Chapter 68
CECILIA
Idon’t know what’s happening. How did we go from working things out between us, to being friends, and then to it all falling apart in less than a day?
Gabriel’s words slice through my heart like a blade, and I feel my world shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.
"What?" I manage to whisper, my voice shaking.
Gabriel's confession leaves me breathless, and I'm drowning in a sea of confusion and pain. What does he mean? He can’t really mean that, can he? He doesn’t even want us to be friends?
He’s just upset, right?
Everything is going to be okay.
Desperation climbs up my throat. He can’t walk away. Not like this.
“I know I messed up,” I tell him. “I made a mistake.” I close the distance between us again. Gabriel’s angry and hurt. He’s not thinking straight. If I can just get through to him. Show him that I’m not going anywhere. He has me. I’m right here and I’m not letting go. Not in his time of need.
I reach for his face and turn it toward me. His eyes refuse to meet mine, but that’s okay.
I trace his jawline with my fingers, caress the stubble on his skin. “Today is really shitty,” I whisper. His mouth hovers only a few inches away from mine. “But it’s going to be okay. I’m right here. I’m not leaving you—”
Gabriel's eye finally lock on mine, offering me a window into the turmoil inside of him. His touch is agonizingly tender as he reaches up to thumb away a tear from my cheek.
“You were right before” he says, his voice thick with emotion.
Relief sweeps through me. He’s listening. We’re going to be okay. “We're just two broken people, and broken people can’t fix anyone else. They need to fix themselves.”
No. No. No.
I reach up and press my lips against his, hoping it makes him feel something. Anything. It’s fucked up and not okay. I keep telling myself to make up my mind. That I can’t continue leading him on like this. But what do I do the moment he threatens to walk away?
I kiss him.
I don’t know what else to do. All I know is this desperate achy feeling spreading through my chest, screaming at me not to let him walk away. I can’t lose Gabriel. Not like this.
Gabriel doesn’t kiss me back.
His body is rigid. His hands keep me firmly in place. I fall back to my feet and tear my eyes away.
It hurts. Seeing him closed off like this. I open my mouth to protest, to deny his words and the chasm I feel opening up between us, but nothing comes out.
My words catch in my throat like thorns, and I'm left speechless, suffocating from the pain that steadily builds inside of me.
I’ve really lost him. This is it. The final nail in the coffin.
Tears blur my vision, and I try to blink them away, but they overflow, trailing down my face in rivulets that I know are ruining my makeup. I can’t find it in me to care. My chest feels like it’s breaking, like my ribs are being cracked open and my heart is being shredded within its depths.
Gabriel’s thumb gently brushes against my cheek, and his touch is both a comfort and a torment. I … I don’t want to lose him.
Why did it take this very moment for me to realize that?
"I think I will always love you, Cecilia Russo," he whispers, and my heart splinters more. "But—"
"No!" I choke out, my voice raw with anguish. "No.” My lungs heave with each of my breaths. “I was wrong. I—" I was so wrong. He can’t agree with me. He just can’t. Things will get better. We’ll be better. He can’t—
Choking on a sob, I find myself wrapped in Gabriel's arms, held close against his chest, my cries resonating against him. The fabric of his dress shirt soaks up my tears as if it can absorb the pain I feel.
My fingers clutch at him, desperate to hold on, to keep him from slipping away.
"You weren't wrong," he murmurs against my hair. His voice is steady, but his hold on me tightens. "We can't keep pretending that we can fix each other. That being together alone can make either one of us whole. And I can’t pretend I’m okay only being your friend. I’m not. I don’t want this.”
“We can try," I cry harder into his chest. “You said that you loved me. Why won’t you try being my friend?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to offer him more. To beg for him to take me back, but it wouldn’t be right. Not like this.
Gabriel tilts my chin up, forcing me to look into his eyes.
The anger has receded, leaving only tenderness and regret in his gaze.
“Love isn't enough, baby girl,” he says, his voice heavy with remorse. “I wish it was, but it just isn’t. And we …” He hesitates.
“We need to heal. We need space.” He throws my own words from before back at me.
I collapse into his embrace, the weight of his words crushing me. The realization that we're breaking apart tears me in two, leaving behind a hollow ache in my chest.
"I don't think I can be whole without you," I whisper, clinging to him as if his strength is the only thing keeping me from falling. “I tried. I thought I could do it on my own before, but I can’t.” Telling him this is selfish and wrong, but I need him in my life.
I was wrong before. I never should have pushed him away.
Gabriel squeezes me tighter. “You’ll find a way," he promises softly, his voice shaky but determined. “We both will.”
I wish I could feel an ounce of the confidence he does. But all I feel is the searing ache of loss and regret.
I did this to us. He’s walking away because of me. My fault. My mistake.
After a couple of minutes, he releases his hold and nudges me towards Felix. Some form of silent communication passes between them, and with one final look, he turns and walks away.
I take a step in his direction but Felix wraps a tentative arm around my shoulders, stopping me. “Let him go,” he says as we both watch Gabriel climb onto his bike, turn on the ignition, and drive away.
I choke on a sob.
“Don’t cry.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “It’ll be okay. He’s hurting. Give him time to blow off some steam.” I don’t miss the fact that he doesn’t say Gabriel will change his mind or that he’ll come around.
Felix knows it’s over, too.
Swiping at the tears on my face, I allow him to usher me to the passenger door of his car. A numbness settles over me as I slide onto the cool leather seat. Felix jogs around the car and climbs inside.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him once we’ve pulled onto the road. “How did you know—”
“Gabe texted me,” he says.
“Oh.” Of course he did. Even angry, Gabriel would never abandon me. Even when he has every right to.
We drive in silence and I stare down at my hands, wondering how everything went so horribly wrong.
I feel awful about the wedding. I never meant to— I cut off the thought.
Gabriel deserves better than this. If I’d known how awful of a woman his mother was, I never would have suggested we come.
The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt Gabriel.
But that's all we seem capable of doing to one another lately. Hurting each other.
What if he never forgives me for this?
All of a sudden, I get a glimpse of the way he’s been feeling these past few weeks.
I was wrong to blame him for what Austin did. I may have asked Gabriel to let me fight my own battles, but what happened that day, it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t the one who attacked me and I had no right to blame him the way that I did.
“What did he tell you?” I ask, suddenly desperate to know what else Gabriel may have said when he messaged him.
“Nothing,” he tells me, eyes trained on the road in front of him. “He dropped me the address and asked me to take you home.”
“That was it?”
He nods.
“And you just dropped everything and came?” No need for clarity? No questions asked?
Felix shrugs. “That’s what family does,” he tells me. “We show up for one another. He wouldn’t have asked me to take you home unless things got fucked up. So, here I am.”
A fresh wave of tears blurs my vision because things are fucked up.
They’re so fucked up, and I don’t know how we’ll ever come out of this.
He was so angry with me. So … hurt. I did that to him.
I put him in that position. I made him relive the feeling of loss and abandonment his parents put him through all over again.
“You wanna tell me what happened between the two of you?” he asks.
I open my mouth. Close it. Try again.
“I think I really messed up.”
He sighs, his expression grim. “I like you, Cecilia. We all do.” There’s a “but” coming, and I brace myself for it.
“But you’re not helping him. Whatever this situationship the two of you guys have going on is, it’s not healthy.
Not for him. And probably not for you.” I nod, hating the truth of his words.
“Gabe cares too much. Loves too much. And all it’s getting him is—”
“Hurt,” I finish for him.
“Yeah.”
We don’t talk again after that.