at things from my point of view, Emma? I’m sorry I didn’t grow up in the dirt like you. I’m sorry that I had the toys of my dreams while you had someone else’s broken leftovers. I’m sorry, Emma. I can’t change that. I can’t change who I am. Being wealthy is just a small part of me. If you can’t accept this about me, how can you ever accept all the other fucked up things about me?”
He’d gone too far. Infuriated that he insulted me even as he judged, I bit out, “Are you just your money? Is that the whole of you? Just a walking, talking dollar sign?”
Gabriel ran a hand through his hair and yelled in frustration. “That’s what you went to! Fuck, Emma! W
hat about me? Do you even see me? That’s one reason why I didn’t want you here! All you see is the things and their cost. You don’t see me!”
I wanted to drop to my knees in the face of his rage and disappointment. He was right—Gabriel Gordon could be a bastard and I was just the wrong girl at the right time.
And he was right. All I could imagine as I crept through his penthouse was how much I didn’t fit in it. And I hated that about myself. How many other women passed through these halls? Women who weren’t the daughters of a high school dropout and had access to everything money could buy. Women who weren’t me.
A woman like me lived somewhere further away, chosen because the rent was cheaper and the offset in gas still cost less than sharing this illustrious zip code.
A woman like me always viewed those who had more with suspicion because I’d spent my whole youth suffering the rejection and ridicule because I didn’t have the latest fashions and no hope of ever wearing them. A woman like me had seen how the parents of my peers treated women like my mother—like faceless lackeys at best or verbal whipping girls at worst. A woman like me had to skirt around the boys who thought that just because their family employed my mother, they had the right to reach under my skirt.
A woman like me hated that world and everything in it. I hated it all except Gabriel Gordon. But Gabriel belonged to that Technicolor world and I forever belonged to the colorless one outside of it.
No!
“I don’t even know why you called me over. I should’ve just ignored your text. Fine. You want me gone—you got it! FYI, you should probably stay here from now on.”
Gabriel wiped a hand across his face. “Emma, don’t.”
“Save it. You’ve said enough.” I turned on my heel and stalked towards the door. “I told you that we’d never work. I told you we’d never be able to get over it.”
“What did you say?”
I stopped halfway between the door and Gabriel. “You heard me.”
“Come again. Say it. Don’t whisper. Say it loud and clear, Ms. Adams.”
I turned around and closed the distance between us. “I told you that we’d never work. You’ll never be able to look past the fact that I’m not in your social class.”
Gabriel chuckled, his normally pleasing laughter sounding bitter and harsh. “That’s rich, Emma. Pardon the pun.” He stabbed a finger in my direction. “I never gave a damn about what you did or didn’t have. Never. All I’ve ever wanted was you. You on the other hand…”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean! You always throw my money in my face. You know what that makes you? A snob.”
“Snob? You’re calling me a snob?”
“You’re damn right I am!” Gabriel shoved his hand through his hair again. “You’ve always treated my wealth as if it automatically made me less of a moral person than you. That it automatically tainted me and put me beneath you.”
“That’s not true. Your high school friends—yes. You—no.”
“Your denial sounds hollow, sweetheart. You might want to blink if you’re trying to convey a modicum of authenticity.”
I closed my eyes tightly. I wasn’t going to cry in front of him. I only opened them once I had enough control. Dry-eyed, I said firmly, “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“When I’m like what? Truthful?”
“Spiteful!”
“It’s not spite, Emma. It’s me being sick and tired of you doing this every single time you can’t deal with us. It’s the damned distance you create when I don’t comply exactly to what you think I should be. I’ve been a grinning fool, going out of my way to be what you like because you’ll never be able to handle the real me.”
I’d liked how he’d been with me—all the laughter, kisses, and hugs. The idea that it’d been a farce or something he’d hated hurt so much.
What’s happening, Gabriel? How did I lose you again?
I backed up. I raised my hand in the air, needing it to provide a barrier that I could no longer provide.
“I don’t have to listen to this. Look, I’m sorry I came over and I’m more sorry that I didn’t leave when you first asked me. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
I spun on my heel and headed straight for the door. The tears cascaded down my cheeks, blurring everything in sight. Wounded and raw, I just wanted to get away from Gabriel and the ugly truth that he might very well be right.
Maybe it’s just me…like before…maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ll never be able to see past the money. Maybe I’m too afraid that one day he’ll look over at me and see I’m not good enough for him.
I don’t want to feel this way. I won’t feel this way.
“Oh no you don’t!” Gabriel raced ahead of me and blocked the exit with his body. “You’re not going to run away. Not this time.”
Build up your wall. Fast.
My voice came out indifferent. “I’m not running away. I’m complying with your request or are you too damned drunk to remember what you just yelled at me to do?”
Gabriel shook his head. His mouth twisted into a belligerent line.
“You’re running away. Like always.”
My patience had officially come to an end. Anger blistered each word. “Get out of the way. Now.”
“No. Admit it, Emma. Go on—admit it.”
“Admit what?!”
He didn’t raise his voice to match my yell. Gabriel kept his tone calm, making the words all the more devastating. “Admit that you’ll never think of me as being good enough for you. I will always be a piece of shit, womanizing, rich boy in your eyes!”
Not good enough? Are you kidding?
I shook my head and backed up for fear I’d smack the piss out of him. “That’s not true.”
“Bullshit. What don’t you trust? Me or my money?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is.” Gabriel pushed off the door and stalked closer. “Which one, Emma? We both already know the answer so there’s no point in keeping it secret.”
With each step he advanced forward, I took one back. No matter how spacious the living area was, I was eventually going to run out of room. My smiling, playful Gabriel was long gone as if he’d never been—leaving an avenging angel in his place.
Forgive me, Gabriel, for I have sinned. Against you and me.
“Why are you trying to push me like this? Why can’t you let me be?”
Gabriel finally stopped. So did I. An incredibly poignant mix of fury and sadness overwhelmed his gaze. “Because we won’t make it, Emma, until you can accept me for who I am—flaws and all. And I don’t want that to be the truth, but it is.”
“I do accept you.”
“No, you accept what you think of me but you don’t accept me. And because of that, you don’t trust me. There is no relationship without trust. You know that, Emma. So tell me the truth. What about me don’t you trust? Haven’t I been a good boy? Haven’t I tried so very hard these past few days?”
A tiny sob broke free. I covered my mouth with one hand, humiliated that I’d shown him how much his words affected me.
“Haven’t I, Emma?”
“You’ve been wonderful.”
“Then what is it? Why won’t you trust me? Tell me. If there’s going to be any chance for us, I need to know.”
Panic hit me. I felt trapped. “It’s not an either/or situation, Gabriel. It’s both. I don’t trust you or your money. Not yet.” I paled. I wanted to walk back the words, to silence them. Looking at his face, seeing the devastation erupting across it, I realized I failed the test. “I want to but I’m not there yet. I’m sorry.”
“Why?” He stood there, taut as a string on the verge of snapping.
There was no hope for it. I had to come clean. The weekend disappeared as if it never was. I was back to being that hostile girl of seventeen again.
“How many women have you had this year, Gabriel? How many last year? How many the year befo
re that?”
His stare clouded before becoming ruthless and sharp. “The number doesn’t have bearing on you.”
“Wrong. It has everything to do with me. How many times am I going to trip over your exes? I just met you again on Friday and not even eight hours later there was Embry.”
He deflated. “I’m sorry. It was fucked up, I know.”
“Women are interchangeable to you, to men like you. They’ve always have been. We’re all the same. Throw some money at us and it’ll fix anything, won’t it? Lonely? Here’s my card—go shopping. Bored? Take the car out for a drive. Honey, I’m sorry I blew off dinner. Here’s some lingerie. Why don’t you go put it on so I can make it up to you?”
The muscle in his jaw clenched. “I don’t treat you that way.”
“Because I won’t let you treat me like that. And you know why? Because I’ll never let myself depend on you, Gabriel. I won’t let you become everything to me. I won’t. I can’t.”
“If I lost all my money would I then be good enough for you, Emma? Would that make me a better man in your eyes? Does being poor automatically you a better person?”
I mulishly kept my mouth shut.
“If money is so damned bad, then why are you so ambitious? Why didn’t you stay back home and work as a waitress?”
This I couldn’t let pass. “Because I wanted to make something of my life.”
“And those people aren’t making something of their lives? Why? Don’t they get up just as early and leave just as late? Don’t they work just as hard, harder than you even, because they’re up on their feet all day while you sit in your precious cube?”
I hated how he put me on the defense, easily making me sound just like the snob he accused me of being. “You know what I mean.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. What you mean is that they aren’t as good as you because they don’t make as much money. And what exactly are you chasing after, Miss Junior Analyst? Money.”