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Violet looked at me with a pleading glance.
“Just call a tow truck company,” I said, not wanting to be pushed into a conversation that I knew would bring up emotions I was trying hard to suppress.
Violet did call a tow truck company. She called several in fact, but all of them had hours of waiting time, and in the end I was so desperate to get home that I agreed to walk with him to his car.
“Thank you,” Violet called after me as I walked stiffly next to the man who had been my first love.
“Why didn’t you ever call me?” he asked.
“There wasn’t much to talk about,” I answered shortly.
“Did you ever consider that some closure would have been healthy for both of us?”
I shrugged…God damn it, where is his car?
“Everyone has been asking about you.”
I knew he was referring to his family… but that was the double curse of my situation. I hadn’t lost just him, but the chance to be a part of my family too. Even if they would accept me into their fold, I wouldn’t go… because he would be there.
It hurt too much.
“Where do you live?” Gabriel asked and I told him it was none of his concern.
“Do you have enough money?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still off the drugs?”
That made me whip my head around and pin him with a dirty look. “You make it sound like I was a hard-core drug addict.”
“I’m sorry, I just worry about you.”
“Don’t, I’m fine.”If heartbroken can be called fine.
When we finally got to his car, he asked me to get in. “The battery is heavy, I don’t want to carry it, so we’ll take my car back,” he explained.
I shook my head. “That’s okay. You drive, I’ll just walk back.”
He crossed his arms. “Are you really so disgusted with me that you can’t sit in a car with me for two minutes?”
“No.” Didn’t he understand that my coldness had nothing to with disgust and everything to do with self-preservation?
He took a step to get in front of me. “Cia.”
I looked down, unwilling to meet his glance.
“I’m sorry, Cia. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”
My eyes glanced up to meet his, finding only sincerity in his expression.
“Please accept my apology,” he said, low.
Some say that words are cheap, but for someone like me apologies don’t come by very often. My mom was about the only person who had ever apologized for all the shit she put me through, and that apology came much too late.
To hear Gabriel apologize was huge in my world and I was genuinely touched by it. I think that’s why I got into his car and agreed that we could drive to Violet together.
Of course that’s not what happened at all.
