You’re such a good, smart girl, Ellie. You don’t forget that, okay? No matter what, you don’t forget that.
I felt a sharp ache in my heart and pushed the words away, not willing to think about them—or who they’d come from—not when I already felt so vulnerable.
I moved my hand back over William’s hard little head, felt Gabriel’s solid strength at my back. The pain inside me rose up so suddenly, the honesty of it rolling off my tongue. “I’ve always pretended I was made of stone, but the truth is, I feel more like I was formed from sand, as if I might crumble at any second.” I’d felt this way for so long, so long, and it hurt.
Gabriel wrapped his arms around me from behind as he’d done that day after I ruined dinner. He reached around me and laid his hand on top of mine on William’s head. “But that’s what solid stone is made from, Eloise. Sand and pressure”—he squeezed me lightly with the arm still holding me—“and time. That’s all it is, my sweet love. Just sand and pressure and time.”
I let the words roll through me, wanting so desperately for the pressure—the love—of his arms around me to help me achieve the confidence in myself that he seemed to have in me. It was the time part that worried me. How long? How much time until I felt solid and competent? How long until I wasn’t pretending?
Gabriel had taught me so many lessons, and they were all important to me because he’d come by them honestly. The words he spoke weren’t just words or platitudes—they were truths he’d earned through his own pain and suffering.
Just sand and pressure and time.
“I tried to look at the stars,” I murmured after a moment, wanting him to know that I listened to every word he said to me. I wanted him to understand that I admired him above all others, even if I couldn’t always manage to live his words the way he did. “I tried to appreciate the beauty around me, but I just don’t think I did it right.”
Gabriel blew out a breath that ended in a sigh. “Gratitude isn’t a Band-Aid, Ellie. You still have to experience your feelings to work through them. Gratitude is meant to make it bearable. Sometimes gratitude gets you through the day, and sometimes it just gets you from one moment to the next. That’s all.”
“I was really looking more for a Band-Aid,” I said, trying to infuse some humor into my tone.
He chuckled and it warmed me.
We were both quiet for a moment. “You probably think I’m crazy out here talking to a statue.”
“No. They’re good listeners. But so am I,” he murmured against my hair, pulling me into him so my body was resting against his. “Why are you so hard on yourself? You don’t have to be.”
I didn’t know how to answer that and so I just smiled, looking up at him. “Thank you.”
He nodded, his eyes moving over my face as if he was trying to read my thoughts. Finally, he simply kissed me and then took my hand, leading me back into the house, where I went to bed and finally fell asleep.
* * *
I started work the next morning. George simply handed me the instruction book for the phone system before walking out the door toward the quarry, where I could already hear the machinery and trucks getting started doing whatever they did.
Gabriel chuckled softly at my look of surprise and said, “No one’s answering the phones now. Even if you only pick up half of the calls that come in, we’ll be better off.” I knew he was only saying it to make me feel better, but it worked, and once he’d left for his workshop, I opened the instruction manual and began figuring things out.
Dominic came in around nine thirty, and my heart leapt with nervousness, but he simply smiled a tight smile at me and went to his office. No apology, nothing.
The day passed quickly as I taught myself the system, answered calls, only missing a few, and only hanging up on a couple, and before I knew it, Gabriel was walking back through the door, asking if I wanted to go to lunch with him, and then several hours later, picking me up to drive home.
He looked over at me in the cab of the truck, smiling broadly. “Did you like it okay?”
I nodded, a sense of accomplishment making me feel happy and at ease.
The week flew by, and although I got better at my job, teaching myself how to operate the fax and copy machines, and becoming adept at scheduling appointments using the online calendar, Dom’s coldness affected my enjoyment of the job. In addition to not speaking to me, he would literally turn his back if I walked into the small break room to get coffee while he was in there, too, or pretend not to hear if I asked him a question. I tried to shrug off his immaturity, but I felt the utter disdain behind it, which made it difficult not to let it affect me. I refused to tell Gabriel, hoping Dominic would grow tired of his schoolyard antics and give it up.
But Gabriel walked the short distance to the office to pick me up every evening, and I escaped to his studio when I could, watching his beautiful hands work a piece of stone, knowing that though it had started out as nothing much, soon it would be something miraculous.
Watching his hands move over a piece of rock made me shiver now, wondering what they would feel like moving over every inch of me.
At night, after we’d eaten dinner, we would make out on the couch like teenagers, and I’d urge him in my mind to put his hand up my shirt, to undress me, to touch my skin, to release the pent-up desire that felt like a burning inferno inside me. But each night he’d pull himself away, and though his arousal was obvious, I told myself he just wasn’t ready.
On Friday that week, Gabriel drove me to a doctor’s appointment after work, where they checked my leg and determined my cast could come off. I laughed out loud when the heavy weight was peeled off me. “Freedom!” I said, and Gabriel grinned from across the room.
“Now you can literally get back on your own two feet,” he said. I smiled, but inside, his words caused a spear of uncertainty and fear to slice through me.
We stopped on the way home and bought champagne to celebrate my reclaimed independence and made plans to order pizza for dinner.
I felt happy not to have to drag around a leg that felt twice as heavy as the other, but I also felt vaguely sad. He was right. I was literally back on my own two feet. There was no real reason for me to be at Gabriel’s house anymore. I pushed the thought away for now. I wanted this weekend with him, even if it was the last one.
As soon as I walked in the door, I told Gabriel I was going to shave my leg. Seeing it in the bright light of the doctor’s office had told me undoubtedly that I was long overdue. As a matter of fact, both legs could use some attention. I hadn’t been overly concerned with my appearance in weeks. It had been a nice vacation from the constant grooming I’d needed to do as a stripper, but I didn’t want to think about that right now, either. I wasn’t shaving for aesthetics. I was shaving because, in all honesty, my legs just felt gross.
“Let me help,” Gabriel said.
I laughed. “Shave my legs?”
He smiled a crooked smile. “Yes.”
I shrugged. “If you want to.”
We lingered over dinner and a couple of glasses of celebratory champagne, Gabriel laughing because I got up a couple of times and did a funny sort of jog/limp in place simply because I could, and because I needed to strengthen my muscles. I swore I was never going to take my body for granted again.