Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
GAbrIEL
The arch is finished.
I stand back, arms crossed, rocking forward into the steel toe of my boots. Seemingly simple, yet intricate upon further inspection.
Joel lightly smacks one side of the arch. It’s sturdy and solid, a masterpiece. “Think you can deliver this next week? Ernie’s on vacation.”
“Sure.” I don’t mean for my tone to sound gruff. “No problem,” I add, softening my voice. Delivering the arch to Camryn might mean seeing Avery.
It’s not that I don’t want to see her. The opposite, actually. I’m dying to hold her again. Feel the melody of her pulse as I press a kiss to her neck.
It’s just that… Well, I don’t know. I’m struggling to put into words how I feel. It’s a heady mixture, this self-doubt and shame, and its shadow reaches far. Without Avery here to look at me like I’m her hero, her man, her soulmate, it’s more difficult to trust I am those things.
Joel tucks his hands in his khakis. “I can’t help noticing how different you’ve been recently. Are you all right?”
I tug the heavy canvas over the wood. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
Joel nods. “Yep.”
I haven’t told anybody about what happened with Avery, and it’s starting to get to me. “Avery left a couple weeks ago, and I haven’t talked to her since. It’s almost like it didn’t happen. Like I dreamed it.” I’ve picked up my phone a hundred times, hoping to see a message from her. I haven’t reached out to her because I’m trying to give her space. I’m not quite sure what exactly I’m giving her space to do, but it feels like the right choice. I’m terrified if I push, I’ll lose her. I’m scared if I don’t push enough, I’ll lose her.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Joel says.
I shrug. “I don’t know what I expected. We’re divorced. I’m the reason for everything. It’s all on me.” Avery believes she contributed to what happened, and it’s not that I think she’s completely wrong, but I don’t know that she’s right either. Can a person be culpable and innocent at the same time?
“Why don’t you go back to Phoenix?”
I rub the nape of my neck. “My work is here.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I look around at all the pieces I’m working on. My hands have been on at least half of the pieces in this room. “Unless I dreamed this place too, I think this is where I work.”
Joel guffaws. “Gabriel, this is a rung on a ladder. A stop along your path. Do you really believe Sugar Creek is where you’ll make your home?”
“It seems as good as any other place. Better, really. I have a place to stay, and a job. That’s more than I have anywhere else. More than I can ask for.”
“What about all your friends?”
Friends… My crew tried. They called, they texted, a few of them stopped by when they heard I got out. I didn’t answer calls, I ignored texts, and I was already on my way to Sugar Creek when they showed up at my house. I felt bad, but what was there to say? They’d tell me what’s new in their lives, and then what? How was I supposed to respond? Tell them what it’s like to be alone with your thoughts until they drive you crazy, until you’re consumed with everything you did wrong in your life, and you pray for the chance to make it up to the people you love the most?
Sometimes I wonder if any of it would’ve happened if it weren’t for Ryan dying. There’s no way to know, but my best guess is yes . I was a tinderbox. Ryan was the accelerant. The fire came in the form of tiny sparks accumulated over years.
I shake my head at Joel. “I don’t have friends anymore.”
Joel presses on. “What about your parents?”
I shrug and look away. They love me, but I don’t think they like me. Nash never would’ve disappointed them the way I have.
“What”—Joel pauses, placing a hand on my shoulder and compelling me to look at him—“about Avery?”
I shake my head. “Maybe I should look at the two weeks Avery was here as an unexpected gift. As closure.” My throat tightens on the word. Closure . It’s the last thing I want from her.
One side of Joel’s mouth turns down, and he looks like he feels bad for me. “Can I make one suggestion?”
“Please.”
“There’s a lot more life out there for you. Don’t hold yourself back because you think you don’t deserve more. If you’re not careful, you’ll become your own jailor.”
Joel releases me, stepping back to give me space. He eyes me for a few more seconds, then slips his hands in his pockets and returns to his office.
For the rest of the day, Joel’s words play on in my head. You think you don’t deserve more…you’ll become your own jailor…
In prison, I spent a lot of time going over it all in my head. I started at the end, and went backward, step by step. The further I went, the more patterns and truths emerged. Those steps all converged, until they ended at the same destination.
It all goes back to Nash.
“Surprise!”
I blink against the sun, the shock, and my parents on my front porch. My mother’s arms are open, my father stands behind her.
“Mom, Dad. Hi.” I step back, grabbing my shirt off a chair and pulling it over my head. I’d been ready to go for a run when they knocked.
“Sorry about dropping in on you,” my dad says, looking around the small living room.
“I don’t mind. You’re always welcome.” I watch my mom take in her surroundings. Her lips pinch disapprovingly, obviously unimpressed with where I’m living.
I don’t blame her. It’s not a home. It’s a place to stay.
“This is nice,” she forces, and I laugh, giving her a ‘come on’ look. She makes an exasperated face and chuckles. “Ok, fine. But it’s not that it’s not nice. It’s just… sort of…”
“Boring?” I supply.
“Undecorated,” she says diplomatically.
“Decorating hasn’t been high on my priority list.”
The three of us stand looking at each other, then avert our gazes to something boring and undecorated around the room. Maybe they’re realizing this is the first time they’ve been to visit me since I moved up here. Maybe they feel bad about that. I think I would, if I were a parent.
“So…” I clear my throat. “Not to be rude, but why are you here?”
“We’re taking a road trip up into Colorado, then over to Lake Tahoe. Probably through to the coast, and we’ll drive down to San Diego.” He adjusts his ball cap. “Trying not to get bored in retirement, honestly.” His eyes go to my mom. She gives him a frosty look. “She’s getting sick of me.”
“I’m getting sick of you rearranging my house,” she says.
“Our house,” my dad amends.
“Hmph,” she growls.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I ask, before this can devolve into what looks like a well-traveled argument for them.
“Little early for drinking,” my dad jokes, and my mom smacks his arm. “Doug, don’t make jokes like that around Gabriel.”
“It’s ok, Mom,” I assure her, walking into the kitchen and retrieving three glasses from a cabinet. I fill them with iced tea. “It doesn’t bother me.”
“Are you, uh…” She accepts the tea from me, holding tightly to it. “Are you, um…” She coughs, uneasy.
“I’m not drinking, if that’s what you’re trying to ask. I haven’t had a drink since the night of the DUI.”
She blinks at me, taken aback at my easy use of the word. She never refers to it by what it really was, choosing instead to call it my ‘trouble’ or ‘problem.’
She recovers, and asks, “Do you keep track of the days? Like other…people?”
“Other alcoholics?” I raise my eyebrows. “No, I don’t. I don’t want to know the exact number. It’s irrelevant to me.” I look my parents in the eyes, first my mother and then my father. Maybe it’s the way Avery encouraged me while she was here, or the fact she faced her own issues with her father, but I feel stronger under my parents’ gaze than I have in a very long time. “I don’t struggle with wanting a drink, either, in case that’s your next question. I go to AA, and some people there say every single day they fight the urge to have a drink. But I don’t. Ever, at all. I damn near ruined my life. I injured somebody. Me, a person who swore to protect people.” A lot of what happened still feels surreal, even though I lived every nightmarish moment of it.
My mom’s pursed lips tremble. My dad nods slowly. He hardly said a word to me after everything happened. In some ways, his disappointment in me runs deeper than my mother’s. She wears hers on the outside, like a badge on her shirtsleeve, alongside her grief over Nash. With my dad, it’s more something in the air around him, a slow leak.
He sips his tea. “There’s a way to get you back out there. Back on a crew.” He sets down his glass and leans forward, elbows propped on knees. “They’re assembling a hotshot crew made up of ex-cons. You’ll be right on the fire line, face to face with fire on the ground.” Excitement trickles into his voice. He misses the thrill, the feeling. I understand that. But I don’t want it for myself.
“I don’t want to be a firefighter, Dad.” These are words I should have said a long, long time ago. If I’d been honest with them, and myself, maybe I could’ve avoided all of it.
The muscles near his jaw flex, and he crosses his arms. “What are you going to do instead? Hide up here in the mountains? Slowly run out of the money Avery set aside for you?” He blows out a heavy breath. “You’re good at fighting fires, Gabriel. You have a natural talent for it, and you’re wasting it.”
The unspoken portion of his sentence twists like a knife in my heart. You’re throwing away what Nash wanted more than anything .
For so long, I tried to give my parents what they’ve been missing since Nash died. A son like the one they lost. I can’t do it anymore. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place.
I push back from the table. “I want to show you something.”