Page 68 of If You Stayed

“Okay.”

“Well…” He took a deep breath. “Bye.”

“Bye.” I stood still as he turned around and started walking to his window. “Hey, Gabriel?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to be friends or something?”

He scratched his chin and shrugged. “Okay.”

He made me oatmeal cookies every month after that.

With raisins.

16

Kierra

Present Day

Two days later when Gabriel came back to check on the construction process, he stood in my kitchen with a container in his hands.

“You made Ava cookies?” I asked, stunned.

“Yeah. I hope that’s okay. I figured with her current state…” He shook his head. “Sorry. It’s probably odd, but it just felt like the right thing to do. If I crossed a line—”

I darted toward him, unable to hold back from wrapping him in his arms. He was probably confused by my actions, since I was coming off as a complete freak as I held him in my arms.

He was still there…my sweet Gabriel who I grew up to know. He’d baked Ava cookies the same way he used to bake them for me when we were kids and I was PMSing. I couldn’t help but hug him. I couldn’t help but forget for a small moment that he didn’t remember me from all those years ago. Yet, somewhere inside himself, he did remember. Somewherein his subconscious, little Kierra still existed. He still knew her. He still had those memories. He was still mine.

What a stupid thought, Kierra.

Let that man go.

I pulled back from him, teary-eyed and feeling foolish for tackling him in the way I had. I had a momentary need to tell him about us. I wanted to unload all the details to him about how we were only best friends, but also in love. I wanted to tell him about all our adventures, our highs and lows, our best and worst days. I wanted to tell him about Elijah.

Oh, how I wanted to tell him about Elijah. I wanted him to know all the moments we shared with his little brother. I wanted him to know how I still wrote letters to Elijah every single year. I wanted him to know that every New Year’s Eve, I could hardly watch fireworks without bursting into tears.

I wanted to tell him about Elijah’s laughter. How it could fill a room and make even the grumpiest person soft. I wanted to tell him how close the two of them were. How it was a surprise when his mother and Frank told us she was expecting another kid when Gabriel was fifteen. How he freaked out at first, but then fell in love with the idea. How he used to sleep by Elijah’s crib to make sure his little brother was breathing. How he’d taught Elijah how to throw a baseball, how to ride a bike, and how to tell bad knock-knock jokes.

I wanted to tell him so much about Elijah that my chest ached thinking about it.

I knew I couldn’t though, because of Amma. That was the last thing she’d want me to do.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I let Gabriel go, feeling completely idiotic for forcing myself on the man. “I think I’m just having a lot of feelings lately.”

“I should’ve made you some cookies, too,” he joked. He smiled and didn’t for a moment seem fazed by the fact that I’d all but tackled him. He held the cookies out toward me, and I took one.

As I bit into it, I almost cried again. A part of me wondered if he knew that I wasn’t always this way. I wasn’t always this oddity that lived in a gilded cage. I wasn’t always this broken bird fearful that it would never fly again. I wasn’t always damaged.

He’d known me when I still dreamed. When I still imagined. When I still felt alive. He knew the best and worst parts of me and called them beautiful. He knew me when I didn’t even know myself. And now he was there, baking cookies for my daughter, unaware that such a small act meant so much to my fragile heart.

Gabriel smiled and brushed his thumb against his chin. “Good, bad, inedible?”

“Perfect,” I told him.

His smile stretched wider, and I wanted to tell him how much I missed him.

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