And anyway, why was Gabe so mad about it?
We hadn’t shared cherry-popping stories yet, but I was pretty sure he knew he didn’t pop mine.
“It wasn’t what they said it was,” I told him.
“I don’t give a fuck what it was,” he shot back. “Who the fuck started this shit?”
“I…” Still perplexed, since all this happened over a decade ago, I asked, “What does it matter? That happened in high school.”
He held his phone toward me and scrolled through a bunch of shit that was still up (a lot of it had been taken down when the cops got involved, oh, and when Mom lost her mind publicly at a school board meeting). All of what he was scrolling through was about me.
Gabe dropped his phone, declaring, “It matters.”
“Gabe, I’m over it.”
He bent toward me, I leaned back, and he shouted in my face, “Well, I’m not!”
Holy shit.
“Baby,” I whispered, shocked to my core at his fury.
“Does it occur to you that I wasn’t only dealing with what that asshole did to you when I was trying to get you here with me?” He thumped his fist over his heart before he jerked his phone up again. “I was dealing with this too?”
Yes, that had occurred to me.
And yes, he was right, he’d been dealing with all of it.
Even so.
“It was a long time ago,” I said carefully.
“It marked you,” he gritted. “Like your dad did. Like that asshole Kevin did.”
“I wasn’t keeping it from you,” I replied. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’ve only just gotten there very recently.”
“No, Willow, that is far from lost on me,” he said dangerously.
Hmm.
I guess, point made.
“What else is there?” he demanded.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Who else fucked you over?”
I had to finish this cake and make the delivery, but since my list wasn’t very long, we had the time.
So I gave it to him quickly in order that Real Logic didn’t butt in and underline the fact my list wasn’t very long, it wasn’t like I was the only woman who faced this kind of crap, and I shouldn’t have held back from Gabe as long as I did.
No, I’d done it because I was just smarting due to the ugly mess Trev and Kev made, and I let it get to me.
Yuck.
“Well, after I got slut shamed for not being a slut,” I hurried on after I said that because Gabe’s scary face got exponentially scarier, “my second high school boyfriend cheated on me…a lot. But, um, that’s it.”
“I’m not gonna step out on you,” he stated.
