Page 57 of Revived

There was no hesitation on my part. I scurried to the door as quickly as I could. “Mel!” Gabe damn near roared my name, forcing me to turn and glance back at him. Chevy stood to one side while Kendra took up from the other side of the bed, her hand placed gently on Gabe’s shoulder. They looked like a real family standing there like that. “Promise me that you’ll come back as soon as you’re done with the police. We still have things to discuss.”

I couldn’t promise him that. In fact, I needed to book a flight back to John’s Creek, Georgia so that I could get all of my belongings out of Gabe’s house. Something John and Tim talked about earlier was just finally starting to sink in.

This tour was sunk for now. The guys were bound to be hemmed up with Gabe’s healing, legal issues, and then there was Wen and his daughter to sort, plus Calista and their impending baby. That meant, once he was released, Gabe would be going home to Georgia and there was no way I was prepared for the awkwardness of living with him again, especially not after everything that had happened.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make as clean a get away from the hospital room as I had hoped. Instead, Kendra followed me out. “Melanie, we need to talk,” she called out to me.

I turned, unable to ignore her. “What is it?”

“Come on, let’s go somewhere less,” Kendra glanced around at the hospital floor, the elevators in front of us, and the nurse’s station behind. “Well, less hospital. These places make me feel crazy. I don’t know how you worked in them.”

“I don’t anymore,” I admitted, and the words sounded a lot like defeat, but felt more like the truth than anything I’d experienced in a while. There was a part of me that never wanted to go back to working in a hospital after the way I’d been thrown under the bus for things that were wildly beyond my control.

Eventually, we made our way to a little diner that we found a couple of blocks away. Once we had ordered food and drink, Kendra started in. “I’m still not sure why you called me. If Chevy needed me to be here, he would have called himself.”

“I just figured that Gabe doesn’t have a family of his own beyond Chevy, and you’re the next closest thing.”

“That’s not it, either.” Her words were laced with accusation as she spoke. “The band is Gabe’s family. They were already here for him. Let’s not lie to one another. Tell me what’s really going on here.” I sat silently for a few moments, contemplating. “Okay, then. While you work up the courage to spit out whatever has been brewing in that head of yours, I want you to listen to me. I know a thing or two about regrets. I searched for love when I had no business looking for it.

“As a result, I ended up with four children who all have different fathers. Some of them, I have a relationship with to this day. You’ve met Josh. I’m also friendly with Dakota’s father still. He made a stupid mistake that I couldn’t forgive, or maybe I’d still be with him. Ford’s dad was a jerk from the beginning and honestly, the only reason I went there was that he was the complete opposite of Gabe. Looking back, it’s easy to see what I did there. I needed someone to make me feel, in real time, as used up and uncared for as Gabe made me feel in the very end when I thought he had abandoned me.”

“He didn’t though,” I started to argue for him.

“I know his story, my own, and how they blended. Unlike Gabe, I’ve come to realize that the truth of our ending wasn’t even visible in our actions. It was the inaction that was the most telling. I tried to get ahold of him and do the right thing about his son, but not once did I ever board a plane, hire someone to find him, or go beyond the easiest possible path. I’m sure if Gabe were to really look hard enough, he’d see that the same was true for him. We had puppy love, just as our parents warned us. Could it have turned into something else if we’d made different decisions?” She shrugged her shoulders. “We’ll never know, and since I’m a completely different person now than I was then, I don’t honestly want to know anymore. I’m happy with my life.”

“Are you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It took me a long time to trust in Gabe. Before we left on this trip, there were times you two spent together, in private, and those where he was even putting on different clothing as you left the room with him.”

Kendra’s eyes widened then as she gasped, and quickly tried to cover the shock by placing her hands over her gaping mouth. “Are you serious right now? You thought I was cheating on Josh with Gabe?”

It was my turn to offer a somewhat guilty looking shrug. Then Kendra burst out laughing. “Oh my God! That’s so damn… Wow… I can’t believe… How long?” She was stumbling over her thoughts and doing it out loud when she finally seemed to realize something. “I know what you’re talking about now. Do you know what we were doing in that room?” She laughed again. “We were talking about you. He had something on his shirt, I pointed it out, and he changed as we were leaving. We weren’t even in there talking that long, Mel. Did you think he was a quick shot in the sack?”

It was my turn to laugh. “How would I have known?”

“To be honest? I thought maybe you guys had started fucking when Chevy was still in the hospital. I continued to think that until we had a conversation about you.”

“Really?” It was my turn to be stunned.

“Why is that so shocking, the two of you track one another if you enter the same space, and the chemistry when you’re near one another? Hell, girl, everyone else can see the sparks around the two of you. How could you think that he was into me?”

I told Kendra about my ex-husband and how I had always been a second choice, a place holder for the woman he really loved until it was appropriate that he could be with her. “I think it’s clouded my judgment a bit. At least, I thought so, and I tried to let it go, but then…”

“Then what?” I explained what I’d overheard from Gabe’s call to Chevy and Kendra shook her head and sighed.

“What a dumbass,” she grunted before taking a sip of the drink that had been delivered as I filled her in. “I don’t think he meant what you heard. Not in the way you think anyway. I’m pretty sure he’s been giving our son some pretty shitty advice where Opal is concerned. It comes from a good place. He feels guilty that he missed out on so much of Chevy’s life, and I think he feels that if he had tried harder with me that wouldn’t have happened. Opal isn’t pregnant though, and those two weren’t together that long.”

“So, you think he was just embellishing to get Chevy to make the opposite decision of the one he made?”

“Yeah, I really do. Now, the rest of what happened, I can’t particularly blame you for feeling the way you do. Not sure I’d be so quick to forgive his responses either, but then again, you let your past cloud your judgement. I think his response was a similar page ripped out of the same book. You know?”

We ate in silence for a while and then Kendra took my hands and held them in hers on top of the table. “There are two things that Gabe talks to me about, on the rare occasion that we talk since he left Georgia. Chevy and you. We are co-parenting a child who has already become an adult, at least in the eyes of the law. That’s it. We’re barely friends. I wish you had talked to me about that before. I would have set the record straight rather than you thinking I was a cheater and a shitty friend.”

“Sorry,” I apologized, but Kendra waved the apology away.

“Don’t do that. I can totally see where you would have gotten that idea, and for the record, I’m sorry that I was ever in any position with Gabe that would make you feel that way. Let me ask you something though.” I nodded my head before she continued. “If Gabe had been shot somewhere else, if the situation had been more dire, how would you have felt? What if you weren’t given another day? Would you take a second chance if it fell in your lap? I know he needs to earn your trust, but what if he did?”

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