CHAPTER EIGHT
“Hey, so like...I’m not coming on too strong, am I?” Liz asked, breaking the silence that had settled comfortably over them.
They’d gotten the stuff moved and were now making for the rental place’s nearest office to drop the moving van off.
“What do you mean? No,” Gabe replied.
“Okay, good. Krystal has pointed out that when I get comfortable with people, I lose my filter in strange ways with them. And I...have never had a boyfriend. Or met anyone like you, really.”
“What do you mean, like me?”
She opened her mouth to respond, then slowly closed it.
“Um...I’m actually not sure. It’s so many little things, and some big things.
Well...I guess, for starters, I’ve never met a guy who could have five girlfriends and not be a completely insufferable dickhead about it.
Also your...authenticity, it’s so…” She paused, laughed, rolled her eyes. “So authentic.”
“So authentically authentic, huh?”
“Hey,” she growled, then laughed. “Yes. People who tell the truth all the time are basically always obsessed with the brutal part of ‘brutal honesty’. But you aren’t. You really mean it.”
“It?”
“Everything! You mean everything that comes out of your mouth! I mean-you know what I mean. You don’t really lie, you don’t really try to bullshit.
It’s just...how do I put it? You’re the realest, most non-poser guy I’ve ever met, I think.
Or at least I’ve ever gotten to know. And I’m not just fluffing your ego, I really think that. ”
“...huh.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, it isn’t. Just...I don’t know how to handle compliments or positive assertions about myself. I mean I appreciate it, obviously, but I also feel...guilty? Like I do not deserve this level of praise.”
“Gabe.”
“What?”
“You are genuinely keeping five girlfriends really happy and have basically handed us a life free of modern fucking enslavement that so many people have to put up with and yes, I know, you had Ellen’s help, but do you really think she would have done this, or even figured out that it made sense to do, without you? ”
He was silent for a long moment, considering it. “So you’re saying that, while I had help, I’m the catalyst in all this.”
“Yes. Exactly. You made this happen. It wasn’t going to happen without you. And I think it’s okay to acknowledge that.”
“...maybe,” he replied uncomfortably. “But I dunno. Does it really do anything beyond fluff my ego?”
“I mean, you can take pride in your accomplishments.”
“But what’s the point? I feel good for a few seconds? Do I even deserve to?”
They came to a red light and she looked over at him. “Where did that come from?”
“What?”
“Do you deserve to? Of fucking course you do.”
“Why?”
“I…” She seemed to struggle for a moment, then sighed heavily as the light turned green, forcing her to continue driving. “I feel like this is a trick question.”
“It isn’t. I don’t know. We probably shouldn’t continue this course of conversation,” he murmured, looking out the window.
“What? Gabe, no. Come on, there is no fucking way you’re doing that after everything you’ve told us-are you having a fucking stroke or something?”
“No, just…” He sighed and shook his head.
“I don’t know. I get what you’re saying and you’re right.
It’s just really difficult to think anything else.
There’s only so many times I can hear ‘stop with this pussy-ass writing shit and get a real job like a real man’ before it sinks in and does permanent psychological damage...
I’m not even sure why this is coming up right now.
Everything is awesome, by basically every measure. ”
“Because your brain is broken, and also probably because so much is changing so quickly, and that kicks up a lot of dust,” Liz replied.
“I mean is it quick? It’s been like a whole month prepping for this.”
“I meant your life in general. You said you decided to go all in on writing what, like, five months ago? I mean that’s not a lot of time and you’ve moved three times and begun dating five new women and got a woman pregnant.
Some people’s brains handle change well, some don’t.
And if they don’t, they don’t handle change well even if it’s good change. God, you really do need therapy.”
He glanced over at her when she made a weird sound and saw her eyes bulging. “Holy shit,” she said quickly, “I’m sorry, that came out so wrong.”
“It’s okay,” he replied. “I’m not angry. And you’re right, I do. Probably need like a mood stabilizer or something. Antidepressant maybe...dammit, now I feel like a dick, ruining the mood.”
“You didn’t ruin the mood, and focusing on it will only make it worse. I know avoidance isn’t the best option in most things, but honestly I think distracting you is a really good way to put off a depressive episode. It doesn’t always help with Krystal, but sometimes it works really well.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ve gotten kinda good at it.
Like, it doesn’t entirely get rid of the negative emotions, but I think it stops the downward spiral in its tracks, which is almost as good.
” He paused, then sighed as they pulled into the parking lot of the rental place.
“This has to be annoying and unattractive.”
“Gabe, you don’t have to be attractive all the time, first of all, and second of all, you are getting more attractive to me each time I see you,” she replied.
“Oh. Well, the same is very much true of you.”
She laughed softly and parked, then turned fully to look at him. “I’m glad. But listen, if you have bad emotions like this in the future, please try not to hide them.”
“You sound like me now,” he murmured.
“Yes, I do. Which is frustrating. Because you obviously know this stuff.”
“Yeah, I get it. It’s just...a blind spot.
I’m the only one who lives inside my own head, so I’m only one who has the clearest view of myself.
And so I would know the most whether or not I deserve help...
but Krystal basically said the same thing to me, and so have Ellen, Holly, and Chloe in their own way, and now I guess it’s my turn.
” He straightened up suddenly. “But this is why we’re getting therapy.
For now, let’s focus on finishing up the move. ”
Liz seemed a little reluctant to just move on, but seemed to decide it was for the best, nodded, and got out of the moving truck.
…
After dropping off the truck, they’d dropped Liz back at the new house, and then he and Ellen had headed back to their first house to do one more check.
Neither of them said anything as they rode back, but Gabe was glad to find that he’d risen from the murkiness of his encroaching depression. The silence was companionable, content, calm. They parked and headed inside.
“Wow,” Ellen murmured as they walked into the living room. “It’s so empty now.”
“Yep, just like when we first got here,” Gabe replied.
She turned to him and smiled a strange smile. She looked very vulnerable. “It’s so weird...time, I mean. Just...not to get all ‘us versus them’ but do you remember when it was just you and me?”
He laughed softly and nodded. “Yeah, although that didn’t last long.”
“No it didn’t, and yet...it kind of did. Like it wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like it was a few years ago, not a few months. But it was just us for...what, two weeks?”
“I don’t think it was even that before we invited Holly to take her clothes off.”
Ellen snorted. “Yeah. But looking back on it, it felt so long. It felt like two months of you and me...God, I felt like a shipwreck victim clinging to a piece of wood in the eye of the storm. And I was so fucking insecure those first few weeks.”
“You didn’t seem that insecure.”
“I was. I think, even in my state, I did a lot to hide it. There was this part of me that was so scared you were going to decide I wasn’t worth the trouble, or you actually hated that I was tall, or chubby, or dominant.
And there was…” She paused, laughed awkwardly, rolled her eyes.
“I never told you–partially because it didn’t last that long–but I remember getting absolutely slapped in the head with the revelation that you were out of my league. ”
He laughed, he couldn’t help it. “What!?”
“I mean it! Like I had this crashing revelation that I had fucked up so bad in my romantic life, like really, truly fucked up, and for years and years, and I honestly should’ve just gone for you as soon as I met you, and that you were just so goddamned amazing and emotionally intelligent and you would actually fucking listen to me and I had no idea how much I was needing that… ” She lost her smile.
“What?” he asked.
“I still feel so goddamned stupid. For most of them, but especially for Blake. I just...I don’t know how you don’t think I’m a moron for dating them. I honestly just thought that dealing with guys being a dickhead was a part of every relationship, no matter how good.”
He took her hands and looked up into her eyes.
“Ellen...I don’t judge you for that. Because I kind of get what you mean.
About thinking ‘hey, this is just how relationships are!’, you know?
I think a lot of people are like that, they kind of just assume that more or less everyone is a jerk under the surface, so of course they’re going to treat you like shit sometimes.
And just-I don’t think you’re stupid for your dating choices.
Hindsight is twenty twenty, and if a thing more or less seems to be working, humans tend to just keep doing it until they are forced not to. ”
“I guess those things are true…” she murmured. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to really forgive myself for that. God, he was such a stupid dickhead.”
“He was, but that’s what the therapy is going to help with. Also, I am not out of your league.”
She snorted. “Maybe. I don’t know. It feels weird to talk about. It sure seems that way. You’re just...so fucking amazing in so many ways.”
“So are you. Honestly, everyone in this relationship is.”
“Yep. I’m kind of shocked still by how we just keep knocking it out of the park. Speaking of which...we should probably get back. They’re probably getting tired of us splitting up so much. I kind of am,” she said.
He nodded, then kissed her. “Same. I want to be home with the ladies in my life.” He looked around. “Should probably actually do that walkthrough.”
“Yep. I’m sure we’ve forgotten something.”
They looked around the barren living room, and then spent some time going through all the cabinets in the kitchen.
Then the bathroom, the bedroom, his first real office.
He was just about to call it, that they had in fact not forgotten a thing, when he looked at the front door. Specifically the doorknob.
“Holy shit,” he muttered, reaching out and pulling the hairtie off it. “This is Holly’s favorite.”
“Oh wow, yeah.” She smiled as he put it in his pocket. “It’s amazing that you remember this stuff.”
“Yeah but I’m afraid that’s going to cut both ways eventually.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as they got back into her car.
“I’m going to forget something at some point.”
Ellen laughed. “Babe. It’s not like you get punished the moment you forget something, even something important. On top of being human, we’re all kinda fucked up...except Liz, I guess. She seems pretty even, mental health-wise. You’ll be fine.”
She started up the car and began driving back.