Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
GAbrIEL
For the past eighteen hours I’ve been absent-minded in the truest sense of the word. I’ve made dinner and watched it burn as I relived the widening of Avery’s eyes when she saw me. I forgot I was supposed to watch Joel’s dog this weekend while he and his wife are away. He dropped her off with me this morning, and I pretended not to be surprised at their arrival.
Joel hasn’t asked me about Avery yet, but I know it’s coming. Given the way I acted when I saw her, how could he not be curious? When I walked back into work after Avery drove off, all Joel did was hand me two towels, and leave me alone. I went to the bathroom and dried off. I had packed clothes to go to the gym after work, so I changed into them. I didn’t make it to the gym, though. I was too shocked to do much of anything.
In an effort to work off a little of this extra energy, I’m attempting to take Dixie for a run. It’s not going well.
“Come on, Dixie.” I look down at the dog beside me. She’s a mix, I don’t know of what breeds.
Dixie stops for the seventh time to investigate a new smell. I jog in place, waiting for her to be done. I lose patience and start running, and she catches up when she realizes she’s fallen behind.
My feet kick up gravel as I round a bend in the road. It’s a quiet stretch of land, for the most part. Most of the noise comes from the rental cabin next door. New faces coming and going. I don’t see them much, not with all those trees and space separating the properties, but I pass the place on my way to work and notice the ever-changing vehicles.
Today, there’s a white four-door sedan parked out front. Normally, the cars are SUVs or minivans. Vehicles that accommodate families. The front door to the cabin is propped open. A dog appears in the doorway, and that’s all it takes. Dixie is off.
“Shit,” I mutter, running after her. My calls for her fall on deaf ears. Dixie has a singular goal, and it’s that dog in the doorway barking its head off.
Dixie approaches the home at full speed, and the other dog backs up. The barking has stopped and now its eyes are anxious. If it could talk, it would be saying something like I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it .
I’m running as fast as I can, but I’m no match for Dixie. She wants a friend, and there will be no stopping her. She races up the stairs and straight into this stranger's home.
I take the stairs two at a time, slowing at the front door. I peek inside. “Hello?” When I don’t see anybody I step inside cautiously. Dixie and the other dog circle one another, sniffing each other’s backsides and establishing a hierarchy.
I look around, but don’t see anybody. Great. I can haul Dixie away and nobody will know. I stride forward into the open area between the living room and the kitchen, where the dogs are wrestling. With any luck, the renters are down at the lake, and I can have us out of here in fewer than ten seconds.
I grab Dixie by the collar. “Come on,” I command, making my voice deep and strict. She ignores me, pulling against my hold.
I stand, frustrated, and run a hand over my face. When the hand is gone, I see movement in the corner of my eye. I turn quickly, hands up in innocence, ready to tell the person I’m just trying to get the dog back.
My words die on my lips.
Avery stands in the kitchen, holding a frying pan out to the side of her body. Her eyes are wide, frozen. AirPods nestle in her ears.
It’s difficult to describe what my heart is doing in this moment. The best word I can think of is sobbing . This woman was my world, until I went and ruined it.
Now she’s here, not just here to see her sister’s arch but here, in a cabin, inserted into the tiny slice of solitude and seclusion I’ve carved out for myself. She’s supposed to be in Phoenix, thriving and living her best life.
Her arm lowers, and the frying pan bumps her calf. She removes each AirPod methodically, setting them on the counter with the pan.
She comes closer, stopping a few feet from me. Her chest rises and falls with a slow and quiet exhalation. Her shirt falls open at the top, just enough that I can see the top swell of her breasts. A place I once buried my face, kissed, and slept on. I drowned myself in this woman, and came up for air when I never wanted to.
Now here she is, standing before me. Her eyes are question marks, but she seeks answers I don’t know how to give. How do you explain to someone you demolished their heart not because you didn’t love them, but because you loved them too much?
The dogs, wrestling and growling and playing, bump into my feet. We both look down.
“You have a dog?” I ask, astonished. Unless… My gaze darts around the room. Is she here with Camryn? Or someone else? The thought sits in my stomach like curdled milk.
“Ruby,” she answers. “She’s mine.”
It’s the first time in years I’ve heard Avery speak. She didn’t say a word to me yesterday. She stood in the rain, a statue, except for the pulse throbbing in her throat. Her voice curls into me now, settling back in its familiar spot in my chest the way it once did.
“You didn’t want a dog. Not after…” My voice trails off. She’s giving me a look that says you don’t know me anymore .
She’s not wrong.
I point out front. “That’s your car?”
She nods. “My old one died.” Her gaze goes to my head. “You’re wearing your hair longer.”
At her mention of it, I brush it off my forehead. Her hair is shorter than before, up near her collarbone. It used to hang down her back. “You got a haircut.”
Her face muscles twitch like she’s beating back a smirk. “I’ve had several.”
I nod. “Right. Of course.”
Quiet falls over us. What do you say when there is so much to say? Where do you begin, when the hill that looms is really a mountain?
“Why are you here?”
I blink at her direct question. Avery isn’t normally a direct person. The thought pushes at me, reminding me, just as she did a moment ago, that I don’t know her anymore. Not the way I once did.
“I came after the dog. I didn’t know”—I gesture at the front door—“this was your place. The door was open and—” Avery shakes her head, and I stop talking.
“No. I mean, why are you here ?” She motions around us with both arms, and I understand what she means.
“Early release.”
“How long ago?”
“Five months.”
She huffs a hard breath of disbelief and makes a quarter turn, her profile in view.
I’ve worked hard to rebuild some semblance of a life, and now I’m watching my world shake and shift, the loose stones beginning to tumble.I reach out a hand. “Avery, listen?—”
“No,” she whispers coarsely, facing me. I can’t help but notice the beauty in her fierce gaze. “You listen. Don’t you do this to me. After everything you put me through, don’t come back now.”
My heart twists as my palms lift in a gesture of innocence, which, let’s face it, is ironic. “I wasn’t going to, Avery. I wasn’t planning on inserting myself in your life. But then you showed up in mine.” I search her face, the angry pinch of her eyebrows.
“You have a lot of nerve, Gabriel.”
“This isn’t about nerves.” My hands rake through my hair. I’ve had no time to prepare, no advance notice of seeing her again. I cannot offer my thoughts or feelings in any way that isn’t messy and raw. “I don’t have a choice. Not when it comes to you.”
“Ohhh oh oh.” She shakes her head. “You had a choice. And you made it.”
“I did what was best for you.”
Avery’s eyes widen with her upset. “You chose what you thought was best for me. You didn’t let me make that choice for myself.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat. We’re jumping into churning waters, and I want to swim in the shallows. I want to ask her how she has been, what she’s been doing, who she is now. Instead, we’re picking up where we left off, as if two years haven’t passed and we’re still balancing on the same string pulled taut.
“You…you…” I growl with my frustration and stare into her eyes. A mistake, for certain, because all I can do is remember how much I love her. “Everything I did was out of love for you.”
“Let me get this straight.” She steps closer, the tip of her finger nearly touching my chest. She pauses, and I think she realizes the proximity is a bad idea. Her familiar scent wraps around me, and it takes everything I have not to lose myself in it. How does a starving man not eat when offered food? Not drink when offered water? Avery’s murderous expression is what stops me from reaching for her.
“You broke my heart out of love for me?”
Here it is. We’ve stripped the layers without preamble, to seep through the gauze placed on the gaping wound, and bring it all down to the crux. The truth is so damn painful, so mutilating, and that famous saying the truth will set you free? Maybe to some, but not to me. I could tell the truth, or I could lie through my teeth, and it would have the same result.
Suffocating shame.
Quietly, I say, “I broke your heart long before I divorced you.”
No response. No noise. Not even a movement. She is utterly silent. We both know I’m right.
A heavy breath moves her chest, and if it weren’t for that I’d believe time were standing still. She shakes her head. “You never loved me. You couldn’t have.”
I look into her eyes. We both know her words are utter nonsense, a falsehood not even worthy of entertainment.
I concentrate on making my voice clear, solid, and strong, because I need her to both hear and feel the sincerity of my words. “I never loved you more than the day I let you go.”
“It was cowardice,” she whispers. Her eyes swim with tears.
My hand twitches, dying to soothe her, but I bat away the ingrained response. My own tears sting the backs of my eyes.
“It was mercy.” My voice is thick. “And I’m sorry for what I put you through.”
She laughs once, an empty sound. “You don’t know what I went through.”
Looking at her now, at the devastation seeping from her, I recognize this might be the last time we see each other. The last time we talk, the last opportunity I get to explain myself. If I don’t take this chance, I may never get another one.
Gently, I take her upper arm in my grasp. She winces, as if my touch causes her pain. Maybe it does, but I sure as hell know it’s not physical.
“You’re right. I don’t know. Would you tell me, if I asked?”
Her lower lip trembles. I try not to stare at it, but it’s nearly impossible. Like the top swell of her breasts, her lower lip is a part of her I’ve loved on.
“I…” She looks conflicted. “I don’t know.”
“What did you go through? After”—I pause, searching for a word, but there isn’t one—“everything.”
I see in her eyes that she is afraid to tell me. After all this time, she’s still protecting me from her feelings. “Avery, please. I don’t have a right to know. I understand that. Still…” I force my hand to stay where it is, to not cup her cheek and stroke her soft skin like I’m dying to do. “I want to know.”
“You don’t deserve it.” Her whisper is sharp, slicing into my heart.
My chin drops. “No, I don’t.”
She’s quiet, then says, “Gabriel?”
My eyes draw up to hers. She swallows and looks at the dining room table beside us. “Do you see those papers?”
I look to my left. A stack of bound paper lies open on the table.
“That’s a half-finished manuscript. The book of me and you.” Her head shakes quickly. “That’s not the title. There isn’t one yet.”
I look back to her. “That’s our story?”
“Half of it.”
“The other half?”
“I’m still writing it.”
I’m not sure what to say. In a time that feels like another life, I told her to use our story. I’d wanted to give her something, anything, to make the situation better.
Avery continues. “If you want to know what it was like for me, it’s all right there.”
“I can read it?”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I know she’s thinking through something. “Yes,” she says finally. She extracts herself from my hold, stepping over to the table. She closes the manuscript and offers it to me. I take it, tucking it to my chest like a football.
“Avery, I?—”
“You should leave.” Her gaze skitters to the back door. Both dogs stand beside it, asking to be let out.
I have a lot more to say, and no right to push her. “You’re alone out here?” I look around the place.
Her chin lifts defiantly. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Two weeks.”
I point next door. “I’m in the next cabin over, if you need anything.” I’m sure she’s planning to never need anything, and I don’t blame her.
She nods and folds her arms in front of herself, as if she’s erecting a barrier. “Thank you.”
I call for Dixie, and she ignores me. Sighing, I walk over to the dog and grab her collar. She puts on the brakes, refusing to be moved. Avery laughs, then cuts herself off as if she doesn’t want to be caught finding anything funny in my presence. I end up picking up the dog and carrying her out of the house, the manuscript wedged between my chest and Dixie’s.
Avery stands beside the front door. I pass her and turn around when I step outside. I open my mouth to speak, but Avery beats me to it.
“I don’t think we should see each other again, Gabriel.”
Panic crawls up my throat. I can’t lose her again.
She must read my expression, because she says, “It has the potential to be messy. And I”—she shakes her head slowly—“I can’t do messy.” She presses three fingers to her lower lip, and says, “Getting over you nearly killed me. I won’t survive a second time.”
The admission takes my breath away. Not just the words, but the way she says them. Confident, certain, and vulnerable. She’s different than she was before, in a way that’s hard to put my finger on.
“I understand,” I tell her, and it’s a half-truth, which also makes it a half-lie. I understand her words, but I don’t agree with them. She’d never need to get over me a second time, because I would never, ever do what I did the first time.
Avery’s gaze drops to the ground as she closes the door, as if she can’t bear to look at me one last time. I set Dixie down and we walk home.
The manuscript is heavy in my grasp, weighing so much more than just a handful of ounces. I went for a run, but I feel like I’ve completed a triathlon instead.
I make a pitcher of iced tea. I take it onto the back porch with me, ice cubes clinking in my glass. Dixie lies down nearby. Settling into the chair, I take a deep breath, mentally preparing myself.
I open the manuscript to the first page, and begin to read.