Page 50 of Convincing Him
“I gave you so many chances Gabe,” sighed Britney. “We aren’t good for each other. All we do is hurt one another with our ideas of what the other person should be. We just mess it up.”
“I know. I messed up. But I won’t mess up this time,” vowed Gabe. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You never had me,” Britney said dully. “I never had you.”
“Brit, please try one more time,” he asked desperately. “I will be right there trying with you.”
“Please leave me alone,” she pressed her face against the plush bear. “Just go away.”
“Brit,” pleaded Gabe. “Just one more time.”
“It’s too hard,” Britney told him exhaustedly. “I’m broken and tired. If I try again one more time and it doesn’t work out, I won’t be able to pick myself back up again.”
“I will pick you up if it comes to that, but I don’t see it happening. With both of us working together we can make this relationship solid,” Gabe’s voice trailed off as Tara came into the kitchen staring at him in shock.
“What are you doing here? I thought I told you to leave her alone!” Tara came forward, crouching beside Brit and enveloping her in a hug.
“Tara…” Gabe ran a hand through his hair. “All I want – “
“All you want is to make her unhappy yet again,” Tara glared at him. “You are toxic Gabe. A monumental pile of trash. If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police and file charges for trespassing, harassment and whatever else the lawyers can think of.”
“Tara please,” he sighed, tired and aggrieved. “Brit and I need to talk.”
“What you need to do is get out of my house,” she stubbornly insisted as she pulled out her cellphone, fingers hovering over call button. “Get out. Now.”
“This isn’t over,” Gabe vowed quietly as he took a last look at a crying Britney. He rose to his feet.
Tara tilted her head back to look up at him. “If you have any feelings for her at all it will be over. You will leave her in peace so she can figure out how to live her life without you in it. You need to stop destroying her.”
“I want to try again,” Gabe tried to convince her. “I want to try to be the person Brit needs.”
“You will never be that person Gabe,” Tara rubbed Britney’s back. “You don’t know how. You don’t know how to love someone other than yourself.”
“That’s not necessarily true…” Gabe defended himself. At least, he hoped it wasn’t true. There was a lump in his throat preventing him from speaking. He wasn’t going to lie and say he loved Brit. It was the ultimate question every woman wanted answered and he couldn’t answer it. He had no experience with love. He knew all about duty, pride, loyalty, and familial obligation, not about love.
It didn’t matter. He had no answer and Tara knew she had won the argument. Gabe had lost and had no recourse to appeal. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a set of keys. He laid them on top of the papers he had brought which were now on the floor, unwanted like him.
“What are those?” asked Tara with suspicion.
“The keys to her house,” Gabe informed her. “Sell it or keep it, it’s hers to do with what she wants.”
As he left, Gabe wondered if love felt as though he was leaving a piece of himself behind and he would never be quite whole again.
