Chapter 40
Gabrielle's POV
There’s a click as Lincoln makes his way through the door, carrying a wave of tiredness over his presence.
The couch is so comfortable that I don’t want to get up. The TV is on. I finally decided to use it.
Me and Morris decided to watch some cat videos.
Lincoln stumbles his way to the bathroom after a greeting. Morris remains on my lap.
I smile, and then there’s a noise that catches me off guard. I find that I have to open my eyes to try and locate where it’s coming from. The living room is coated in darkness, and my mind is a mess of confusion.
Looking at the digital clock on the wall, it says 2:00 a.m.
Oh my God. Did I fall asleep?
When I look to my left at the main big sofa, there’s Lincoln.
While he’s sitting on the couch and I thought he was watching the muted TV, his head is back, mouth open, as he snores lightly.
He’s fast asleep.
I stand up, but before my hand touches him as I reach out, I stare at his sleeping face. My heart pricks at me as memories of us dancing in our old apartment before we moved to our house assault me.
We were so in love.
I remember one particular night, him coming in happy for my birthday, him singing “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” by Elvis as he played it from his phone.
Holding me, rocking with me, dancing with me as he fed me some bits of the small cake he brought home for me, smiling lovingly as he sang to me, looking into my eyes…
It was so intimate. After he fed me that spoon of cake, he kissed me, sharing a little bit of the taste after I swallowed it.
He didn’t have to even sing that song, because I could tell just from the way he was looking in my eyes and holding me that I was the only one in the world for him.
And I was his person then and forever. That he saw nobody else.
…what a night that was.
Just the both of us.
My heart is so full right now. Mourning the life we had. Mourning the love we had. You were supposed to be my Ever After.
I can’t stop staring at him.
His body is beautiful.
He’s tall and lean, his deep blue shirt hugging every masculine line of him all the way down to his tapering waist. His legs are slightly open as he sits on the couch, his head reclined back as he’s lost in sleep. God, I miss touching his body.
My hand hovers over him, wanting so badly to touch him, leaving only an inch of space between my fingertips and the warmth coming off him.
My fingertips drift back up toward his face.
There’s a bit of his dark brown hair resting on his eyebrow.
He had cut his hair, but he always leaves the front a little longer so when he combs it back it can have that old-timey look.
I brush it so gently off his brow, the way I used to when we were married and I would wake up in the middle of the night just to watch him sleep, so grateful to God for him.
His eyes flutter open very slowly.
When I realize he’s actually waking up, I pull my hand back quickly and stand up straight, looking away from him.
“I… It's after 2:00 a.m. I didn't mean to sleep that long. I don't even know why… I don't even know why I fell back asleep.” My words tumble out due to embarrassment.
Lincoln doesn't move. He just sits there, head still reclined, staring at me, probably wondering why I was about to touch him.
Watch him say something about boundaries.
I wish he was like that with Sarah. How many times did Sarah try to do stuff with him?
How many times did he deny her? What the hell did he let her get away with to cause him to cheat on me like that?
“That's because you're tired,” he says in his own tired voice, still not moving.
“Yeah well,” I start, straightening up, preparing to leave, getting my wallet, which is just much easier to carry since I can swing the strap over my shoulder and wear it like a handbag. “I need to get going.”
Lincoln looks at the clock on the wall. His face remains almost passive, probably too tired to emote. “It's after 2:00 in the morning like you said. You're not going anywhere.”
He closes back his eyes, still reclined on the couch, probably falling back asleep.
“Sorry to bust your bubble but I am.”
“Don't be ridiculous. You're tired. Just stay,” he says, not so much as a plea but in a casual, half-asleep way.
I want to stay. Does he think I want to go back out there and travel before dawn just to go to my bed where it's cold and lonely? I have lived with Lincoln for 9 years of my life. And no matter how late he came home, I always shared a bed with him.
Before that, I was living with my father.
My dad is well enough to walk around and take care of himself, and it helps that his sister comes by sometimes to hang out with him and help him out.
I still go back to visit and call him often.
He moves much slower of course, but at least he's still a comforting presence.
When I started dating Lincoln and then when I decided to move in with him, it was straight from my family home to an apartment with Link. There has never been a time, until after I separated from Lincoln, that I lived alone.
It's a very uncomfortable and soul-crushing experience. The bed that's supposed to feel comfortable feels so empty. Even though I rush to jump back into it when the restaurant job made me tired, it still felt lonely, like there was always something missing or a part of me missing.
Even when I fooled around with that guy on my travels, I slept over, but it wasn't my bed. He's never actually shared my bed with me. Come to think of it, that experience of sharing my personal bed is something only Lincoln did.
Of course I had boyfriends before him; very short affairs back when I thought a simple kiss or sex made someone your boyfriend. I only had two experiences like that before Lincoln came into the picture, and then it was just him.
Everybody else lost their spot after that, and I thought that's how it was supposed to be. And then this man goes and treats me like garbage.
Even saying that doesn't feel true, because when I think of Lincoln and how he treated me for the majority of my life and our marriage or time together, he wasn't like that.
Even when he was tired and coming home late, aside from the arguing and the excuses, I wouldn't say he ever treated me like garbage.
Not the way that people think.
But just because he did it covertly… that somehow makes it worse. Being nice to someone in their face and then stabbing them in the back.
I must keep that at the forefront of my mind.
“I want to sleep in my own bed, Lincoln.”
“You can sleep in my bed.”
No this asshole did not.
“Excuse me?” I ask with indignation.
He seems to wake up a little bit more at that, his eyes opening a bit wider, probably realizing what he said. “I don't mean with me. I meant… the bed I have in the master is still our bed.”
“Nothing is our bed anymore. It's all yours. You made sure of that.”
“Gabby, I don't want to fight you,” he says tiredly, sitting up and leaning forward, rubbing a hand over his face wearily.
“Of course you don't. Because you're a coward.”
He looks up at this after blinking as if caught out of a trance. Still sitting, he stares at me with this weird look on his face. “I'm a coward?” He expresses the words as if I'm somehow wrong in my assessment.
“Yes, you're a coward.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he says, too calm for my taste.
Watch him get mad. I hate when he does this. Maybe I'm picking a fight, but seriously, what does he have to get mad over? He's the one who hurt me.
“What's wrong with me? Wow… I can't figure it out. I can't figure out why I'm so angry with the man who promised that I was the only woman for him—”
“I thought you were over that.”
“I'm still mad about it, Lincoln! Jesus Christ!”
“Well that means you're not over it.”
“Are you over it?” I challenge him.
He hesitates, just sitting there, his arms draped over his legs. “Yeah I'm over it.”
“Really?” I shift my weight, putting a hand on my hip incredulously.
“I mean I'm still upset about hurting you, of course. But I've moved on. What, you thought I was pining over you the whole time?” he asks me, standing up and rolling his eyes almost indiscernibly.
That hurt my feelings.
“Well I'm glad it was so easy for you to move on,” the words slip through my teeth.
“I never said it was easy. It was actually pretty painful. I hung on for a very long time.”
“Oh wow, do you want a medal? Which you could have done that before you cheated on me. How long did you hang on anyway? A day? An hour?”
Lincoln stands there staring at me, his head turned in my direction, locked on me as if stuck.
“A year.”
I freeze at this. He’s so full of shit. Stepping a little bit closer to him, my arms fold. “You waited a year.”
“Yes,” he says with all sincerity.
My eyes don't leave him, waiting for him to break. “Call me crazy but I don't believe you.”
He shrugs. “You don't have to believe me. After you caught me with Sarah… it destroyed me.”
“Oh poor you,” I snide.
“I know. I don't blame you for not believing me. But I… deeply regretted it.”
“How long do you think it would have gone on before you decided to stop, Lincoln? Be honest with me. Because you made out with Sarah a while back. And then gas-lit me into thinking nothing was happening. So this was already building between you two.” The words are like dry ice tumbling out of my lips, the cold hitting every tooth.
“I felt horrible about it.”
“But you just liked the pussy more.” I smile sarcastically at him.
He takes a breath and tilts his head in discomfort, closing his eyes at my words.
“What's the matter?” I shrug rudely. “Don't like hearing the very obvious truth of what you did? I was waiting at home for you. Worried about you. Missing you. Loving you…”
I watch his eyes look at mine and then move away. His expression is somber and haunted as his eyes remain on the ground.
“Despite me as your wife basically begging for your attention, trying to reach out to you and… to fix what was broken with us, you just completely ignored me. And don't tell me that you didn't, because you being present out of pretense to shut me up is not the same thing as you loving me back.”
“I never stopped l—”
“Oh my God, shut the fuck up, Lincoln! Yes you did!
And don't tell me that bullshit that guys say about how guys can love a woman and still fuck another woman.
If you really loved me, you wouldn't have done the one thing you know could damage our marriage and hurt me the worst!
So I'm sorry, I don't believe anything you say after this point. And honestly, I don't care.”
Turning on my heels, I start for the door. I really don't want to go out there; it is really dark.
“Gabby,” he calls out to me, his call going ignored. “Gabby. Gabrielle.”
“Leave me alone, Lincoln.”
“I did wait a year. And I know that doesn't mean anything now because… I… I was missing you so much and… I didn't do anything with Sarah.”
“But after the year mark you were like ‘well that's enough time, I've redeemed myself. Time to get back to fucking the woman I cheated on my wife with.’ HA. What did you actually expect that you were going to accomplish by telling me that?” I burn into him, throwing my words over my shoulder.
Lincoln just swallows, blinking at me and then looking somewhere else as if trying to find the answer.
“Exactly. You're so fucking pathetic.”
For some reason I expect him to stop me, but this time he doesn't.
I told my ride where to meet me, and as I'm walking in the dark, the tears, those stupid tears I thought were a thing of the past, come all the way back to the forefront of my vision.
It's very cold, and I'm shivering, and I'm hurting.
Working for him was a bad idea, but in some sick, twisted, masochistic way, I still want to be around him.
It's like the first bout of normalcy I've felt.
Even when I was out there traveling, trying to find myself, it feels like I'm home just being in the same house with him.
How fucked up is that.
Waiting by the block, my ride pulls up. As I'm about to get in, I do a double take and notice a car in the distance.
The headlights are on, and it looks so out of place because it's dark and dead, everyone’s probably still asleep. But as I squint my eyes trying to see past the headlights, I notice the outline of the car.
It's Lincoln's.
He's fast. Maybe he expected that he was going to take me home, or maybe he wanted to sit in the car and wait to make sure my ride actually came to get me.
What, was he going to do a car chase if it was someone else that kidnapped me and put me into their vehicle?
That's a very amusing thought, but I'm not going to lie… just seeing him show the same kind of protection he did when we were younger makes me feel warm, even though I'm still angry.
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