Chapter 44 Gabriel
Gabriel
“You sneaky son of a bitch.” Propping her elbows on her knees where she sits on the coarse sand, Sydney steeples her hands over her nose and mouth. Morning sun turns strands of her dark hair to copper.
“It was a rocky start.”
“You think?” she asks with a weird laugh.
“How much did you remember?”
“I remember everything. The day we met. That stupid contract in exchange for my silence. Convincing myself sex on our wedding night would get you out of my system. Then deciding afterward that it didn’t make sense to stop. Admitting I loved you. Deciding to make it real.”
“Does your head hurt?”
She waves off my concern.
“I shouldn’t have used that contract as leverage. It was wrong,” I say.
“Do you know why I agreed to marry you?”
“To get out of the contract.”
“Not even close,” she says.
I grimace. “So I’d start the charity with you?”
Prenup still resting on her thighs, she stacks her fists on her hips and scowls. “You’d have done that anyway.”
“Yes.”
“You gave me everything I ever asked for. If you thought I was cold, you had your jacket around me in two seconds flat. I know, because I tested it. I shivered on purpose to see what you’d do.
You did it every time, even when I had a sweater hanging over the back of my chair. Even when it left you cold.”
“Why would my being nice piss you off?” I demand.
She climbs to her feet, prenup in her fist, and I join her, squaring off.
“Because I thought you fell for me during our engagement when we got more physical. But you didn’t. You loved me when you proposed. You even told me you did. I was just too stupid to see it,” she shouts.
“Yes, I loved you,” I yell back. “Why is that a problem?”
“Because you should have been honest. We wasted so much time.”
She can’t be serious. “If I’d shown a hint of vulnerability, you’d have eviscerated me.
” It’s the first time I’ve said it. I’ve never even thought it in quite that way, but the truth burns like salt water in an open wound.
“You wanted me to be an asshole. I couldn’t bring you a cup of coffee without you reacting as though I’d declared war.
I slid into the role you created for me.
The only thing I don’t know is why you tried so hard to hate me, when we both know you loved me. ”
“Because I didn’t believe people could change,” she cries.
“They can learn. They can heal.” I shake my head. “All those years, I thought you needed time to see me. I told myself when you admitted you loved me and realized I turned my life around, you’d be happy. You’d be proud of me. Never once, did it occur to me you wanted me to fail.”
“I didn’t want that. I just needed you to prove I could trust you.”
Her words break something inside me, like the mast on a ship, cracking in half. It doesn’t make sense to feel this way. None of it is news to me, but it’s so fundamentally flawed that I have no gentle words left. “Fuck that,” I snap.
Her eyes widen, and I should take it back. Step away from the cliff’s edge before it crumbles under me, but I can’t.
“I mean it. I’m not afraid to work to deserve you.
But at least give me a task that isn’t impossible.
There’s no way to prove I’ll never do something in the future.
Faith and trust are things you have to handle on your own.
You said you loved me and stood with one foot out the door waiting for me to fail.
You say I’m patient? I’ve had to be. I sure as fuck couldn’t let on that I was hurt or tired or angry or anything other than feeling fan-fucking-tastic or you’d take it as a reason to doubt me. ”
My gaze slides to the prenup in her hand, then back up to her face.
“I was wrong to use that contract the way I did. I was an ass, but you were no angel. You tested me, over and over, half the time for things I’d never done in my life.
I passed every one of your tests, and it still wasn’t enough for you. Why?”
“Because if my father, who loved me so much, couldn’t do it, how could you?
” She rubs her eye, then drops her hand and looks back at me with so much hurt and confusion my chest aches.
“He loved me, but he was sick. Do you understand? I told myself he couldn’t help that he let me starve and bleed.
It wasn’t his fault that I’ll probably wake up shaking when I hear a thunderstorm for the rest of my life.
He died at barely thirty years old because he couldn’t love me more than he loved alcohol. ”
I shake my head. “Your father was a piece of shit.”
“He wasn’t.” Her face contorts and her voice wobbles. “He was kind and funny. He liked to sing. He had friends. Everybody said he’d give ’em the shirt off his back. The two worst days of his life were when my mom died and the time he thought he lost me.”
“He got his wake-up call, over and over, and ignored it. You can still love him for his good qualities and acknowledge that he abused you and didn’t deserve to be your father.”
“If you could do it, why couldn’t he?”
“I have so much privilege, it’s disgusting.
In the beginning, I bought a new home that didn’t remind me of drinking.
I started a new work schedule with different co-workers I didn’t have a history of drinking with.
I could afford to take all the time I needed in rehab.
I was able to change my routines. Pay counselors to be available for me 24/7.
The rehab alone cost more than some families make in a year.
My parents cleaned out my apartment so I didn’t have to do it myself.
I even had staff to field my phone calls and answer the door to run interference between me and the friends who didn’t respect my sobriety. ”
I squeeze the back of my neck. “I like to believe I would have managed it on my own if I had to, but I never needed to find out. If you knew some of the people I do. Guys like Zack who’ve taken their lives back and helped others do the same along the way. They’re incredible.”
The line of her throat moves, and she gives the tiniest nod.
“I put my family in danger. That was enough for me to hit rock bottom. I didn’t give a shit about myself, but I cared about them.
Then I asked my sister if you were always such a bitch when your plans didn’t work out.
And she told me what I’d really done to you on your graduation day.
I broke an innocent girl’s heart, then taunted her for being hurt by it. ”
She takes a ragged breath. “I overreacted to that situation. You broke a promise, and that sucked, but at least you didn’t try to fly under the influence. The only reason it affected me so much was because of my past. I made it personal when it wasn’t.”
“I hurt you. That’s the truth. I’d always known what I was doing to myself, and I was okay with it.
But I wasn’t willing to be the kind of man who leaves victims in his wake to protect himself from the consequences of his own actions.
And with all that, I still resented getting sober until I faced the reasons I wanted to hide in a bottle in the first place. ”
She nods.
“There’s no excuse for what your father did to you. My actions when I was drunk were still me. I made every choice, starting with the first drink. And he did the same thing.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why I call you sunshine?”
“Is it like a huge guy with the nickname tiny?” she asks.
I cradle her face. “You brought light into all that darkness inside me and chased out the shadows. At first, the view was ugly as sin. I resented you for showing me who I was, but a man can’t face his demons if he can’t see them.
You showed me all of me. The good and the bad.
I’m who I am today because you lit up my world. ”
Her eyes are damp, glittering with regret.
“I should have been kinder to you. I shouldn’t have hung on to my first impression the way I did.
You didn’t even look like the same person.
Accepting the bribe was bad enough, but I shouldn’t have been so hard on you afterward.
I was such a bitch, and I’m so sorry if I made recovery harder for you. ”
“You didn’t.” I let go of her and reach behind me for my collar, tugging my T-shirt over my head. Her gaze slides over me like a physical touch.
“When we get back inside, we’re doing every single thing you’re imagining,” I say.
She watches me with confusion in her eyes as I pull my phone from my pocket, open the camera in selfie mode, throw my arm around her shoulders and snap a photo of the two of us. I check the image before handing the phone over.
“What did you do that for?”
“Take a look.”
She glances down, then catches her breath when she finally recognizes the tattoo wound between the others. She stares at my chest, then traces her fingers over the loops. “I thought it was a random ribbon or a river.”
I move her hand with mine to rest on each piece, one at a time.
“A clock with no hour or minute hand because there’s no guarantee of the time we’re given, and I won’t waste another second of my life in self-destruction.
” I slide our hands over. “The skull to remind me that we’re all fragile creatures, and I can’t rely on tomorrow to beg forgiveness for the sins of today.
” We move to the next. “A sunrise because every new day I’m given is another chance to get it right. ”
She slides her fingers up and traces the bouquet.
My lips tug upward. “Wildflowers for my beautiful, strong, thrive-anywhere, and make-everything-better Sydney. And”—I place her fingertips on the letter S—“wound through it all, your name in cursive, backward. So when I face the man in the mirror, you’re there reminding me of who I’m meant to be. ”
“It’s hidden under all the rest.”