Why isn’t Gabriel home? It’s close to nine at night. I hope he’s okay.
I pull out my phone, staring at our last text messages from two days ago. It’s been silent since that night in his bed. Since I told him I couldn’t do this, and we needed to stop hooking up.
I slide my phone back into my skirt pocket, move upstairs, and flop onto the bed without changing. I turn off the lights but don’t bother taking off my makeup. Instead, I lie there staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet house and waiting for some sign that he’s come home.
Minutes pass. Then hours. It never happens. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself to try and sleep even though I already know it’s pointless. Because all I want to do is find Gabriel and tell him I was wrong.
So, fucking wrong about everything.
Chapter 32: Alessia
I close my planner with a quiet thud before glancing at my watch.
It’s four in the afternoon now. My students have been gone for over an hour, and I’ve finally wrapped up my notes and lesson planning for the week which means it’s time for the meeting that I’ve been dreading.
Amber. Everly’s mom. Gabriel’sex-wifewho apparently thinks he’s the greatest contractor for bathroom remodels in all of Brookhaven. Which to be fair, I think he is too. But she’s not allowed to think that anymore.
And it’s not that I don’t want to help her. It’s not that I don’t care about Everly—I do. Greatly. But Amber is a walking, breathing reminder of everything she once had and everything she threw away. Things that I would have loved to have had with my first marriage.
And the part of me that isn’t the bigger person? The part of me that wants to askhow—why—what the hell were you thinking leaving a man like Gabriel right after he lost both of his parents?—is wound so tight it might snap.
It only makes everything worse that I still haven’t seen him since my date with Travis, and I’m now just one day away from moving back in with Natasha and having no excuse to see him again. That’s right. It’s beenfour freaking dayssince that date, and Gabriel’s been like living with the ghost in my grandma’s attic again.
Except his ghost is even worse because I never see it.
A knock sounds from outside my classroom door. “Come in!” I call out, trying to fix my posture to look relaxed and not stressed.
Amber opens the door with a smile on her face completely oblivious to the turmoil inside me this week. “Hi Ms. Martinez.”
“Hi,” I say, offering a polite smile. “It’s nice to see you again. Please come in.”
She steps inside, looking effortlessly put together in a way that always catches me off guard. How does she manage that? She’s a mother to a young child, has a career, a life in transition, and yet—she looksflawless.
I barely made it through today without spilling coffee on myself twice. Once when my students came bursting through the door after recess screaming the lyrics to aBackstreet Boyssong (who knew this generation had good music taste?) And another time when my phone beeped with a notification that I swore had to be Gabriel finally texting me back.
It wasn’t. It was Natasha asking for my opinion on two different rugs for the space underneath our new kitchen table. The table that Gabriel made us and must have brought over to our home at some point today while I was working.
I hardly had time to make it to the gym before work this morning, and even though school’s been out for over an hour, I still feel frazzled.
Maybe it’s because I’m constantly running from day to day, job to job, and barely holding onto my sanity. Or it’s because Iknow I need to talk to Gabriel but I’m terrified that his silence means he no longer wants to hear from me.
She takes the chair across from mine with a soft sigh.
“Is Everly joining us today?” I ask.
She shakes her heads. “No. I dropped her off at a friend’s house after school. Thanks for making time to meet with me. I’m sure you’re eager to get home.”
“It’s no problem.” I fold my hands on top my desk. “How can I help you? What concerns are you having with her?”
Amber exhales, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her skirt. “Well, when we read her assignments before bed each night, I’ve noticed she’s starting to develop a bit of a stutter.”
I nod, making a note in the planner I just opened. “That can be common when kids first start reading. A lot of the time, it resolves on its own. But if you’re concerned, we can put in a referral for early intervention—speech therapy, just to get ahead of it. The speech therapist we have here at the school is wonderful from what I’ve heard. Comes highly recommended.”
She nods slowly. “I think I’d like that. But I don’t want to single her out. I don’t want her to feel different if she’s being pulled from class.”
“They’re very discreet,” I assure her. “And the earlier we start, the better the outcome. It’s completely up to you, of course.”
Amber blows out a breath, nodding. “Okay. Thank you.” A pause. Then, softer—“I think I’m just feeling a lot of mom guilt, you know? About moving her to Brookhaven and uprooting her life. Pulling her from school in New York City mid-year. I wanted to come back because this is home.” Her voice trails off. “I missed it. But it feels like she was doing better in New York. I don’t remember her stuttering there.”
