16 Kierra
16
Kierra
Present Day
Two days later when Gabriel came back to check on the construction process, he stood in my kitchen with a container in his hands.
“You made Ava cookies?” I asked, stunned.
“Yeah. I hope that’s okay. I figured with her current state…” He shook his head. “Sorry. It’s probably odd, but it just felt like the right thing to do. If I crossed a line—”
I darted toward him, unable to hold back from wrapping him in his arms. He was probably confused by my actions, since I was coming off as a complete freak as I held him in my arms.
He was still there…my sweet Gabriel who I grew up to know. He’d baked Ava cookies the same way he used to bake them for me when we were kids and I was PMSing. I couldn’t help but hug him. I couldn’t help but forget for a small moment that he didn’t remember me from all those years ago. Yet, somewhere inside himself, he did remember. Somewhere in his subconscious, little Kierra still existed. He still knew her. He still had those memories. He was still mine.
What a stupid thought, Kierra.
Let that man go.
I pulled back from him, teary-eyed and feeling foolish for tackling him in the way I had. I had a momentary need to tell him about us. I wanted to unload all the details to him about how we were only best friends, but also in love. I wanted to tell him about all our adventures, our highs and lows, our best and worst days. I wanted to tell him about Elijah.
Oh, how I wanted to tell him about Elijah. I wanted him to know all the moments we shared with his little brother. I wanted him to know how I still wrote letters to Elijah every single year. I wanted him to know that every New Year’s Eve, I could hardly watch fireworks without bursting into tears.
I wanted to tell him about Elijah’s laughter. How it could fill a room and make even the grumpiest person soft. I wanted to tell him how close the two of them were. How it was a surprise when his mother and Frank told us she was expecting another kid when Gabriel was fifteen. How he freaked out at first, but then fell in love with the idea. How he used to sleep by Elijah’s crib to make sure his little brother was breathing. How he’d taught Elijah how to throw a baseball, how to ride a bike, and how to tell bad knock-knock jokes.
I wanted to tell him so much about Elijah that my chest ached thinking about it.
I knew I couldn’t though, because of Amma. That was the last thing she’d want me to do.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I let Gabriel go, feeling completely idiotic for forcing myself on the man. “I think I’m just having a lot of feelings lately.”
“I should’ve made you some cookies, too,” he joked. He smiled and didn’t for a moment seem fazed by the fact that I’d all but tackled him. He held the cookies out toward me, and I took one.
As I bit into it, I almost cried again. A part of me wondered if he knew that I wasn’t always this way. I wasn’t always this oddity that lived in a gilded cage. I wasn’t always this broken bird fearful that it would never fly again. I wasn’t always damaged.
He’d known me when I still dreamed. When I still imagined. When I still felt alive. He knew the best and worst parts of me and called them beautiful. He knew me when I didn’t even know myself. And now he was there, baking cookies for my daughter, unaware that such a small act meant so much to my fragile heart.
Gabriel smiled and brushed his thumb against his chin. “Good, bad, inedible?”
“Perfect,” I told him.
His smile stretched wider, and I wanted to tell him how much I missed him.
Then again, who knew how much damage that would do? Who knew how much that would make him spiral. Besides, what was the point of telling him that we had a shared past? A whole life story where we existed as each other’s person. It wouldn’t change our current situation. If anything, it would push him away further. If he knew what I’d done all those years ago, if he remembered the accident, he would hate me. He would blame me the same way his mother did. That terrified me.
“And thank you, Gabriel. For being so kind to Ava. I know she struggles a bit with being social. Her anxiety gets to her. Probably a trait she sadly picked up from me,” I mentioned before taking another bite from my cookie.
His brow furrowed. “Are you okay, Kierra?”
I tilted my head. “What?”
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
Nothing else followed those three words. His brown eyes stayed locked with mine, packed with a tenderness that flipped my world upside down. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone outside of my family asked me those questions.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him. So I remained quiet.
He frowned as he placed the plate of cookies down on the counter. Then he crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the kitchen island. “Are you safe?”
Those words made me stumble backward slightly. “What?” I choked out with a slight shake to my head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Before he could answer, Ava hollered from her bedroom. “Mom! I need you!”
Those words shook me away from the interaction completely as I fell back into my role as a mother. I didn’t have time to answer his questions. I didn’t have time to dive deeper into how I wasn’t okay and how I hadn’t ever felt safe.
Being a mother meant you pushed your own problems so far away to take care of others. Being a mother meant you lost yourself to save your babies. How dare Gabriel even ask me that type of question. Of course I was all right. It was the only thing us mothers were ever allowed to be—at least on the outside. On the outside we’d pretend that everything was amazing and wonderful, even though the world within us was crumbling into a million pieces.
“Sorry, I have to—” I started, but he shook his head.
He picked up the plate of cookies and held it out toward me. “Go ahead. I hope she’s feeling better. I’ll let myself out.”
I grabbed the plate and thanked him once more, before hurrying toward Ava’s bedroom.
“ Mommmm! ” she hollered again before I walked into her space.
“Is there a fire, or are you just really into yelling lately?” I remarked.
Ava sat on her bed with a box in front of her. Within said box were photo albums and old yearbooks. “What in the world are you doing with those?” I asked her, completely confused. I hadn’t seen those things in so long.
“Rosie dropped them off the other day. She said she was clearing out her parents’ garage and found some of your stuff that you stored there when you were in college together. I’ve been looking through it.”
I placed the plate of cookies on her dresser and then walked toward her. “Wow, I haven’t seen these in—”
“Mom,” she urged, looking at me as if I had three horns on my head. “Are you kidding me? Are you really going to act like everything’s normal?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is everything not normal?” I asked her, nervous that perhaps she’d overheard the argument between Henry and me earlier that morning. He shouted at me for showering before him, since he had a big meeting to get to. I didn’t yell back. I never did, and normally Henry wasn’t one to raise his voice when Ava was in the house, but his anxiety over his meeting was loud and clear that morning. I did my best to hide those moments from Ava.
“Of course, it’s not normal!” she said, tossing her hands up in defeat. “It’s very, very far from normal.”
I sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. “Listen, sweetheart—”
She slammed a stack of photographs into my hands. “When were you going to tell me that you and Gabriel knew each other?”
Her words left me in a tailspin as I looked down at the stack of pictures in my hand. Pictures of me and Gabriel as kids. Pictures of us as teenagers, wrapped in each other’s arms. In that moment, I was transported back to my childhood as I stared at his smile.
“Well?” she said. “Are you going to explain?”
“Ava…” I felt my stomach fill up with knots as I placed the photographs back in the box. “Don’t tell your father.”
“Were you two in love?” Ava asked, her words dripping in confusion. “ Are you two in love? Oh my gosh!” she gasped as she leaped up from the bed to begin pacing the room. “Are you two having an affair?” she shouted.
“ Shhh! ” I ordered as I leaped up and shut her bedroom door. “No, we are not having an affair. I would never do that, Ava. Come on, be serious.”
“I am being serious, Mom! What the heck? Why are there pictures of you with Gabriel all cuddled up with each other? And why are you both pretending that you didn’t have a past together?”
“We aren’t pretending. Well, he’s not pretending. I’m just…” I was just what? Pretending. I was pretending. “It’s complicated, Ava.”
“Then uncomplicate, Mom.” Her eyes were packed with so much confusion, and I couldn’t blame her. “What’s going on?”
I sighed, debating the best way to unpack everything for her. How much was too much to share with a fourteen-year-old girl? It was clear that Ava was very wise for her age, but she was still, in fact, an adolescent. The balance between being a mother and a friend was always up in the air for me, but in that very moment, I went with the only option that felt right—the truth.
I sat back on the edge of her bed. “We grew up next to each other. He was first my enemy, then my friend, then my very best friend, and then…we dated for a short time.”
“Oh my gosh,” she remarked, taking a seat beside me. “Tell me everything.”
So I did. I told her every single memory of the man I once called mine. I told her the ups and downs of our story. And then I told her about the night that changed everything. I told her about Elijah. I told her about the promise I’d made to Amma, even though it made me feel awful. I told her everything and begged her to keep the secret, too, until Amma spoke about it to Gabriel.
By the end of me sharing, Ava had tears in her eyes.
Her hands sat in her lap as she shook her head. “You loved him.”
“Yes, I did.”
“And he loved you.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “he did.”
“And then he just…forgot?”
I nodded. “The accident was terrible. I’m stunned that we made it out of that wreck alive, truly. But Gabriel lost all his memories. He forgot everything about our relationship. His mom had a hard time with it and blamed me for the accident. They moved away shortly after, and I never heard from him again.”
“Until he showed up as Dad’s architect?”
“Yup.”
“And…he still has no clue who you are?”
“Nope.”
“ Oh my gosh! ” Ava gasped, covering her mouth. “This is some The Notebook shit.”
“Language, Ava.”
“Mom.” She groaned. “You can’t tell me that the first love of your life doesn’t remember you, but he randomly showed up as your architect years later and expect me not to cuss.”
You know what? Fair.
“It doesn’t matter, really. It was a long time ago, Ava. Ancient history. We’ve both moved on with our lives, and we both are happy where we are. That’s all that matters.”
“But, Mom—”
“No buts. We can’t keep looking to the past if we want to make it to the future.”
She frowned and shook her head. “But don’t you kind of wonder what would’ve happened if you two found each other again before meeting Dad? After you saw him, did you daydream a little about the what-ifs?”
Yes.
Repeatedly.
Even five minutes ago.
“No,” I lied. “I let him go the moment he moved away all those years ago. So, we should leave it at that. But it does kill me, him not knowing about his brother. It’s not my place to tell him, and I promised his mother I’d let her tell him, but I don’t think she ever will.”
“But he should know,” Ava said, “You should keep pushing his mom to tell him. I’d hate not knowing the truth.”
“I know. Me too.”
But I also knew that pushing Amma wouldn’t bring about anything good. Yet I tried.
For the next few weeks, every single day when I showed up to Gabriel’s building to drop Ava off, I’d stop by Amma’s office and exchange a few words with her.
I’d told her how important it was for her to tell Gabriel.
She told me to go away.
I’d begged.
She’d ignored me.
Still, I tried.
The last time I saw her, I told her that if she didn’t tell Gabriel the truth soon, I might have to do it myself.
She told me to go to hell.
Though, for some odd reason, I already felt as if I was living in the burning fires.