Page 125 of It Couldn't Be You
I rolled my eyes. I wanted to wrap my arms around him. I wanted to kiss him. But I rolled my eyes instead.
“I got your voicemail,” he said, walking toward me. “God, I missed your voice. I had all these responses, but it was a voicemail. I kept thinking how you and I really need to talk…but then I realized I’ve been the idiot not answering your calls.”
“Or text messages,” I narrowed my eyes.
“Or text messages.” He winced. He was standing in front of me now. We were eye to eye.
“Why? And don’t give me that whole needing-to-clear-your-head spiel. I want the real answer, exactly how you think it in your head,” I said. I resisted the urge to pull him closer.
“You know, Emma, I hadn’t realized how bad the end of our trip was going to hurt. But it really hurt to go from kissing you to getting rejected, all in a matter of hours. It felt like this whirlwind that left me hopelessly confused.” He swallowed. “It felt eerily similar to those months after your twenty-first birthday.”
“Gabe, I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice raw, quiet. “I hate that I hurt you like that again.”
“I was really, really messed up when we got back. And there you were, in that dress at Katie’s engagement party, sitting at the table, looking me down with those big eyes. And I know you were looking me down,” he said pointedly. I blushed at his words.
“I was just aching at the sight of you. You were there in front of me. You know how bad I want you. I agonizingly wanted to go talk to you, it was hard not to, but I kept thinking about your message ‘It’s best we don’t,’” he said. The air was humid, thick around us. Cars rumbling in the distance.
“But I just meant—” I started to interrupt him. He held up his hand.
“I don’t need to go over exactly what you meant. I’m sure you didn’t mean to never talk again. I just felt like I was one of those variables you were unsure about—like what job do you want, where do you want to live, and do you really like Gabe?” He said counting off each option on his fingers.
I nodded apologetically. Because maybe for a while, even though it wasn’t true, I had stashed my big, scary feeling for Gabriel in the Variables file in my heart.
“When, for me, there is no question. No variables. No choice. I want to be with you, plain and simple. It’s you, no matter what, no matter how, no matter the wreckage—it’s you. Ithasto be you, Emma,” he said, his voice gravelly, a rasp.
I stepped closer to him, feeling the heat between us. My skin was acutely aware of his every move.
“You’re not just a variable for me,” I said. “I’m not unsure of how I feel about you. Maybe I didn’t want to admit it to myself for a while. But your place in my heart is one of the surest things in my life. It’s been you since I was a little girl.” I started laughing at the agonizing undeniable truth of it all. Like I was really realizing it as I spoke it. “It’s been you every single day, year after year. It’s been you on the best days, the worst days. It’s been you even when I hadn’t seen you in years—even when I was seeing you hold someone else’s hands. It's been you even when I was trying to convince myself to be okay without you.”
His eyes were on mine in a way I could feel to my core.
I took a deep, steadying breath. “You’re not one of the options I’m choosing between. You’re a destination on my map that I was desperately trying to find the right path to.”
There we stood, just us two, the sun on our shoulders.
“Then why…” his voice cracked.
“I hadn’t meant to end it between us. I was trying to press pause on the conversation, but I didn’t want us to stop talking. I definitely didn’t want to hurt you the way I did. I should’ve spoken up and explained it, but I was so… I was scared.” I swallowed. My mouth was dry, and my heart was pounding. “You were right when you said I was scared to admit what I want. I was scared to admit I didn’t want Jordan. I was scared to admit I wanted to move on from my job. And I wanted you most of all, so I was scared of you most of all.”
“I saw you talking to Jordan at the party—” He looked down at his feet as he said this. A curl fell over his eyes.
I shook my head as if to immediately brush away the thought of Jordan. “He was telling me he was back with his ex.”
“The girl from the auto shop?” He looked back up at me.
I nodded.
“Wait, why are you scared of me most of all? Is it the family thing?”
“Mostly.”
“I get that. But you also said something that night in Cambria about me running off to California?”Of course, he had held onto something from the last conversation that plucked one of my most sensitive nerves.
“I do get scared that you will just leave me behind. I think when I didn’t get the job in California and you did, and I had to stay behind and watch your life blossom there without me, I felt like I couldn’t keep up with you. Like I’d be left behind like your old small town.”
“I will never leave you behind. I never did. You were here.” He patted his chest. Then pointed to his head. “And you’re on repeat up here twenty-four seven.”
I swooned a little, but the realistic part of me replied, “But logistically.”
