Page 88 of Love What's Left
“I hurt you with my own callous irresponsibility. I chose drinking over a promise I’d made, and I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t have the words for how sorry I am. I didn’t know you, then. I didn’t know what a big deal it was.”
“Would it have mattered if you had? What would you have done differently?”
“If I’d known, then, I wouldn’t have offered to fly my sister in the first place, or I’d have called her and cancelled sooner. She’d have planned for her own ride earlier, not trusted me to get her there.”
Sorry . . . Shoulda . . . let you . . . drive.
I rest my forehead on my knees. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
It’s been eight years since he broke my heart and didn’t even know he’d done it. For me, it was five minutes ago. I’m willing to bet italwaysfelt like five minutes ago.
I’d have been fine if I hadn’t let myself care in the first place. If I hadn’t allowed myself to be convinced that it was okay to care.
Gabriel sniffs once as though he’s getting a cold. “Right.”
He throws the comforter back and goes into the closet, then returns within seconds, clothing in hand, and heads for the door.
“Where are you going?”
He stops walking but doesn’t turn around to look at me. “I’m giving you space.”
For the first time in my memory, he doesn’t tell me what he’s doing or invite me to join him. He walks out the door without another word.
I wait, sitting in the chair.He’ll come back soon.But fifteen minutes pass, and he doesn’t return. I can’t blame him. I’ve been yanking him close with one hand and slapping him away with the other.
An hour passes, time creeping one slow minute at a time. I move from the chair to the patio outside our room to let the balmy ocean breeze wash over me.
I have to find him and apologize. I don’t hate him. I don’t know who those words were for, but they were never for my Gabriel.
Maybe they were for the addiction itself. Maybe they were for my father who loved me but never more than he loved his next drink. Or for the woman who couldn’t tell her husband she was proud of him after years of him staying clean and sober because she’d convinced herself distrust was wisdom, not fear and resentment.
A car door closes on the driveway, and I crane my neck to try to see around the blooming hibiscus bush. An engine purrs to life, then Gabriel’s SUV, washed-out gray and black, taillights glowing red in the overhead security lights, winds down the drive to our front gate.
He didn’t leave our house this late at night.He wouldn’t.It had to be someone else. Maybe it was a shift change for the security team.
I leave the bedroom, walking at a normal pace, refusing to panic. When I find him, probably in our little library, I’ll ask him to forgive me, and he will because he’s my Gabriel. I won’t let fear control me. If I can’t make my mouth say the wordsI love you, then I’ll write them down.
I walk through every room twice. When I step into the kitchen for the second time, I stop lying to myself.He isn’t here.Where could he go at—I glance at the clock on the microwave—12:14? A bar? A nightclub? To pick up a woman? Hewouldn’tcall Rege.
My legs twitch with the irrational urge to track him down, stomp into whatever bar he’s gone to, and scream at him to get his ass home.
But I’ve lived that before. Becky yelling. Me begging. It doesn’t work and makes the person following feel crazy. I told him I wouldn’t stay if he drank. I can’t.
He has a bodyguard to make sure he doesn’t end up in a ditch or a fight or a coma.
He said he’d never give up on me. But that was before, when he thought he’d find his wife. The woman he knew is gone. There’s only me, and I’m the next thing to a feral animal. He kept reaching out to pet me, hoping I’d become tame. But I bit the hand that fed me one too many times.
Unable to get back into bed, I pick up my phone. The location tracker app I’ve never had to use, because I always, always knew where my husband was and when he planned to be home, stares back at me. There are good reasons for some people to have apps like these. Bronwyn says their whole family uses bracelets with trackers for safety. Someone could try to take one of them for ransom or revenge because of who their dad is. If I hadn’t broken the chain on my necklace and left it at work, Gabriel and the team would’ve been able to track me down when I disappeared. My ordeal would have been over sooner.
But the old me didn’t have this app on my phone because I wanted to see what time I should have dinner on the table for Gabriel. And I wasn’t afraid he was kidnapped or in an accident, or notonlyafraid of that.
I could call him and hope he picks up, or I could click on this icon and follow him to catch him in the act. But don’t I know better than most how pointless that is?
Everybody chooses a path. Some of Dad’s old girlfriends drank with him and pretended they were having fun until they couldn’t pretend any more. Becky didn’t. She coaxed him, then fought with him, then left him because he was never going to change.
It would’ve been better for Gabriel if I’d died. He’d have grieved, but then he’d have moved on. He wouldn’t have set himself on fire over and over to keep me warm.
He called me a goddess and himself just a man trying to deserve me.
