I promised myself that I would never fall in love with someone like him.
Even though I may have seemed desperate, unhappy, or lonely… it wasn’t all because of low self-confidence, or thinking I was inferior. It wasn’t all due to being unlucky in love. It was fear. A large part of it was just my choice. I was terrified.
I am still terrified. Afraid to fall. Afraid to lose all common sense, and make a terrible decision like the ones I’ve always watched everyone around me make. Like my parents did. Even Veronica, who I love dearly, has royally screwed up when it comes to relationships. She’s a single mother to a daughter who is too shy to speak. And she knows her little girl is not doing very well. That’s the real reason she tries so hard to appear happy and cheerful. It’s all an attempt to heal her daughter’s wounds, caused by her ex’s abandonment.
I’m afraid to do the same—choose the wrong man, and hurt a child like that. Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be Gabriel who made me feel this way? Someone I mistrusted from the start. Someone I knew with every fiber of my being was dangerous. Someone who admitted that he had already caused another woman serious harm. So much harm that she ended up on life-support.
Do I value my own life so little that I would risk putting it in his hands after I’ve seen his handiwork, after I’ve seen another heart broken and destroyed by him?
But you know how men are.
They say all the right things. They say and do whatever it takes at the start to get you to believe. They reassure you constantly. They tell you that this time it’s going to be different. You’re nothing like her. What he has with you is so different than what he has with her. You are special. You’re the one. You’re his soulmate.
It sounds like bullshit, I know. It even sounds like bullshit to me, while I’m falling for it.
But I still can’t help falling… because Gabriel makes me feel alive.
Chapter 6
More days pass, and I’m falling even deeper. Falling so fast.
We’ve started saying the L-word to each other. Easily, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Yesterday, I actually walked down to the psych ward to speak to a psychologist about all this—literally wondering if I’m going insane, or if Gabe is. I thought maybe it’s all been some kind of twisted form of grieving, and he just needs counseling. Maybe he and I are using each other to distract from all the death and darkness in the world. We can hardly ever really speak about Yvette’s situation. It’s almost too horrible to face.
Most of the time, we need to forget about her to keep going and be happy. Maybe Gabe was just projecting all the emotion that he used to feel toward his wife on me—the closest living, breathing female. Maybe I was just a straw to grasp at during a traumatic moment. It could be some kind of evolutionary tactic—perhaps when you see your partner dying, your brain automatically latches on to the next suitable mate. Just a survival instinct, not love. Just a biological trick.
As smart as Gabriel is, he’s only a human being. He’s only a man. And he’s overwhelmed by emotions, and the pain of loss, just like all of us. It could be a temporary lapse in judgment. I could be a temporary fascination for him, a Band-aid on the wound.
So, as you can see, I’ve tried my best to talk myself out of this. To talk sense into myself. Gabe says I’m an overthinker, and I overthought the hell out of this, finding every possible scenario where things could go horribly wrong. There are many. Thousands and thousands. I’ve cried all night over things that haven’t even happened, and may never happen.
But nothing changes the fact that I recognized something of myself in him. Nothing changes the fact that he makes me feel so good, whole, and happy. I didn’t realize that I had basically been on life-support myself this whole time. I might as well have been hooked up to a machine, going through the motions, mechanical and robotic, with empty eyes and an empty soul.
He really brought me back to life. I don’t think he even realizes how much.
And I’m grappling with the guilt. I’ve pushed him away, and told him we should stop talking, in an effort to protect us against some kind of mysterious future pain that seems imminent to me. But we can only last a few hours without speaking before one of us caves, and we have to reconcile to feel normal and okay. I feel like I can’t breathe when he doesn’t talk to me. I feel miserable.
I think maybe he feels the same way.
Lying here in bed still overthinking and stressing, my phone buzzes. My hands reach for it, lightning-fast. That buzz has become my favorite sound in the world. He’s my lifeline.
Milla, is all the text message says.
Just one word. Just my name. I smile. I hug the phone against my chest. It means he’s sleepy, maybe just woken up from some kind of dream. That’s all he can manage to type. And I’m the first thought on his mind when he wakes up.
Gabe, I text back, not wanting to overwhelm him with words when he’s barely awake. It’s crazy that we already have some kind of routine. This closeness is insane… it came out of nowhere and hit me so hard. We already know and feel each other’s meaning from a single word.
I had a dream about you, he types to me.
Was I naked? I ask him teasingly.
Not this time. Strangely. We met up and we were walking
