39. Gabe
39
GABE
Some things stay the same.
The day after she turns me down, I run. I cut across town, tuning into a Surprise Me playlist on Google Play.
I make a path past the springs, toward the hill, and right to Silver Phoenix Lake as a song from the Heartbreakers comes on.
“About a Girl.”
Some tune about how men will change their lives for a girl.
I shake my head. “No shit.”
The line about falling hard and changing everything is a slap in the face.
“I did fall hard,” I mutter. “I wanted to change everything.”
I run up the trail, running past the spot where I found Arden more than a year ago, flashing back to that fateful day.
I should have known then I’d wind up right where I am—with an aching in my chest. I should have known because whatever feelings I’d already had for her—the crush that kicked in the first time I met her—didn’t vacate when I saw snot running down her nose. When I witnessed her tears for another man. The way I felt for her only intensified.
She was crying in her crackers then, and I still found her endearing.
Kind.
Clever.
And beautiful.
After eight punishing miles of trying to drain my thoughts of her, I do what I did that day. I run to my parents’ house. As I turn the corner to their block, a red car fades in the distance, cruising the other way.
Her car?
Hell, that’s a crazy thought.
Must be another red car.
When I go inside, my mom waves from the couch. “Do not disturb. I’m reading the new Robert Galbraith.”
“Isn’t that out on?—?”
Before I say Tuesday , I know Arden was here, stopping by to give my mom a gift. My chest hollows, a big gaping hole that I wish I could fill with how I feel for her. If she keeps being herself, she’s going to make it awfully hard to get over her.
I head to the kitchen, and when my dad offers me a coffee, he asks what’s going on with her.
“Nothing. That’s the trouble. She only wants to be friends.”
He pats me on the back. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes the girl you want doesn’t feel the same.”
That’s the whole sad, sorry truth.