Page 115 of Ours to Lose
Evan’s expression softened with understanding. “Those are your fears, A. They’re not the truth.”
“How do you know?”
They’d been true for my parents, who hadn’t even needed to give up their jobs for it to happen.
He didn’t have to think about it. “Because since he got home, the only thing Gabe has wanted more than his gym is to be close to you. I avoided him every chance I could, and I still saw it clear as day. His first night back, I told him to stay away from you, and didn’t. He was willing for me to stay pissed at him in order to have you in his life, and if he wouldn’t resent you for that, no way would he resent you over a job. I don’t care how good it is.”
My chest burned. I wanted to believe it more than I wanted to cook anything again. But my body wouldn’t let go of the fear.
“Look,” Evan said, stopping in front of the café. “Maybe you’re right and this is his dream job. But that doesn’t change the fact that neither of you seem to know how the other feels, which really seems like a conversation you should have before one of you decides to move across the country. Especially given the way you light each other up. I didn’t realize it until your birthday, but he helps you be a brighter version of yourself—maybe the happiest I’ve seen you. And you do the same for him. From where I’m standing, the worst-case scenario isn’t that you tell him and he leaves. It’s that he leaves when what you both really wanted was for him to stay. So think about it.”
He left me to do just that as he held the door open for an older couple on their way out. I followed him to the counter to put in our to-go order, and the bartender poured us waters. The sharp bite of cold liquid grounded me as I processed what Evan had said.
I believed Gabe cared about me. I believed I made him happy. And it wasn’t like I wanted him to choose meoverboxing. If there was a way I could make his dreams come true that allowed him to stay in Philly, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Plus, his family was here. His home. Gabe could have chosen to open his own gym anywhere in the world or stayed with the boxing community he already had in London, but he chose to come back to Philly. Before anything physical had happened between us.
That possibility made it easier to accept—that instead of staying for me, he might not have wanted to go in the first place. That I wasn’t the only reason.
Even though a different, equally confusing part of me wanted to be. The part that glowed at recalling how, unlike my parents, Gabe had gone out of his way to spend time with me. How he’d come to the prep kitchen the night all hell had broken loose, and checked on me when I was on my period. How he’d put together the surprise for my birthday so I wouldn’t feel alone.
My parents had never done anything like that, even before they’d left me with Nana. As far back as I could remember, it only ever felt like they’d resented me for needing them.
My mind turned to Jillian and Jase. I’d worried about them resenting me in a similar way, and all along, they’d been wishing I would lean on them more.
Gabe had only ever wanted me to lean on him too.
Iwantedto lean on him now. Wanted the courage to ask him to stay. Courage I hadn’t needed to tell him to go because I’d been telling myself all along he might do just that.
If I never told him how I felt, I never had to risk his rejection. The knowledge that he didn’t choose something better; he just didn’t want me.
The way my parents hadn’t wanted me.
I stared at the black marble of the bar as my fingers went numb against my water glass.
All these years, I’d told myself I’d been too much for my parents, but when it came down to it…I hadn’t been enough.
Not enough to raise or love.
Not enough to bother knowing.
And in every relationship since, I’d feared the same. That I wouldn’t be enough for them unless I was everything they needed. It was true at work and with Patrick. Even with Nana.
I’d done everything I could to make sure I was enough for people to keep me in their lives, and despite everyone who’d told me differently, here I was still terrified of the same with Gabe.
Not that I would weigh him down but that I wouldn’t fill him up the way boxing did; the way this job could. That no matter what I did or how much I offered, it wouldn’t be enough for him to wantme.
The air was suddenly too hot and freezing cold all at once. I felt one nudge away from collapsing like an undercooked soufflé, exhausted from measuring myself against an invisible line my parents had drawn in my heart when they dropped me at my grandma’s and walked away.
I didn’t want to live by that line anymore.
I wanted to be capable of believing Gabe wanted me back. To trust that the people in my life chose to be there because of who I was more than what I did for them.
And by not telling Gabe how I felt, I was robbing him of the chance to make that choice for himself.
Evan was right.
He sat quietly beside me while my thoughts spun.
