Page 7 of It Couldn't Be You
“Normal relationship flaws.” I brushed it off. “Nothing serious. He really is close to perfect.” I felt protective of Jordan after I had accidentally, impulsively, slighted him.
“What would be my flaw?” Gabe kept leaning in closer the more we spoke. Ricky and Maggie had left the conversation. Katie was checking her phone.
“You’re my best friend’s brother.” It spilled from my mouth easily, warmly, as his eyes burned into me. I shouldn’t have said it, but I didn’t care at the moment.
The room felt still, like everyone was suddenly far away. Where did the air go? Our faces were close. We kept leaning closer, closer. He opened his mouth to speak but didn’t say a word. I saw his wheels turning, thinking through his words.
I put my glass of wine to my mouth when he finally said, “You—”
“Emma, you would not believe who just followed me on Insta,” Katie interrupted us.
The air came back. The room was back in motion. People were around us again, and my skin cooled. We sipped our big glasses of wine, pretending we weren’t staring at each other the entire time.
Two
Me
‘Everyone’ is all the sibs and their paramours.
Jordan Boyfriend <3
Had to google paramour.
Jordan Boyfriend <3
My mom made your favorite chili tonight. She told me to tell you she’ll set some aside for you.
Me
Tell her thank you
Jordan Boyfriend <3
It sure is getting late. Don’t drive too late on those country roads, babe.
Later, I was pouring myself a glass of the cheap red blend and thinking about what Katie said. I’d had a couple of boyfriends and a few almosts and maybes since knowing Gabriel and before Jordan.
But, as I sipped my fresh glass of wine, I realized, or admitted to myself, that Gabriel was always frustratingly hanging out in the back of my mind while different guys made it front and center. As is the case when you’re attracted to someone entirely off-limits.
You just pretend you’re not attracted at all, like it’s not there. Like a really annoying itch you could never reach. You ignore it. You ignore your instincts because you couldn’t scratch it anyway, no matter how badly you’d like to.
But what Katie said about my “disqualifying factor” was a little bit true.
There was a high school boyfriend my senior year, Matt, who I liked a lot but when he told me he wanted to apply to a faraway school, I immediately broke things off. Long distance never worked, right? His fatal flaw.
There was a guy my sophomore year in college who was such a know-it-all. He was handsome, kind, and thoughtful, and we shared so many of the same interests that we got along so well, but he was a total know-it-all. It was a small thing that our friends always laughed off as Jeremy was just being Jeremy. But somehow, each “actually” or “well, you know” response got more and more grating until I had to dump him.
I explained this to Katie at the time. She just cackled and said, “Found his disqualifier, huh?”
“Doesn’t everyone have a disqualifier until you meet the right one?” I countered.
“No one will be perfect, you know. Not even the right one,” she said, all wisdom and virtue.
But I kind of already knew this. Because I was assuming my right one would be a lot like Gabe. I had always had a soft spot for Gabe, and not one flaw had turned me off or disqualified him. And I was definitely well-acquainted with Gabe’s flaws. He himself was a total know it all, probably worse than Jeremy.
After breaking things off with Jeremy, I was back home with Katie, and while we were hanging out at her house with Gabe, I started noticing how often he said “actually,” and “well, I just read about this online,” but it wasn’t grating. It was kind of cute—Gabe just being Gabe. And I wanted to hear what Gabe thought, anyway. Whathadhe read online?
I adored Gabriel Hernandez for the whole of him, not just the pieces that made him who he was. I liked his core, his center, his very essence, him as is. The proof of this was in all my years of knowing Gabriel. He had grown and changed since I first realized the effect he had on me, and no matter how much he had changed over the years—probably no matter how much he still would change and evolve—I never stopped viewing him the way I did.
