Page 112 of This Kind of Forever
I cast my eyes downward as I rest my head against him. And I let myself have this. Indulge in it. Because I can already picture it slipping from my grasp, just like my mother warned me.
THIRTY-NINE
GABE
As the night wears on,Hallie grows more distant, even in sleep.
The moment she stepped through the front door earlier, I felt it. Something wasoff. But it wasn’t until I started kissing her that I realized she wasn’t in it. Something happened, I just didn’t know what.
Was it a mistake to keep those three words from her? Should I have told her again that I love her? Hallie has faced her own fears, but I haven’t faced mine.
My sleep is anything but restful. I have horrible dreams that feel sickeningly like some kind of bad omen, warning me I’m on the verge of losing everything I hold close. I haven’t felt fear like that since the night Abbie was in that fire.
Hours later, I wake with a start.Abbie’s safe. She’s with my parents.Hallie’s safe. She’s right beside me. I repeat the words in my head until my heart rate has slowed.
But when I turn over, I find her side of the bed empty. It’s still dark out, and when I check the time, I see that it’s three in the morning. My stomach drops.
Immediately, I’m out of bed. I check my en suite, the guest room, the hallway bathroom. I even check Abbie’s room. When I don’t find her, I fly down the stairs. She isn’t on the main level either. But when I look out the window in the kitchen, I notice the light is on out in the guesthouse.
I grab a hoodie off the hook by the back door and shrug it on, and then I head outside. We haven’t gotten any snow yet, but the temperatures have dipped low enough for frost to coat almost everything. The grass crunches beneath my shoes as I walk across the backyard.
The door swings open silently, and I peer inside, not wanting to startle her. Hallie is standing in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips. She’s still wearing the pajamas she went to sleep in, but she’s also wearing her coat. The heat hasn’t quite kicked in yet, which means she hasn’t been out here long.
“Hallie,” I say gently as I step inside, “what are you doing out here?”
Her shoulders slump. “I’ve decided I don’t like this paint colour after all.”
“That’s fine, baby. We can change it.” I step closer, taking the dry paintbrush from her hand and setting it on the counter. I wrap an arm around her, and she curls into me, her face pressed into my chest. “But is there a reason this couldn’t wait until the sun came up?”
Her hands fist the sides of my hoodie. “Couldn’t sleep,” she mumbles, face still hidden.
“Does this have anything to do with the reason you came home upset?” I ask. When she came back from her errands looking like she had seen a ghost, she hadn’t been ready to talk. Maybe she would be now.
She pulls back a bit and looks up at me. “I told Kevin and everyone the truth today,” she admits. Her voice is quiet, bordering on a whisper.
A lock of hair falls across Hallie’s cheek, and I reach out to tuck it behind her ear. “How did that go?”
Her face crumples. “Not well.”
“What happened?”
Hallie swipes at her cheek, where tears are beginning to make their way down her face. “I said I was sorry for lying and told them that we aren’t actually engaged. Then Dana started making comments about how they should’ve known better, considering who my mom is, and I just…snapped.”
I pull her tighter to me. “Dana had no right to speak to you like that.”
She shrugs. “Maybe she’s right.”
My body goes rigid at her words. Her defeated tone. “She’s not,” I declare.
“Amanda blows through town, leaving wreckage in her wake. Isn’t thatexactlywhat I’ve done? I inserted myself into Kevin’s family, foolishly thinking I could belong. But Ineverhave.”
“Hallie, no. None of that is true. Kevin reached out to you. He wants you there. Now that you’ve cleared the air, I’m sure this will all blow over. I’ll apologize to them, too. You weren’t the only person who lied.”
I’m grasping at straws, trying to get her to see. Trying to stop her from leaving me again. Because I can feel it happening, the crack that’s beginning to form. How many times can you patch over something before the effort won’t matter anymore?
Hallie takes a deep breath and then a step back, pulling out of my embrace, like she’s preparing herself for something.
“Gabe, I’ve been thinking,” she says. “And…I think we should stop.”
