Page 12 of It's Always Been You
“He’s always been gifted that way.” I shrug and reach for more fries, letting the greasy goodness comfort me.
“Always, huh?” asks Julie. “Exactly how long is always?”
I blow out a breath, ready to let it all out. “Since I was eighteen. I met Gabe the first day of our freshman year at Berkeley when he carried my mini-fridge up three flights of stairs because the elevator was too crowded. I fell in love with him about two weeks later. We were together until April of our senior year, when it all fell apart.”
I take a long, slow breath in and out, and then again, trying to keep it together.
“I’m sorry I’ve never opened up about this part of my life. I may have had to confront pictures of Gabe everywhere over the past decade, but thinking about our time together and how it ended…” I pause for a second to collect myself. I will not fucking cry again. “It’s just too painful.”
Emma speaks first. “You don’t have to talk about it now if it’s too hard.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I need to. Clearly, he’s back. And clearly, I’m going to have to talk to him at some point. I’d rather you have all the details now. I hate it, and it hurts, but it’s time.”
So, I tell them everything. About how we met and fell in love. About our trip to Iceland and Rory and the way he carved our initials into one of the Berkeley Redwoods. About how we were going to start making plans for our future. About how all we ever wanted was to be together. About the call he got, telling him his parents were gone. About the aftermath, when it all came crumbling down.
“That’s the worst part, I think.” I lay my head back on the couch cushions and kick my feet up onto the coffee table, letting my mind drift to a place I’ve kept walled off for a decade.
“There’s no one to blame. He was grieving so hard, and he suddenly had two sisters he had to take care of. Olivia was only eight. His parents’ estate was a complicated mess, and there were so many details to handle. I tried. God, I tried so hard to help. To take some of the logistical nightmare off his plate so he could focus on himself and his sisters. But he didn’t know how to let me help, and I didn’t know how to reach him. When he asked me to leave, I knew it was a request made in grief. The Gabe I knew would never have asked me to go, but that Gabe died with his parents. Temporarily, at least. So, I left. He didn’t come to find me, and my pride was too huge to go find him. I figured, if he wanted to let me go, it was on him to come and get me.”
“But he didn’t.” Hallie’s voice is full of sympathy and pain.
“He didn’t. I thought I was mostly over him by the time I met you guys. Then his brand-new company released that stupid phone, and all of a sudden, his face was everywhere. All anyone wanted to talk about during our first year of law school was the fucking Redwood phone and how it was going to changethe world and why he released it in every single color except for pink. Forget death by a thousand cuts. It was death every time someone’s goddamn phone rang. I had to see his genius, miraculous, groundbreaking invention everywhere. There was no escape.”
“So I guess the reason you’ve never gone Redwood isn’t actually because you hate the way the home screen works.” Julie’s question isn’t really a question, but I answer it anyway.
“I could give a flying fuck what my home screen looks like as long as I get to slap a picture on it. I didn’t want a piece of him in my pocket all the time. I was too broken, and it was just too damn much. Every time I saw one of those phones he invented, or someone talked about him like he was the second coming of Steve Jobs but funnier and way hotter, I died just a little. Avoiding actually buying the phone felt like a small way to protect myself.”
Emma nods and lays a head on my shoulder. I can feel the wheels in her brain turning, and I know she’s trying to work something out. I shift, nudging her head.
“Just ask.”
She lifts her head to look at me. “Ask what?”
“Whatever it is you’re working out in your head. I don’t read minds like you do, but even I can see when you’re thinking hard.”
“You sure?”
“I’m wearing my lucky rainbow pajama pants, and you got me french fries and ten different dips. I’m sad, but I promise I won’t lose it.”
“Okay. I was trying to figure out the timeline. He released the first generation Redwood at the beginning of our first year of law school, but he started the company the year before. If he started the company after you already broke up, that means you wouldhave graduated college more than a year before we met you. What did you do in the year between college and law school?”
Shit. I was hoping they wouldn’t put all that together, but that’s what you get for being friends with the smart girls. I guess I’m spilling all my secrets today.
“I was going to be a dancer.”
I see Julie’s back straighten, and she whips her head around to look at me. “Wait. You mentioned this on Halloween when we were at Em’s but wouldn’t tell us why you stopped. Gabe is the reason you quit.”
“We were in the dance studio when he got the call. I used to go there a lot when I needed to unwind from school or finals. I danced contemporary professionally, but ballet was my first love.”
“I can’t picture you as a ballerina,” Hallie muses. “There’s way too much…conformity for you.”
I nod at her, warmth filling my chest at being so well understood. “That’s why I chose to pursue contemporary as a profession. I loved ballet so much, but the black leotards and pink tights and no food, like, ever would have killed me slowly. I would have kept ballet in my life forever, but the day we found out about Gabe’s parents…” I break off and reach for my margarita, downing the rest of it to clear the lump in my throat. Hallie immediately fills my glass up and I give her a grateful look.
“He met me in the studio that day, and we had a…moment.”
“The toe shoe ribbons and the barre,” Julie says it matter-of-factly.
I laugh despite myself. “Yeah. Anyway, as soon as we were finished, his phone rang, and it was all a blur of grief and horror after that. After he told me to leave his house, I tried dancing again. I tried dancing so many times, but I couldn’t do it. I literally couldn’t walk into the studio without wanting tothrow up. My feet wouldn’t do what I needed them to do, and at that point, dancing became dangerous. Because if your feet don’t trust your brain and you lose your muscle memory, you risk getting seriously injured. I had already completed all the requirements for my major, so I finished school remotely, and I graduated on time, but I withdrew from the company that was expecting me to join that summer. I lost Gabe and I lost dance, and I was adrift. I went home and let my parents and my sisters take care of me.
