Page 81 of The Broken Heart Playlist
“You’re not weak because you cry, Kate. You’re human.” I see a flash of what looks like pain in his eyes. “You think I don’t break down? I can’t watch a movie if any of the characters are dying of cancer. It brings back too many memories of my mom. I can’t listen to Queen or Abba or Cat Stevens, because they were my mom’s favorite artists.”
His still-raw grief touches me. “I wish I could have met your mom.”
“Yeah, me too. You would have liked her. And she definitely would have liked you.”
I feel the barriers I’ve meticulously erected around my heart start to crumble in the face of Gideon’s relentless tendernessand gentle coaxing. But it’s also time to inject some unvarnished honesty into his rose-colored veins. “Gideon, I’m a single mom running on empty. I work to put food on the table and then I come home and take care of Lisset. I try to visit my family on the weekends, and I have neither the time nor the inclination for friends.” I draw in another deep breath. “I don’t know if there’s anything left of me to carve out for you.”
He stares at me with calm, steady eyes. “You don’t have to carve anything out for me,” he tells me. “I’m not asking you to give up anything.”
“What are you asking for?” I whisper.
“I’m asking for a chance. I want you to let me in and get to know me. I want to get to know you.” He goes silent for a few seconds before his face takes on a look I can’t read. “And I want you to stop feeling like the only place you can cry is in the shower when you’re alone. You don’t have to put up a wall or a facade with me.”
A strange sensation stirs inside me. I’ve constructed such a labyrinth of walls around myself that most people, when they meet me, are too daunted by the maze to even attempt to navigate it. Except for Gideon. For some unfathomable reason, he’s not daunted. It’s as though he can see past the walls to the woman hiding in the center of the maze.
A sense of hope pushes through me, like a sapling pushing its way through the soil, desperate to reach warmth and light. Wanting to grow. Wanting to reach unimaginable heights.
“A chance?” I ask, when I finally trust myself to speak.
“A chance,” he confirms.
I bite my lip, wavering. “All right, Gideon Walker, you get your chance. But we’re taking it slow,” I warn him.
He offers me a rueful smile. “Any slower and we’ll be going backward.”
And even after everything that’s happened, he still has the capability to make me laugh.
[MESSAGES]
Tess:I’m sorry for saying you never cry.
Tess:It really was such a crappy thing to say.
Tess:But I’m glad you cry. I mean, I’m not glad in a sadistic way, just glad you have that release. In a non-sadistic way.
Tess:Let me point out though that Gideon has broad shoulders. Perfect for crying on.
Tess:Please say you forgive me.
Tess:Otherwise I’m going to keep texting you. I can do this all day. Literally.
Kate:I forgive you.
“I don’t want to read!” Lisset cries out, throwing her book down.
The spring day is warm enough so we’re sitting outside on my porch. It’s Gideon’s idea. He wants to encourage Lisset to read in her own surroundings and not only at his house.
It’s been two weeks since the family lunch. No one has made too big a deal of Lisset’s revelation. My family check in on me more often, which I tolerate, but they don’t walk on eggshells around me. Tess still inundates me with texts and tries her level best to annoy me. And Gideon continues to come round on Fridays, where we sit on the porch and sip our wine and talk. It no longer scares me how much I look forward to seeing him. This thing between us feels precious and delicate. It feels as though we’re building up the small moments in our lead-up to the big moment, our first real date.
I meet Gideon’s gaze. We’re both startled by Lisset’s outburst. She was doing so well with her reading. I thought we’d turned a corner and now this.
I scoot forward in my chair, preparing to address her, but Gideon touches my arm lightly.
Wait, he mouths.
Uno hasn’t taken his eyes off Lisset. They’re sitting together on the reading blanket on the porch, the discarded book in front of them.
Out of Lisset’s line of sight, Gideon makes a subtle gesture to Uno. The greyhound obediently tilts his head to one side, confusion etched in his brown eyes.
