“Well, I don’t.”
He stands up straight and walks over to me. “Why?” he asks, closing the space between us and towering over me.
“What do you mean?” I ask warily.
“Why?” he asks again, and I can see the pain in his eyes now. “Why don’t you hate me?”
I shake my head incredulously. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be so much easier if you did.”
I attempt to swallow down the hurt that’s lodged in the middle of my throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was making things so difficult for you.”
“Why did you come back here, Liv?”
My stomach clenches tight as I try to hold in a pained breath. “Would you rather I stayed away?”
He stares at me blankly, but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
“Wow,” I whisper as the tears fill my eyes.
“Look, I know I fucked everything up, all right? You being here only reminds me of that.”
I swallow hard and square my shoulders as the hurt turns to anger. “Yeah, well...this is my home too, and I’m not going anywhere, so you’re just going to have to get over it.”
He lets out an ironic laugh and shakes his head. “Get over it?” He turns around and walks over to his workbench again, but I follow right behind him.
“Gabe.”
He ignores me.
“Gabe!”
He picks up his gloves, but I grab them out of his hand.
“Dammit, Gabe, look at me!” I reach for his arm, but when he turns around, I see a familiar look in his eyes that tugs hard at old strings still tied to my heart—reminding me of when I used to tell him that everything would be okay, that I still loved him, that he wasn’t the failure he thought he was. But, like then, he can’t see me through his own demons, even after all this time. God, what I wouldn’t give for him to look at me the way he did before the accident, just once more. Still, as his empty eyes gaze into mine, I’m reminded of who he was before, and I put my hand on his flushed cheek. “It’s okay, Gabe.”
I watch the storm inside him settle, feeling like it moved from him to me, because an electric current is suddenly buzzing through me, making my palm tingle where it’s pressed to his warm cheek. He closes his eyes and I wonder if he feels it too, but when he opens them again, I see the dark clouds return.
He wraps his long fingers around my wrist, pulls my hand away, and says, “Please go.”
* * *
I lie on my parents’ couch, listening to the storm outside, mindlessly flipping through the channels on the TV, which keep getting stuck each time the satellite goes out.
“Liv, dinner,” my mother calls from the kitchen. When I don’t answer, she walks into the living room and repeats, “Liv...dinner.”
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” I say, keeping my eyes on the pixelated TV screen.
“Honey, you haven’t eaten all day.”
“Yes, I have.”
“Barely. Now come on, come have dinner with me and Daddy. Please?”
She’s right, I haven’t eaten much in the last twenty-four hours, not since before Gabe asked me to leave. It was far too reminiscent of when we broke up, and it hurt almost as much as it did back then. Before the accident, Gabe would have never ignored me or asked me to leave when things got heated. We could always talk through anything. I listened to him and he listened to me, and we always met somewhere in the middle, even if we agreed to disagree. But after his injury, he lost the ability to effectively argue. If I didn’t entertain his self-deprecation, or agree that I was better off without him, as he often tried to convince me, he simply shut down. There was no talking to him. There was no convincing him. We were on different pages, separated by our own truths, and drifting farther and farther apart. I had hoped time would have helped, but the truth is, his brain injury altered who he is. Time isn’t the problem.
The thought is almost unbearable.
“I really believed he would get better.”
She pulls me up into a hug. “Oh, honey.”
“Do you think he ever will? Eventually?” I ask, still clinging to a tiny morsel of hope.
She releases me and says carefully, “I think Gabe is better.” She looks at me and explains, “As far as what Jackie has told me, the doctors say he’s made a full recovery, aside from the seizures. But that’s typical after a brain injury. This is who Gabe is now. Who he’ll always be.”
She gives me a small, compassionate smile, but it does little to ease the pain in my heart.
“I know it hurts, honey, but maybe now you can finally move on. You said what you needed to say. He knows you don’t hate him. Let that give you peace and maybe some closure.”
“I’m trying.” I don’t think Gabe will ever talk to me about what happened. And I don’t think it matters anymore. There’s no rational explanation he could give me that would make me understand how he could stop loving me so suddenly. It wasn’t in his control any more than it was in mine. It was all out of our hands...the accident, Brandon, his injury. There’s no explanation for any of it. So, I’m just going to have to get over it on my own.
Get over it and move on. I close my eyes and let go of the hope I’ve been holding onto. I owe myself that much.
Chapter 8
Gabe
I pull into the Daltons’ driveway, wheels splashing through puddles, my windshield wipers struggling to keep up with the pounding rain. I put my truck in park and sit for a few minutes, waiting for the rain to lighten up, for my heart to stop hammering inside my chest.
She’s better off without you, I remind myself. But she still deserves an explanation for how I acted yesterday. I wasn’t lying when I said it would be easier if she hated me. It would be. If she did, I could go on with my life without worrying that I’m screwing up hers any more than I already have. But the truth is, the thought of Liv hating me tears me to shreds inside.
She was the only person who saw past my mistake after the accident. It’s something you can see in people’s eyes—even my own mother couldn’t hide the sadness behind hers. But when Liv looked at me, I only saw love. Even when I hated myself, she never did. It used to drive me crazy, because I really wanted her to hate me sometimes. I wanted her to scream at me for what I did. To tell me that I ruined everything. But it didn’t matter how hard I pushed her, she would just put her hand on my cheek, like she did yesterday, and tell me everything was okay.
When she did that yesterday, I wanted to pull her into my arms and cry like a baby. It had been so long since I felt her touch. And I know she meant what she said, that it would be okay, that we could be okay, if I’d allow it. But I can’t. As much as I want her—and I do still want her, I probably always will—I’m not the same person she remembers. The man she loved is gone. And I don’t think she’d like the one I’ve become.
I inhale a deep breath, reach for the door handle, and run through the relentless rain, through the soggy grass, and up the slippery steps to the front porch. I wipe my face and ring the doorbell, trying to control my breathing.