7. Chrissy
7
CHRISSY
“Thank you for hanging out with me.”
I’m walking Cat to the front door, and she squeezes my hand. “Of course, anytime.” When we get to the door, she pulls me in for a hug, and I do my best not to start crying again. When she pulls back, she searches my teary eyes. “I can stay until Gabe gets here.”
I shake my head and wipe at the wet streaks on my face. “No, it’s okay. I’m sure he’ll be here any minute.”
As soon as I get the words out, the doorbell rings, and I swear a calm comes over me. It’s always been like this. Gabe has always been the one that can bring me peace.
I open the door, and Gabe just stands at the threshold and stares at me. He’s worried about me, that much is obvious. His forehead is creased, and the little lines by his eyes are heavier as he looks at me pensively. I put a hand to his chest, and he takes both of his and moves my hand over his heart and just holds it there. I can feel the steady thump, and for the first time today, I feel like I can finally catch my breath.
“Uh, okay well, it looks like you’re in good hands. I’m going to get out of here, but you call me if you need anything. Gabe, call if she needs us, okay?”
He nods and agrees but never takes his eyes off me.
I turn my head to look at Cat. “Thank you again.”
She just smiles at me. “Anytime, you know that.”
Cat leaves, and Gabe steps into the house, shutting and locking the door behind him. He brings one hand up to my cheek. “You could have called me earlier, ya know. I would have come.”
I sigh because I know I could have, and no matter what he was doing, he would have come running. “I know, but you had plans, and I didn’t want to—”
He cuts me off, shaking his head. “You call me from now on. I mean, if you need me or want me, you call me. It’s as simple as that. Don’t think about what I might be doing because no matter what it is, I would rather be with you.”
As I look into the depths of Gabe’s eyes, I can’t help the way I feel. Everything he says—everything he does—I wonder if it has a different meaning. This is the same way he’s always treated me, but it feels different now, and I wonder if it’s my feelings that are the reason I’m questioning everything.
I back away from him. “You’re going to ruin me for other men, Gabe.”
I turn away from him and take a shuddering breath, and I swear I hear him say, “Good.”
I stop and spin around so fast, I grab onto a chair to keep myself steady. “What was that?”
He rubs his hand across the stubble of his chin. “Nothing. You want some tea? Ice cream? What do you need?”
I shrug, feeling the weight of the day. “Nothing, really. I want to lay down and try to forget about today.”
He nods, and his jaw tightens. “Go ahead, get in bed.”
I don’t move because I don’t know how to tell him I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t have to say a thing. “Go ahead, honey. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to get some waters, and I’ll be right there.”
My eyes widen. “You’re going to stay the night?”
He rolls his eyes. “You really think I’d leave you alone?”
“I hope not.”
He reaches for me, but before he touches me, he stops and pulls his hand back. “Go ahead. I’ll be right there.”
I walk down the hallway to the bathroom off my bedroom. I take care of business and brush my teeth, averting my eyes from the mirror. My eyes are still red-rimmed and my lips are swollen. When I finish, I walk into the bedroom, and Gabe is looking at the pictures on my bedroom wall. I stop next to him. “Did you see the new one?” I point at the picture of him from two months ago. “When you got promoted to captain and we all went to celebrate.”
I look at the picture I took, and it’s him with all our family. He nods, but he’s not smiling. “You’re not in it.” He turns his head to look at me. “Yeah, I have one with the two of us that night. Holden took one and sent it to me. I’ll send it to you. ”
I nod. “I didn’t know he took one. That sounds great. Send it to me.”
I walk over to the bed and climb under the covers. We have slept in the bed together hundreds of times through the years, but for me, it feels different now. I look up at him and wonder if it’s different for him.
He pulls off his T-shirt and tosses it on the chair in the corner of my room. I shouldn’t be staring at him, but a bomb would have to go off in order for me to look anywhere else. He undoes his pants and pulls them off before laying them on the same chair. My heart is racing, and I pull the covers up over my chest to hide my erect nipples.
He’s smiling at me as he walks toward the bed, and I force my gaze from his black boxers up his chest to his eyes. He doesn’t seem affected at all, and I try to calm my nerves. He lies down on the bed, pulls the covers up over him, and then holds his arm out. “Come here.”
I move over to him and rest my head on his bare shoulder. His hand comes down on my arm, and he holds me to him. “You wanna talk?”
“No… yes,” I answer him with a soft laugh. My mind is working overtime, and I’m not sure what to make of anything today .
He doesn’t laugh; he just strokes my arm with his hand, waiting patiently.
“She was an elderly woman. She came in with chest pains, and she was all alone. I asked her if I could call anyone, and she said there was no one.” I suck in a breath, trying to keep the tears at bay. “She was having a heart attack, but we were able to get her stable. Dr. Jane was amazing; she was so patient with her and tried to calm her nerves. We were going to move her to a room and run more tests. We thought she was stable.”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
I inhale long and hard and let it out slowly. “The ER was crazy like usual, and I kept thinking of her… I didn’t want her to be alone, so any chance I got, I would go in there to check on her. Throughout the day, she opened up to me. She told me about how she didn’t have a mom or dad and she was raised in foster care.”
Gabe pulls me to him, holding me tighter.
“She did get married, but she couldn’t have kids. Her husband died last month, and she was alone in the world. She kept saying that she missed him and she wanted to be with him.”
I wipe the tear off my cheek before it hits his chest. “I tried to tell her that she had so much to live for, and she told me she didn’t. She has no one that would care if she lived or died.” I sniff loudly in the quiet of the room. “But I told her I cared, and I wanted her to live.”
I clench my eyes shut as I relive the moments after that. “There was a code blue, and I had to go. I told her I’d be back. I was doing CPR, waiting on the doctor to come when I heard another code blue called. It was her… her heart gave out, and nothing they did could get it pumping again.”
I start crying in earnest then, and he pulls me until I’m practically on top of him. He’s kissing the top of my head, stroking my back. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that you had to go through that.”
“She died alone, Gabe. She died believing that no one cared about her and no one loved her.”
“No, honey. She didn’t. It was her time to go. You told her you cared and that you wanted her to live.”
He’s rubbing his chin across my head softly, and we’re both quiet for a few minutes.
“Can you promise me something, Gabe?”
“Anything,” he answers without question.
“When I die… I mean, I don’t…”
I let my voice trail off, unsure how to say what I want to say .
He brushes the hair off my face and lifts my chin. We’re so close to each other, I can feel his warm breath on my cheek. “You’re my person, Chrissy. Do you know what that means?”
I just blink up at him.
He strokes my hair with his hand, twirling it in his fingers. “It means that no matter where you are, I’m going to be with you.”
“But you’re going to have a family one day and—”
He cuts me off. “You are my family, Chrissy. I’m going to be by your side forever, through the good and the bad. You will never once think that no one cared about you or loved you… because I care about you… I love you.”
There’s so much emotion in his eyes and in his voice that it is almost overwhelming. I lay my head down on his chest because I’m afraid he’ll be able to see exactly what I’m thinking if I don’t. “I love you too, Gabe.”
He locks his hands together around my waist. “I know you do, honey.”
We lie quietly, and I can feel myself getting more tired. “Are you staying the night?”
His voice is groggy. “Yep, I’m here for the duration. No nightmares on my watch. ”
When we were younger and I had nightmares, Gabe would always stay with me until I went to sleep, and he’d always say the same thing: “no nightmares on my watch.” To this day, I’ve never had a nightmare any time he’s been with me. I smile against his chest and burrow deeper into his side, knowing that I’ll be able to sleep through the night.