Most of All You: A Love Story(68)

I smiled back. “I’m sure you will.”

She hesitated a moment, looking slightly unsure. “I talked to Dominic about what he did. I think he’s really twisted up inside—”

“It’s fine, Chloe, really.”

“It’s not fine. There’s nothing fine about it. I just … I wish I could help.”

I smiled at her. “You have helped by being a friend to me.”

Her smile was big and it was contagious. “Call me if you ever want to talk, okay? If you just need a listening ear? Gabe has my number.” Gabe.

“I will.”

She smiled again. “Okay, good. You take care of yourself.”

“You, too, Chloe.”

She turned back to Gabriel and leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Thank you again,” she whispered. There was so much feeling in her tone it almost embarrassed me to be standing there.

He loves you, Ellie, I reminded myself.

Only because he didn’t end up meeting Chloe first, that small mocking voice inside chided. I blocked it out as best as I could.

I didn’t blame Chloe one bit for the affection she obviously felt for Gabriel, maybe even the love. She knew what I knew—that he had survived six years of hell by surrounding himself with love. With hope. How strong did your mind have to be—how beautiful your heart—to hold on in such a way? To choose love over fear again and again? Of course, he was lucky that he had so much love to draw upon. Not everyone was so blessed. Then again, I had a feeling Gabriel would have used any small glimmer of love—of hope—to stay strong. It was just who he was.

Gabriel, a boy who hadn’t let himself forget what love felt like, and me, a girl who had made sure I did not remember.

We made dinner that night—a precooked lasagna that was really impossible to mess up, though if I’d been left alone, I probably could have managed it—and ate it on the patio. The evenings were getting chilly, so Gabriel turned on a heat lamp and we moved it next to the table.

Once the kitchen was clean, we curled up on the couch and watched a show, but I decided to turn in early since I was starting work at the quarry in the morning and wanted to be well rested. I was slightly nervous, too. What if I couldn’t get the hang of the phone system and humiliated myself?

I had only held two jobs in my life. When I moved out of my dad’s house, I’d worked in a movie theater for a little over a year, but couldn’t afford anything more than to rent a small back room from a woman who’d advertised in the paper. When I’d gotten there I realized why it was still available. She had about twenty-five cats, and the whole place smelled like fish and dirty litter boxes. It was all I could afford, though, and it was better than my dad’s house and so I’d taken it.

The next year, I’d met Kayla through some other people I knew, and she’d told me about the Platinum Pearl. I’d been loath to take my clothes off for anyone, but I’d been able to save up five hundred dollars for a car, a security deposit on my own apartment, and was able to get out of the cat house.

So now, my work experience included sweeping up popcorn and sliding down a pole in the nude.

I went to bed but couldn’t sleep, and after twenty minutes of tossing and turning, I got up and opened the window, breathing in the freshness of the night air. I kneeled down and put my arms on the ledge, gazing upward for several moments at the clear, star-filled sky, trying to take the beauty inside me the way Gabriel seemed to be able to do so easily. Instead the beauty of the night seemed painful somehow and made me feel even more hollow inside.

Sighing, I closed the window and hobbled out of my room and into the garage as quietly as possible. William was there, smooth and white, his laughing face making my heart feel just a bit lighter.

I ran a finger over his head, marveling once again at what this had looked like only a month or so ago. How quickly Gabriel had brought forth life where there had seemingly been none at all. It almost felt like I knew this little guy, as if he might have a personality all his own. I sighed. “What if I don’t do well tomorrow? What if I make a fool of myself?”

William continued only to smile and to stare at me with those encouraging eyes. I let out a breath. “Well, of course you’d say that.”

I heard a small noise and turned around quickly, seeing Gabriel standing in the doorway in a T-shirt and loose sweatpants, leaning one hip on the frame and watching me curiously. I felt the heat rise in my neck and laughed, an embarrassed sound made mostly of breath. Gabriel smiled. I turned back around as the heat rose from my neck to my cheeks.

I felt Gabriel come up behind me, and he ran his hands down my arms, kissing the top of my head. “You’re going to do just fine.”

I turned my head to the side but didn’t look back at him. “How do you know?”

“Because you’re smart and you can learn anything.”

You’re smart and you can learn anything.

You’re such a good, smart girl, Ellie. You don’t forget that, okay? No matter what, you don’t forget that.

I felt a sharp ache in my heart and pushed the words away, not willing to think about them—or who they’d come from—not when I already felt so vulnerable.

I moved my hand back over William’s hard little head, felt Gabriel’s solid strength at my back. The pain inside me rose up so suddenly, the honesty of it rolling off my tongue. “I’ve always pretended I was made of stone, but the truth is, I feel more like I was formed from sand, as if I might crumble at any second.” I’d felt this way for so long, so long, and it hurt.