I cried the entire ride home, and when I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I found Cindy sitting in front of my door, scrolling on her phone, her suitcase beside her. She jumped up and took me in her arms where I broke completely into so many shards that I knew no one would ever put me back together.
Two and a half months had passed, but the gutted sensation hadn’t left me. Everywhere I turned was another reminder of Gabe, and I often found myself downtown, staring at the river, wrapping myself in memories of our first kiss and the first time he told me he loved me. Memories I couldn’t let go even when I should have. I was still wounded, raw and bleeding from hiscruel departure, but I couldn’t convince my heart to stop loving him. I wasn’t certain it ever would.
I had no one in Florida, only acquaintances from work but no one I could confide in. And so I’d accepted a position in the Boston offices. Closer to home and with more opportunities in specialized areas. The movers would arrive the next day, and I was ready to leave the memories behind. To see if doing so would somehow heal me. Nothing else had.
I sat on the bathroom floor, holding my knees to my chest, and waited. My hands shook even as they clutched my knees. I had missed my period the month before and rationalized it as poor eating and lack of self-care. During that time, I’d lost ten pounds, letting my emotions feed me because I had no appetite for anything more. But when a second month had passed with no sign of it, I knew the truth.
The alarm went off, and I froze, my eyes riveted to the white strip of plastic sitting on the side of the tub. My heart thudded violently as I unlatched my hands and reached over for it.
“Please, please, please be negative,” I said, tears breaking the words.
Tears that spilled when I read the result. Positive. Thumping my head against the wall, I sobbed as the anguish of losing Gabe thundered through me. I was pregnant with his child, and he’d left us both. Even if he hadn’t known that I’d foolishly missed my pill, he’d still left me and now our child.
I needed to tell him. Maybe he would tell me why he’d put me through this hell if he knew there was another innocent victim. It was a desperate, emotional thought followed by a phone call that went to voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, I texted him.
Please call me. We need to talk.
It was still early. I hadn’t been able to sleep and after convincing myself that my period wasn’t coming, had gotten upat five. He was probably still at the gym. Strange how I knew his schedule just like I knew him. At least I thought I had.
I tried again at six, leaving a voicemail for him to call me. When I hadn’t heard from him by seven, I knew he wouldn’t call. For whatever reason, he never called me after he left. He had left me in the dark to crawl around and find my way out of the crushing boulders he’d dropped on me. Dialing him back, I readied myself to leave a scathing voicemail, but it didn’t go to voicemail this time.
A woman answered.
“Hello?”
I tried not to drop the phone as the world crumbled under my feet.
“Is Gabe there?” I asked, finding my voice and forcing it to stay steady. Another woman. The one thing he’d promised me hadn’t been his big secret.
“He’s in the shower.”
I held my stomach, trying not to let out the scream that was swelling inside me. What fractured remnants existed of my heart curled up and died.
“Look, I know who you are. Let him go. He doesn’t need you clinging to him. Let him go and stop calling him. He won’t call you back, and you’re only making yourself look desperate. Move on just like he is.”
She disconnected, but I didn’t move. I stayed curled in a ball with my back against the bathroom wall, the phone still to my ear. He’d left me for another woman, moving on like I was nothing. The phone fell from my hand, cracking against the tile floor as I cried, rolling to the floor and lying there the rest of the morning.
By the time the movers arrived the next day, my eyes were puffy and red, my skin pale.
“Are we taking this or is it going in your car?” a mover asked me.
In his hands was my wedding dress, still bagged and ready for the wedding that I’d had to cancel. The invitations had already gone out, and every acceptance card that had come back to me drove another crack in my chest. The dress I would have worn, but instead I was packing up my life and moving in a futile attempt to free myself of the man who had left a lingering print on my soul that I would never be able to remove, no matter how he had damaged me.
“Can you pack it? Just be gentle with it.”
He gave me a nod and walked away with it. I should have sold it, but I couldn’t bring myself to. It symbolized a happy time I wasn’t ready to leave behind. I rubbed my stomach, thinking of the baby growing inside. There had been moments on that bathroom floor when I wanted to give it up, to have a doctor remove it so I wouldn’t have the constant reminder of Gabe in yet another part of my body. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even if he had hurt me beyond repair, he had given me months of happiness, and two nights of absolute bliss had created this baby. A child who would remind me that there had been good in all my suffering.
As I stood in the doorway of my empty apartment, I opened myself to the memories again. Moments curled up on the couch watching movies and eating pizza. Gabe cooking me dinner, making witty remarks and sending me melting grins while he tossed pasta, countless hours of our bodies tangled up in my bedroom and every other place he’d taken me. They had been good times. Ones he had ruined the day he’d left me for another woman. I closed the door, locked it for the last time, and left those memories behind.
Chapter 16
Gabe
Two months, sixteen days, two hours, and three minutes. The amount of time since I’d left Tori and any chance of happiness in my life. I had yet to stop the countdown, each minute driving the dagger further into my chest.
I stepped out of the shower and dried off, pulling on a pair of slacks. Toweling my hair dry, I walked from the bathroom and through my bedroom. The suite my father had secured for me was massive, with two bedrooms and a window-lined view that overlooked the city. A view I never had time to appreciate because he worked me to the bone as punishment for my disobedience. I’d given everything up in his punishment, but it still hadn’t been enough.
Intent on grabbing a cup of coffee, I headed into the living room, seeing Liv on my sofa with my phone in her hand.
