Chapter 27
27
Gabe
It’s 7:00 PM, but I’m only half-hungry-heartedly getting ready for Hungry Hearts. I’d gotten so far as to put my suit pants on, but then I flopped on my bed to turn the rock Kayla bought me for Valentine’s Day over and over in my hands.
“It’s world-renowned Missouri lace agate, according to the internet,” Kayla had explained over dinner at Rosie’s, the only good restaurant in the county besides the Kentwood Café. “I don’t know what’s so special about it, besides the fact that it’s pretty.”
“It’s not just pretty,” I said to her with a smile. “It’s tough, too. It can be up to 7.5 on the Mohs hardness scale.”
“Mm. That does sound hard,” Kayla smirked.
I grinned back at her. “It’s a rock that’s ready for anything. Drinking horns. Inkstands. Mortars and pestles. Jewelry, of course.”
“I wouldn’t want destroy a pretty rock for something I’m just going to drop down the drain.”
“Some people actually wear jewelry, Johnson. It looks nice under the right circumstances.”
“You didn’t buy me jewelry, did you?” she asked warily. I didn’t respond right away. She looked so beautiful that night, jewelry or no, that I took a moment to enjoy it. She’d worn her hair down, the way I like it, and her plum-colored v-neck top had been simple but sexy. I had never told her the real reason like agate, particularly gray agate like the end-cut hunk of rock that sits on the table between us. Its delicate bands of smoke and silver have always reminded me of the gray eyes narrowed suspiciously at me now.
I stayed quiet so long that she began to get worried. “It’s okay, of course, if you did buy me jewelry, or if you bought me nothing, I just thought you’d like the rock?—”
“I love the rock,” I responded with a smile. “And I did buy you something. Not jewelry, I know better than that. I Googled ‘romantic Star Wars gifts’—”
“Oh no.”
“And there’s a lot of Luke and Leia out there, let me tell you?—”
“Leia and Han , Luke is her brother .”
“But then I went down a rabbit hole, and it turns out there’s this other couple? Rey and Kylo Ren? And they don’t have sex but the internet really wants them to have sex, and it’s this whole thing?”
“Yes, I, um… know about the thing.”
“And people smash their names together to become Reylo?”
“Um. Yup.”
“Which would be kind of like if people called us Gayla?—”
“Wilson, are you even hearing yourself?” She glanced around at the other couples who packed the restaurant and took a fortifying sip of wine.
“—or Wohnson.” At that, she’d laughed so hard that wine had shot out of her nose. Now those other couples really did look at us. I chuckled too and felt enormously satisfied as I helped her mop wine off the tablecloth. Making her laugh like that is my love language.
“Please, please tell me you didn’t get ‘Wohnson’ embroidered on a tea towel or something,” she whispered desperately.
I grinned. “No. I bought you a romance novel that’s disguised Reylo fanfiction. It was either that or a picture of Darth Vader that said ‘Welcome to the Heart Side’. It’s supposed to be pretty steamy. Enjoy.” I handed it to her. She took it quickly, unwrapping it under the table so no one could see the cover.
“I will never read this,” she hissed, fighting back a smile. “I hate romance.”
“I know,” I replied, and kissed her hand.
She did read it, though. Later that night, after I’d initiated sex by enjoining her to come to the heart side, I’d woken up to see her tearing through it by the light of her headlamp.
“Shut up,” she said, once again suppressing a smile. “And thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I murmured, nuzzling into her collarbone. She looped an arm around my neck and ran her fingers through my hair until I fell back to sleep. It’d been the best Valentine’s Day of my life.
Such are my thoughts as I lie half-dressed on my bed, studying my new rock. I wonder if, after Kayla and I both suffer through this horrible dance, she’ll take me back to her place, peel off my suit, drop to her knees, and?—
“Hey there, stranger!”
“Jesus fuck!” I blaspheme, rolling off my bed with the agate clutched to my chest like a football. “Gretchen! What are you doing here?” Do I have a boner? Not anymore, thank God. But I feel horribly naked in suit pants and no shirt, with Gretchen Meier standing in my bedroom doorway like she owns the place.
“I was just picking up my dress for Hungry Hearts from the dry cleaner’s and thought I would stop by and say hello,” she explains, smirking at me as I scramble to pull on an undershirt. “I’m wearing that red one that you like.”
“Um, which? I really don’t remember.”
“You’ll remember when you see it.” She walks over to me slowly, staring at me intently. I feel a little like I’m being hypnotized by a cobra and a little like my mom just caught me masturbating. “You remember that night in Ibiza, don’t you?” She reaches out and grazes my chest with her fingertips. I leap back like I’ve been shocked.
“Hey, Gretchen, c’mon. No. I’m seeing someone else now.”
She drops her hand. “Kayla Johnson. I heard.”
“That’s right.” I square my shoulders proudly.
“The one who got away,” she says in a mocking tone.
“Uh-huh,” I answer frankly, though I wonder how she knows that. Gretchen affects a little pout before turning to wander around the room. She lingers over my rock collection and reads the spines of the books on my shelf like she’s never been here before. She looks a little frayed, to be honest. Her makeup isn’t applied as precisely as it usually is, and she’s failed to conceal the dark circles under her eyes. She’s chewing on the inside of her cheek, which she only does when she’s stressed.
I suspect she’s here because she wants something and is waiting to ask as a kind of power play. But two can play at that game. I fold my arms and watch her silently.
“Are you going to the dance with her?” she asks finally.
“No,” I have to admit. “She’s serving for the caterer.”
Gretchen breaks into a snarky little smile. “Cute.”
I don’t dignify that with a response.
“You’ve got a whole Pretty Woman thing going on here, don’t you?” she snarls. “A real Cinderella story. You get to rescue the poor little working girl and she?—”
“Stop it, Gretchen.”
“—gets to live happily ever after with Kentwood’s own Prince Charming. Is that it?”
I take a deep breath before responding. I know she’s being nasty because something is bothering her. I know that, I know her . She would always pick fights in the weeks leading up to final exams; we had the second-biggest blow-out of our relationship on the eve of the interview for the internship where she met her current boyfriend. I learned to argue with her with one half of my brain while the other wondered how to help her unwind. But she’s insulted Kayla now, and I can’t stop anger from flooding both halves of my skull.
“Get out,” I growl. I start toward her, intending to chase her out of my room and out of my life. She takes a step back, eyes wide. Her expression softens as she changes tack.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, putting up her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m sorry, okay? I guess I’m just a little jealous.”
I stop a few feet from her, my conscience gnawing at me. There was no overlap between Gretchen and Kayla. But I hope very much, for her sake, that Gretchen has no sense of how often I thought of Kayla while we were together. I only looked for her online, after all, and never when Gretchen was home. Even if she had been, it isn’t that weird to look up old classmates occasionally, is it?
“Okay,” is all I can think to say. She looks me in the eye for a moment, then lets her gaze fall to my chest and the agate still in my hand.
“I know you always had a crush on her,” she says quietly.
“Shit,” I mutter, turning from her to pace the room. I rake my hands through my hair. Guilt pierces me like a lightsaber. My dad was right: I drove Gretchen away. I had no business dating her in the first place, much less asking her to marry me. I caused an innocent person pain, and I will never be able to change that.
“I knew you were friends in high school,” she continues. “And I snooped around on your laptop sometimes. I know I shouldn’t have, but you could be so distant, and I thought?—”
“I was just curious about her,” I interrupt apologetically, dropping back onto my bed. I feel desperate to excuse myself, though I know I should just own up to being a bastard. “She ghosted me after graduation, and it always bothered me, and I… I never did anything, I never contacted her, I never saw her at all until I moved back here last month. You should know that I never would have reached out to her while I was with you.”
“No, I know that. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I just didn’t know what was going on with you. And I know I’m the one who actually cheated,” she adds bitterly. She bites one manicured nail, marring the red polish that she must have chosen to match her dress tonight.
I sigh deeply. “I understand why you did. I’m so sorry I wasn’t a better boyfriend,” I say, and mean it. Gretchen has a prickly exterior and a penchant for drama, but she isn’t a terrible person. I know she loved me. She deserves to be with someone who truly loves her back.
“You were the best boyfriend—in a way,” she replies with a rueful smile. “You were sweet and considerate and completely dependable. I just never felt like I had all of you.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, because there isn’t really anything else to say.
“I miss you,” she says, coming to sit next to me on the bed. She takes my hand in hers. I feel guilty, so I let her. “Do you remember,” she begins, dropping her voice to a husky whisper and tracing the lines of my palm, “how we used to sneak down to the swimming pool in your apartment building, take off our clothes, and?—”
I leap off the bed and wrench my hand away. “Gretchen, what are you doing ? I’m with Kayla . And what about what’s-his-name?”
“I dumped ‘what’s-his-name’ last month because he was a commitment-phobic baby ,” she shouts, jumping up to face me. “I came to Kentwood alone. Oh, Gabe, c’mon,” she pleads. “Go to this dance with me.”
“So that’s what you want,” I mutter under my breath.
“Yes, okay? Is that so bad? My parents are appalled that I don’t have a date. Do you know who they’re trying to fix me up with? Stan Hutchinson .”
“Wha— Ryan’s dad? Isn’t he?—”
“Married? Yeah, kinda? Apparently he and his wife separated and she’s been on a meditation retreat for, like, six weeks?”
“Plus he’s?—”
“Old? And possibly an alcoholic? But Mom and Dad are all like, let’s kill two birds with one stone, rein in the town drunk and get rid of the spinster daughter.”
I wince, but I know she’s not exaggerating: the Meiers are straight out of a Jane Austen novel. They already treated her like a spinster when we started dating at 20. They dropped increasingly broad hints about marriage every time I saw them over the ensuing five years. We dealt with it by turning it into a drinking game: we’d each take a shot every time someone told us that you aren’t getting any younger or asked what are you waiting for? Needless to say I don’t remember the end of many Christmases.
“I’ve had two major breakups in as many years and my parents act like they can practically hear my ovaries withering,” she continues.
“I get it, mine have basically been the same way ever since… you know.”
“But they must be off your case now that you’ve got your little girlfriend.”
“Oh, um… yeah. They are.”
Something in my tone makes her suspicious. “Gabriel,” she says, crossing her arms. “Do your parents know you’re dating Cinderella?”
“Stop calling her that. And no, not technically,” I admit reluctantly.
“‘Not technically?’ What does that mean?” It looks like she’s trying not to smile. Dammit.
“It’s complicated, okay? And it’s none of your business. But I can’t go to the dance with you.”
“Just as friends?”
“No.”
“It’ll be fun…”
“ No .”
Gretchen huffily tosses her long black hair over her shoulder. “I’ve seen this girl, you know. She dresses like a peasant and doesn’t take care of her skin. It’s not like she even has big tits. She’s a poor man’s early ‘90s Jennifer Aniston. What can you possibly think is so special about her?”
She has an irrational fear of machines that move on their own. She has excellent taste in snooty tea and scruffy dogs. She brushes her teeth too hard and makes her bed every morning but refuses to tuck in the sheets (she likes freedom; I like security). Her hair smells like flowers and her mouth tastes like honey and I want to spend the rest of my life making wine shoot out of her nose.
“Everything,” I say simply, and can’t hold back a smile.