Healing Gabe (The Last Hangman MC #3)(66)
“Here I’m trying to be all romantic and you are making f*cking sex jokes. What have you done to my girlfriend?”
“Not even sorry.” I grin innocently.
“Oh, I’m aware. Wanna read it?” he asks nervously.
“Please.” I smile and wait for him to give it to me. He pulls a folded envelope from his back pocket and hands it to me.
“Thanks.” I smile and unfold it. He’s bouncing his legs nervously as I start reading.
My beautiful Vivian,
I don’t know how else to do this, I’m not good with words. Well that’s not true, I’m good with words, well, just not good at arranging them in the right way to explain how I feel. Us together always scared me. The thought of it has always scared me, even though I had a perfect example of what true happiness could be like with my parents. After their death, I closed off and focused on making sure Nic would be happy. My own happiness left me the day they died.
Life has never been easy for either of us. We both lost a lot. Our parents, our innocence, our childhood. We were forced into worlds we weren’t destined to grow up in. It changed and shaped us in how we were around others. I never felt like I could be my true self with anyone before, except with you. I know you’ll never judge me. You’re the only person I can let see me upset or hurting, not because I’m afraid the guys won’t understand, but we’re the same, we suffered at the hands of the same evil. One look and you read me like a book.
Our lives are similar yet so different. After Nic and I lost our parents, we still had each other, no one tried to rule our lives, we were able to make our own decisions. You didn’t have such luck and if there was one thing I could change, it would be the abuse you’ve suffered because of Trent and Jared. Based on what I heard a couple of days ago, you’ve witnessed things no one should ever witness, especially a kid. I don’t know how you managed to stay sane all of these years, but I admire your strength. You are the strongest and most compassionate woman I’ve ever met.
You mean the world to me and having to watch over your unconscious body is killing me. I wish I could take away all that pain and hurt, but I can’t and I feel so f*cking helpless.
I always knew I loved you, I just couldn’t admit it. Not because I wasn’t sure about my feelings, but because I didn’t know if you would share those feelings. I didn’t want you to reject me. I knew you were it for me from the very first time I laid my eyes on you. All those years, you were the only one on my mind. You weren’t in my life but you were always in my heart. One look, and you’d ruined me for any other woman. I never wanted anyone else after seeing you. I should have claimed you that night.
Looking back on what happened so many years ago, I still wonder how I never saw that Annie wasn’t into me. At the time, I thought she was being genuine.You warned me about her once and I didn’t listen to you, I’d yelled at you. You were right but I was too scared that if I ended things with her, I would never see you ever again and I couldn’t have that, so I stayed with her. Not telling you how I felt is the biggest f*cking mistake of my life, I was in love with the right sister but dating the wrong one.
I’m still f*cking stunned by these past couple of days. After this letter, I don’t want to mention her ever again. The reason why I never wanted to say I love you, is because the day I said it to her was the day she was taken away from us, or so we thought. After that, those words lost all their meaning. I said them because she expected me to say them. Thinking back on it, she had planned it all along. She kept asking me to tell her I loved her, but I never felt like they were meant for her. They were always meant for you. That messed with my head a lot. I didn’t know what to do or believe and I often felt that had I never told her, none of this would have happened. I swore to myself that I’d never say those words again. I couldn’t say those words to anyone, even if I had wanted to, they were only meant for you.
Believe it or not, we came back to New Orleans on the same day this year. I had spent a couple of months alone in Grand Isle, needed to be away from everything and everyone. I don’t believe in signs, but something brought us back here on the same day, pretty f*cking sweet coincidence.
I was both f*cking happy and f*cking miserable to see you again. For so many years, I hated you, as much as it pains me to admit, but I did. Not for the reason you’re probably thinking of. I was ready to make Trent pay for what he did. I was ready to f*cking end him. I had never taken anyone’s life, but I was ready. I had so much rage inside of me that I didn’t care about what I was going to do.
We arrived, you were the last f*cking person I expected to see. I thought you were long gone but there you were, looking broken but as beautiful as ever. I f*cking choked when I saw you and couldn’t get past the fact that you were still here. That’s the other reason why I hated you; I couldn’t understand why you hadn’t ran away. By the time we were done in that warehouse, I wanted to ask you to stay, to be with me, but then you did leave and for good. I was so f*cking angry and I let my inferno of rage burn for so many f*cking years.
It took me so long to get over that night, but I never got over you leaving without saying goodbye. Thinking back on it, I’m not sure I wanted you to say goodbye, a part of me needed the goodbye so I could get closure and move on but a greater part of me couldn’t handle the thought of it. A goodbye meant that we would never be. I needed to hold onto that tiny sliver of hope that you would come back to New Orleans and to me.