Page 71 of It Couldn't Be You
He laughed loudly. “Why does everyone think I hate home just because I don’t live here permanently?”
“I don’t think you hate home!” Though I did a little bit. It was his reputation.
“No, no, I know how you and the whole family talk about me like I betrayed the family by moving off to California. I must hate Texas. I can write ‘anywhere,’ my mom says, so it must mean something if I’m not writing from Sweet River.”
I had opened a can of worms. “Gabriel, I was meaning to ask how it felt being stuck with a broken femur and laid up in your house. I didn’t mean being stuck in Sweet River. I mean literally stuck indoors and not traipsing around the country.”
“Oh,” he said sheepishly. “I guess I was on the defense. Mom and the family are always on me, trying to get me to move back, especially lately.”
“It’s their way of saying they miss you. Mostly everyone is proud of your work all the time, and we all understand that your work requires travel.”
He nodded. “I appreciate that. To answer your actual question, it’s been okay. I’m getting out of the house more lately. I feel a little more normal.” He was quiet for a few beats, and I waited. “Okay, honestly, it’s been tough. It’s physically tough going through physical therapy. I felt like my career was really taking off, and now I’m kind of stuck and scrambling…so that’s tough. I’m trying to view it as a pause…though it feels like a big fat stop and eject.”
“Gabe, it’s only been a couple of months. Itisa pause—a short pause. You’re not going to lose your momentum because it wasn’t momentum that got you where you are. It was your talent. You can’t stop and eject your talent. You’re going to write that book. You’re going to get even better projects. I’m not even saying this to be nice. I’m saying it because I believe it—Iknowit.” And I did know it. I knew nothing could hold Gabriel Hernandez back.
He squeezed my hand. “I missed my Emma pep talks.”
“I’ve missed my Gabriel writing crisis. It took me back to the Valentine’s Day we came out to make you feel better because you got aDon your paper. You thought your writing career was over before it began. I’m pretty sure you had some insane graveyard metaphor you used. I much prefer this VHS metaphor.”
He was grinning at me. “I need you around more,” he said. “No one else appreciates me quite the way you do.”
“I’d be around all the time if I could be,” I said, my words spilling like the Champagne.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Then it began to rain, heavy sheets of prickly hard rain. We were blinking it out of our eyes, immediately drenched.
“This isn’t the good rain!” he shouted over the noise.
I said, “Your leg! Are you still bandaged up?” But he couldn’t hear me.
We jogged in the downpour as best as we could as he hobbled on his crutch. I had my arm tucked under him, attempting to help. We stumbled as we got to the truck.
I turned to ask if he was okay, to check on his cast, and he crashed into me. We were suddenly leaning against each other with my back to the car door. I assumed he had fallen. I was worried he was hurt. But then I glanced up, his face to my face, and his eyes were on my lips.
Our breath was heavy and mingling. He slid his hands to my waist, his thumb curving into my side. I placed my hands on his forearms and then slowly slid them up to his neck. We stayed like that for a second, two magnets making contact. He held me close against him. I started to brush my lips against his, but thunder cracking loud across the sky like a slamming door stopped me.
We both paused.
He let out a low, frustrated grumble, kissed my forehead, and said, “Let’s get into the truck.”
I scrambled into the car, dripping rain, while he threw his crutches in the backseat. He got in the truck, started it, and I put my hands against the heater. He seemed very serious as he quietly drove me to my car. I didn’t say anything, either. I kept looking at him, still reeling. My hands were shaking, maybe from the cold, maybe from the almost kiss.
He parked his truck beside my car. Still parked on the street by the café where I ate my Valentine’s pancakes. I didn’t want to get out of the truck. He didn’t say anything. He tapped his steering wheel. I felt again like we were both waiting on something. An energy buzzed in the car. We were both breathing quickly.
I looked at him, and he looked at me. I wanted to crawl over to his side of the car, but I would settle for any little contact I could get. I turned to him, delicate like asking a question.
He twisted in his seat, his eyes looking torn, and said, “Em, last time, I was so confused for so long. You really messed with me. I don’t want it to be like last time.”
“I know.” I pulled my hands away. A flush of regret. “I’m sorry. I never did tell you… I’m so sorry about that. I didn’t know what I wanted back then.”
He looked up at me like he had a question forming in his mouth. But, with the regret and embarrassment from his rejection, I reflexively opened the car door and got out into the thick rain. I didn’t say anything. I closed his truck door and waved.
He waved, too, but also shrugged as if to say,still confused, Em.
I ran to my car in the downpour. I was shivering as I drove home, his sweatshirt stuck to me. I kept thinking about him saying how confused he was last time.
