Page 110 of It Couldn't Be You
“Emma.” He was exasperated with me. That fact alone pierced me. “What do you actually want? With anything? You never say! It obviously wasn’t that life you had rolling ahead of you with Jordan, but it took a proposal for you to admit it, and even then, by the skin of your teeth. It obviously wasn’t the reporting just like you had, but they had to fire you before you admitted it.Why can’t you just admit the things you want? Why can’t you admit you want to be with me?”
“Don’t say that about me. I do know what I want. I want you. I want to be with you. I want to be with you so much it’s broken my heart over and over and over again. I wanted you before you wanted me. Wanting you leads to me pining away as you run off to California. Wanting you just hurts me.” Tears stung my eyes. The elevator doors pinged in the distance.
He grabbed my hands. “I’m not going to California. We can—”
“We can what? I live in Sweet River —”
“You don’t have to live in Sweet River, though—”
“That’s not the point,” I cut him off sharply.
“Then what’s the point?” His dark eyes searching mine.
I said nothing. I didn’t have words, at least not the ones to save this. A sad silence stretched between us.
“So basically, no real response. No response—just like on your birthday.” He dropped my hands.
“That’s not fair!” My chest squeezed. “Last time, you sent me a text that was just so confusing during a time in my life I was already confused. I didn’t know what to say or what to do.”
“You could’ve said something. Anything. You never replied.” He shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I’msosorry. I’ve been sorry. I know it was hurtful. I even knew it at the time, but I kept thinking I would come up with a response until too much time had passed. It got away from me, Gabriel.”
He looked down at his feet.
“I regret not replying to you. I thought about it every single day for a year. I was afraid what you thought it meant.” Tears were dropping down my cheeks, my chin.
“What did it mean?” He kept looking down.
“It meant I didn’t know what to say.”
“Why are you so afraid to—”
“Stop saying I’m afraid to admit what I want.I am trying.” I ran my fingers through my hair. I crossed them over my chest. “I’m scared. Okay? It’s terrifying to want you. I have been your sister’s best friend, your family’s second daughter, basically my whole life. If we get together, then break up, there’s no more Christmas parties for me to attend, no more tagging along for family vacation, no more being Katie’s maid of honor. You’re not losing your second family if you lose me.”
“If I lose you, I lose everything.” Gabriel’s eyes were serious. “And I would never let you lose my family. Your best friend. I would protect those with my life.”
My hands were shaking. My heart was racing. I felt exposed for admitting so much—so much I don’t think I had ever fully articulated to myself like a shield had dropped.
“Emma, please. I think we could figure this out. It doesn’t have to be this scary or this hard just to give us a shot,” Gabe said, his voice like an open wound.
“Oh yeah, because I’m just being scared Emma, making things hard. And you’re super smart Gabriel, who knows everything,” I said defensively, angry at myself, angry at him.
“That’s not what I meant, Em.”
“Yes, it is. You literally said I’m just too scared to admit what I want in my life over and over again.”
“I shouldn’t have harped so much on that. I’m sorry.”
I could feel his disappointment in me, and it stung. I took in a jagged, indignant breath.
“Do you want to give us a shot?” he asked me point-blank, and I knew, for one last time.
Iwantedto give us a shot. But I didn’t want to flip my life upside down. Him or my safe, tidy little life. I couldn’t choose. Which, ultimately, and to my heartbreak, was a choice. I took in a deep breath. I said nothing. The Emma who doesn’t claim what she wants, the Emma he had been talking about.
“Em,” he urged me. He was squeezing the doorway behind me.
“We shouldn’t have played with fire,” I said, my voice raw from crying, angry that he called me out and that he was right.
