Page 75 of It's Always Been You
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gabe
“Holy shit, Gabe,” Molly says, voice full of surprise and amusement. “What did you do?”
Walking through Redwood Grove, Molly’s eyes are glued to the setup in front of our favorite tree. Blankets and pillows are arranged at the tree’s base, and twinkle lights are draped around the lower part of the trunk since it’s fully dark already. There’s a picnic basket and a cooler and assorted other things hidden away I’ll get to later. It’s after eleven at night, but the twinkle lights cast the whole setup in a kind of ethereal glow.
Everything about today is already perfect. After we peeled ourselves out of bed, we went to our favorite Berkeley diner for chocolate chip pancakes. We geeked out at the Lawrence Hall of Science and then went to the Berkeley Art Museum where I got to see Molly’s passion for art and design in practice. We grabbed dinner at one of our favorite taquerias and then went back to the hotel and tumbled straight into bed. And now, we’re walking hand-in-hand through the woods as the Redwoods soar above us and seem to touch the starry sky.
I grin over at Molly. “You like it?”
“Do I like it? Literally everything with you is like something out of a movie. I guess I shouldn’t ask how you pulled this off.”
I let go of her hand and swing an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to me and dancing my fingers over her shoulder, left bare by her sleeveless calf-length dress covered in swirls of every color of the rainbow.
“You can ask me anything, Rory. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Molly shrugs her shoulders, but her eyes gleam. “I kind of like the mystery of it all. I like how you just make things happen. I’m a make things happen kind of girl, but it’s fun when someone makes things happen for me.”
I lean over and kiss the top of her head, thrilled with her and this night. “All I ever wanted was to take care of you. I know you can take care of yourself, but I’ve been waiting for ten years to have you back. I have a lot of wooing to make up for.”
“Wooing, huh?” she asks as we approach the tree.
“I’m a champion wooer, Rory.”
“Oh, I know how you are,” she says, but her voice is lower. A little thick. And when I look down at her, she’s not looking at me. Her eyes are fixed on the tree. I don’t have to follow her gaze to know what she’s looking at.
“Come on,” I say quietly, guiding her to the tree and onto the blanket. Instead of sitting, we crouch down, shoulder to shoulder, right in front of the heart on the base of the trunk. The one we carved our initials into at the end of freshman year when we were so in love and nervous about what a summer apart would look like.
“It’s still here,” Molly says, voice laced with emotion. She reaches out and runs a finger over the heart. The MJ + GS inside. The stack of bracelets on her wrist jingles with the movement, making me smile. “I thought maybe it would be gone. Or carvedover or something. But it still looks the same. I don’t know why that’s so damn comforting.”
I lay my finger next to hers, so we trace the carvings together. “Because it was here all this time, even when we couldn’t be. I used to come here sometimes. Afterwards. Always late at night since that’s our time. I would sit here by myself and think of you. When my parents’ deaths were so new, and the grief was so intense, and I wasn’t sure how I would get through the day with my sisters to keep alive and a company to run. I felt better when I came here.”
Molly leans her head on my shoulder and laces her fingers with mine. Our other hands are still on the tree, both our gazes still trained on the carving. I don’t have to ask to know that her brain is also playing a montage of images of all the nights we spent here. Our secret place.
“I never came back,” Molly says quietly. “Afterwards. When I left you, I went home to L.A. I finished undergrad from there and spent the next year taking the LSATs and applying to law school. Trying to put myself back together. The next fall, I left for Pittsburgh, and that was that. I go to L.A. a few times a year to see my family, but I’ve never been back to Berkeley. Not until now. I’m glad, though, that I didn’t. I like that my first time back is now with you. It feels right.”
My chest tightens and I wonder if I’ll have this feeling every time I think about the years we spent apart. About all the years we lived without each other.
“It sure does. It also still doesn’t feel real. That I get to sit here with you. Hold you. Kiss you. I literally dreamed about you for years, and every time I woke up, it was like losing you all over again. I’ll never forgive myself for pushing you out of my life that way. For all the years we had to spend without each other. Without this.”
I sit back on the blanket, taking Molly with me. I pull her into my lap and kiss her like she is the reason I breathe. Because she is. When we break apart, she takes my hands and locks eyes with me.
“Gabe, I’m going to say a thing now, and I need you to really hear me. You know I’m always right, and I’m definitely right about this.”
She waits for me to nod and then continues. “You need to forgive yourself, and I’m going to forgive myself too. Let’s forgive each other. We were young and life happened. But we’re getting our second chance, and regret will eat you alive. Let’s not do regret anymore. There were so many reasons we had to be apart, but we get to be here now. So, let’s do that. Let’s be here now and start right from here and love each other hard. We’re really good at that part.”
I look into Molly’s every color eyes that are so perfectly her, and I know she’s right because I’m home. Molly is home, and nothing else matters.
“I fucking love you, Rory, and you are the smartest person I know.”
“Oh, I know,” she says airily, leaning forward to kiss me. It’s warm and sweet and exactly what I needed to seal this most perfect moment in our most sacred place.
“Now, do you want to show me what you brought? I hope it’s snacks because I’m feeling a late-night snack-fest coming on.”
I give her awhat do you thinklook. “Um, when was the last time we came to the tree without snacks?” We both scoot back so we’re sitting cross-legged, and I reach behind me, flipping open the picnic basket.
“The picnic basket was a nice touch,” Molly says. “Definitely better than the backpacks we used to bring.”
