Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
GAbrIEL
More.
It’s the first thought I have when I finish reading.
I want more story.
More Avery. These words are her heart, her soul, wrung out like a soaking wet towel. As I read, I heard her speaking.
The 8 1/2 x 11 bundle of paper lies on my lap. It is still open to the last page, the final words of the half-finished manuscript shining like a beacon.
Well played, dear sister.
I blow a hard breath and shake my head. It’s not surprising Camryn would stick her nose in Avery’s business. She’s done it before.
My second thought is more like fifty thoughts all arriving at the same time. Awe, surprise, hurt, embarrassment, jealousy. To name a few.
Somehow, though the story isn’t all that joyful, I smiled in a handful of parts. Despite the agony in it all, there is happiness.
I read all afternoon and into the evening. The remaining shreds of sunlight disappeared a few minutes ago. Deep purple and pink bruise the last of the day’s sky, the shadows of the pine trees lengthening. Through those trees, is Avery.
My ex-wife.
The author of this book. Our story.
She’s captured our relationship here on these pages, but not perfectly. Not completely. She doesn’t know what it was like for me to step into a burning home, to hurry up the stairs and find her on the floor. She doesn’t know I fell in love with her right away, long before I said the words. She doesn’t know the excruciating pain of being the executioner of your own marriage.
A faraway light shines through the trees. It’s her backyard light. Knowing she’ll be there for the next two weeks sends a sharp pain through my chest. I want to put eyes on her, even if her gaze holds nothing but anger. At least it isn’t pity. For the last few months of our marriage, all her eyes held was pity, and I didn’t deserve it.
I think I would’ve preferred her fury.
It’s how I knew I needed to let her go. Avery would have gritted out the time, and I couldn’t allow that. She was meant to soar, and I’d clipped her wings.
I don’t think we should see each other again, Gabriel.
I wish she hadn’t asked that of me. I’d be charging through the trees right now, if she hadn’t said that. Even if I ignored her wishes and knocked on her door anyway, I don’t know what I’d do when I arrived. What is there to say? The damage between us is irrevocable.
We can’t come back from what happened. It’s all there on these pages. We started out a fairy tale, and turned into a nightmare. Because of me.
What right do I have stomping over to her cabin and knocking on her door?
None.
Dixie stands at my left, staring at me meaningfully. I have forgotten her dinner.
I push off the chair and go inside. I move through the motions, measuring out Dixie’s food, and then making my own. Everything is thick and robotic, as if I’m underwater.
Avery described us as a storm we created, and willingly put ourselves in the path of its destruction.
I wonder how often people do that. Create storms and die inside them.
When Avery and I met, I was already a stealth tornado. I didn’t know it, and neither did she. When you’re living your life for someone else, how can you be anything but a disaster in the making?