I pushed him away with my good hand, laughing. ‘You’re so stupid. Get out of here.’
He laughed and opened the door, saying he’d see me in there. Once he was gone, I thought about the goose bumps he had given me, absentmindedly running the fingers on my right hand against the tips of the bandaged fingers.
I know he was just kidding, but … was that maybe how he showed he cared? I let out another frustrated sigh in the silence of my back seat. Maybe this was just the type of guy I attracted.
Emotionally unavailable. That’s my type.
When Ava walked out Sunset Estates’ exit forty minutes early, I had to double-check the time on my phone to make sure I wasn’t late to pick her up. But no, she still had forty minutes of work left. Yes, I had gotten there an hour early, but honestly, I was bored at home, and even baking wasn’t distracting me. For the past week I had been obsessively checking my phone, waiting to hear from La Mère.
Why I thought sitting in the parking lot of the job I still wasn’t allowed to return to would make me check my emailless, I don’t know.
Ava pulled open the passenger-side door and jumped in. ‘Did you finish early?’
She shook her head. ‘I have to reset my entire section still.’
‘Oh my God, what are you waiting for? Do you not want to leave tonight?’
‘What I’m about to tell you isn’t about you, but I have to do something tonight and I know you’ll ask, so I’m telling you because I care about you, and you should know and not think I’m actively trying to exclude you from something.’
‘Okay?’ I didn’t get why she was being so weird, but also I didn’t get why I wouldn’t be included in something she was doing.
‘It’s about Gabe.’
Oh. That was why.
‘What about him?’
‘So I didn’t tell you, but he and Vic broke up a couple weeks ago.’ Wow. That was something I hadn’t expected to hear. But I did expect to feel more when I heard it. Like butterflies or those embers of heat that filled my gut when I used to think about him. Instead, I felt … nothing? Maybe happy for Gabe?
‘Right, good for them, I guess. Why did you feel you shouldn’t tell me? And why are you telling me now?’
‘I felt like I shouldn’t tell you because you’re in love with him—’
‘Was. Past tense.’
She laughed. ‘Sure.’
‘No, really, I’m good. You were right: I just kept thinking about him as the first guy I— you know what? Maybe we can unpack all that later? Didn’t you say thiswasn’tabout me?’
‘Right. Which goes to the why I’m telling you now. Gabe was the one who broke up with Vic.’
Thatwas even more surprising. I definitely didn’t see Gabe being the one who’d choose to break up with him. But still no butterflies for me.
‘And Vic didn’t exactly handle it well.’
My stomach clenched, and I started to worry. Had Vic done something to Gabe? Hurt him?
‘First he tried all the nice manipulative ways to win Gabe back, flowers and gifts and shit.’
‘Sure.’
‘But when it wasn’t happening, and Gabe still wouldn’t talk to him, he took some screenshots of their texts, made fake social media profiles, and sent them to Gabe’s family.’
‘Shit.’ I assumed they were the same family members who weren’t exactly okay with who Gabe was. ‘What kind of texts?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘I think I can assume based on that answer. What a fucking scumbag!’ I could feel the blood pumping in my ears, I was so furious. This was the same thing Kevin’s brother had done to Gabe! Vicknewabout the strain Gabe’s family put on him and about the trauma of a screencapped text being used against him, and still he did it again. But it was worse, because this time it was Gabe’s family.
