Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gayle got to the park just off Main Street first.
She'd told herself she'd wait in her car where it was warm. But she'd found herself parked at the edge of the lot and then walking toward the tree without really deciding to, her boots crunching over the frozen grass, her breath making clouds in the December air.
The place was quiet.
The Christmas market booths lined the perimeter, all shuttered up for the morning.
The market wouldn't open until noon. Their wooden shutters were closed, their signs hanging still in the cold.
A few strings of lights were still on from the night before, glowing softly in the gray daylight.
The big tree in the center of the park stood at least twenty feet tall, its white lights on despite the hour, its top still crowned with the same star it had held since Thanksgiving.
A woman jogged past with a golden retriever. An older couple was walking hand in hand near the far side of the park. Otherwise, she was alone.
Gayle stood under the tree and tried to figure out what she was going to say.
She'd been rehearsing it since Miss Doris had left her office. Since she'd hit send on that text. When Corey's Yes had come through, she'd realized, with a sick jolt of both relief and terror, that this was actually going to happen.
She'd rehearsed a hundred versions of the speech. Some of them were long. Some started with an apology and some with an explanation. With all of them, when she got to the middle, she started to panic.
Now, standing under the tree, she gave up on rehearsing.
She heard his truck pull into the parking lot before she saw it. She recognized the sound of the engine, the specific pattern of it slowing down and settling into a spot.
He was walking toward her across the grass in his jacket and a dark green scarf. His hands were in his pockets. His face was carefully unreadable in a way that told her he'd spent the drive over trying very hard not to let himself hope.
He'd come anyway.
That was the thing. He'd come.
She could work with that.
He stopped about six feet away from her. Not close. Close enough that she could see the exhaustion in his eyes.
"Hi," she said.
"Hello."
They stood there for a moment, neither of them quite sure how to start.
Gayle drew in a breath.
"Before I say anything else," she said, "I need you to know something. Presti is still at the shelter. He's not being adopted today. I called Sarah Beaumont this morning and told her I couldn't go through with it."
Something moved in Corey's face. She couldn't tell what. Not quite relief. Something more careful than that. Like he was afraid of feeling anything until he understood exactly what he was feeling it about.
"Is he okay?" Corey asked.
"He's the same way he’s been since you dropped him off. Sitting there, waiting. But he's not going anywhere."
Corey nodded slowly, once. His jaw worked. He didn't say anything.
Gayle took another breath.
"I need to tell you why I did what I did," she said. "And I don't want you to say anything until I'm done. Because if you talk before I get through it, I don't think I'll be able to say the rest of it. Okay?"
"Okay."
She pressed her hands flat against her thighs. She looked past him, at the shuttered booth over his shoulder, because it was easier than looking at his face.
"I was married," she said. "Years ago."
Corey's expression didn't change, but she saw him blink.
"His name was Daniel. We'd been together since college.
When I took over the shelter, he was supportive.
Or so I thought. He liked animals. He'd help me sometimes, on weekends.
And then—" She went quiet for a moment before starting again.
"And then, gradually, he stopped. He started going out with friends more.
He stopped asking about my day. He got quiet in a way I didn't quite notice until it was too late. "
She glanced at Corey. He was listening.
"When he left, he told me it was because I'd never made time for him. That my whole life was the shelter. That I was—" She made herself say the words. "Too much. That my life was too much."
She watched Corey's jaw tighten.
"And I believed him," she said. "For a long time. I told myself I would never do that again. Never let anyone get close enough that they'd realize what I'd chosen my life to be. And I kept the world small. I kept my heart small. And it worked, for years. It worked well enough."
She stopped and drew in a shaky breath.
"And then you caught a puppy at the high school," she said quietly.
"And you brought him to the shelter and kept showing up.
And you organized fundraisers and called HVAC repairmen and held my hand at the Christmas market and looked at me like I was—" Her voice broke.
She swallowed hard. "Like I was worth staying for.
And I couldn't believe it. So I did what I thought was the only safe thing. "
She finally made herself look at his face.
"I decided for you," she said. "I decided you couldn't possibly want a life this complicated. You'd realize eventually, the way Daniel had, that I was too much. And I told myself if I ended it first, I was being kind. That I was sparing you the trouble of eventually realizing it yourself."
Corey's face didn't move. But his eyes did something. Something that made her chest hurt.
"But I wasn't sparing you," she said. "I was doing exactly what Daniel did to me. I made a choice about your life and never once asked you what you wanted. I didn't trust you to know your own mind."
She heard her own voice waver, but she kept going.
"I almost gave Presti to the Beaumonts because I told myself it would untangle you from me.
I told myself I was doing something noble.
" Her eyes were wet now. She didn't try to hide it.
"I wasn't. I was just scared. I was terrified that if I let myself want the life we were building, and then I lost it, I wouldn't survive it.
So I made sure I lost it on my own terms first. I made sure I did it to myself, before you could. "
She stopped. Wiped her face with the back of her hand.
"And I'm sorry, Corey," she said. "I'm so sorry.
For Presti. For letting things get to where they got.
For all the calls I didn't answer and the coffee invitations I turned down and the way I looked at you at the shelter last Saturday like you were a stranger.
You weren't a stranger. You were the best thing that has happened to me in nine years, and I treated you like an inconvenience to protect myself. And I'm sorry."
She stopped talking.
The park was still quiet around them. The tree lights blinked softly. The older couple had moved on. Somewhere in the distance, a car started.
Corey hadn't spoken.
"I know I hurt you," she said, quieter now. "I know I made decisions I had no right to make. And I know that I'm asking for something I don't deserve, just by being here."
She drew in one more breath.
"I love you," she said. "I have loved you for longer than I've been willing to admit.
And I know I don't get to say it now like it fixes anything, but I couldn't sit in the shelter one more day pretending I didn't. I want you.
I want the life we were building. I want to be brave enough to believe you'd actually choose me, knowing what choosing me means. "
The tears were spilling over now. She let them.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," she said. "I know that's a lot to ask. I needed you to know. All of it."