Because I can’t.
I can’t go back there, to that place where we existed. Not when I’ve come so far.
Despite it all, my heart screams for him, his touch, those eyes that did me in. And the way he looks now, his gaze simultaneously shocked and pleading…
No.
I take another step away, then two, until I’m in the car. Ruby pushes her face between the front seats, her nose pressed to my arm. My sister has the heat on blast, as if there is even a chance of drying me. I am soaked to the bone, but that hardly registers.
I feel everything at once, and nothing at all. An incongruous duality.
Cam says, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She’s aiming for ironic, but there’s too much shock in her tone for her to hit the mark. The comment is literal.
Gabriel’s figure shrinks in the side mirror. He is rooted in place as we leave the parking lot behind.
“I have.”
