Toxic (Ruin, #2)(58)

He nodded, but didn’t say anything as he drove the car around a curvy road and then pulled up to an immaculate house.
“Where are we?”
Gabe turned off the car and stared straight ahead. “Seattle was far enough away that it made sense to disappear here, but…” His nostrils flared. “She’d seen this thing on HGTV about homes in Bellevue and fell in love.”
I looked back at the house. My heart pounded. “Gabe…”
“I bought it.” He clenched the keys in his hand. “For her. I bought it for her.”
I didn’t want to know, yet I had to. “Was she able to see it, before?”
“No.” Gabe’s voice was filled with pain. “She never saw it. I was going to fly her up here as a surprise.”
We sat in silence. He stared at the house. I stared at him.
“So.” Gabe nodded. “This is it. You know how people always come with baggage? I don’t have baggage. I have a freaking house. I don’t have a closet full of skeletons. I have seven bedrooms full of them. And I can literally walk up those stairs and open the door and let you see all of them, but I’ll have nothing left. This is the last possible thing I have protecting myself. I have no more masks, no more fa?ades, no jokes, no personalities, nothing. Absolutely nothing. This house? This is it.”
I released his hand and reached for the door. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
His head snapped to the side, his eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Pardon?”
“We didn’t drive all the way out here to stare at a house.” I stepped out onto the gravel. “We’re going in.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Gabe asked, doubt lacing his every word. “This is heavy stuff, Saylor. I wouldn’t blame you for running, for getting back into that car and deciding it wasn’t worth it.”
“I’m falling.” I shrugged. “Not fallen, as in I’ve already landed, but falling, in the process. I’m falling with you, not jumping after you. Don’t you think it’s about time you let someone share the load?” I offered a small smile. “Besides, who actually likes jumping out of a plane by themselves? Tandem, all the way.”
“One day…” Gabe whispered. “When my heart is mine again. When I’m not sharing it with a dying girl… I’ll give you everything.”
“Gabe,” I said, sighing. “Right now? I’m perfectly happy with the pieces. No matter how broken they may be.”
“Damn, you really mean that, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I do.” I reached for him.
He took my hand without hesitation. We walked up the stairs together, slowly approaching a house that was getting bigger and bigger by the second.
From the outside, it was a two story masterpiece. He put the key in the lock and the door creaked open.
He turned the lights on.
And I gasped.
It wasn’t just beautiful, it was out of this world. Like something I’d only ever seen on TV or in the movies.
Exposed wood beams lined the ceiling, creating a trail from the living room into an open floor plan kitchen. The colors were a combination of white and wood. A stone and copper fireplace dominated the center of the room with a plush white couch wrapped halfway around the front. Splashes of red — throw pillows and blankets — decorated the living room area. I stepped further into the hall and saw another open room, this one with vaulted ceilings.
And a baby grand piano waited in the middle.
“Afraid?” Gabe’s voice whispered in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“Ha.” I exhaled and stared, a bit jealous that he had his own practice room — a happy room I could imagine myself sitting in for hours on end while the roaring fireplace crackled in the background.
It wasn’t until I took my eyes off the piano that I noticed what was on the walls. It was like watching a movie without sound. Black and white pictures went from left to right, all the way across the room.
Slowly, I walked up to the first one. Gabe and Kimmy were wrapped around each other kissing.
I touched her face — the same face he wiped the drool from every single day — and completely lost it.
The tears wouldn’t stop coming. I cried, and I cried, and then I cried some more. I cried until my body shook. I cried until I had nothing left.
And Gabe held me.
The thing about people revealing their pain to you?
More often than not. It becomes your own.
And I was wrecked.



Chapter Forty-Three
Music without passion is merely noise. A life without passion? You may as well be dead. —Gabe H.
Gabe
“Shh.” I pulled her into my arms and dragged her to the couch, then I turned on the fireplace in front of us. I was thanking my lucky stars that I’d had a cleaning crew go through the house and air everything out so we weren’t sitting on dust. “You know, you’re going to give me a complex. I’m supposed to be making it so you don’t cry.”
Saylor sniffled against my chest, not raising her head. “I’m so sorry. I just—”
“What?”
“You found the one. At the right time. The girl you loved. The girl you wanted everything with. You were so brave, so… raw. You gave her everything and…” Saylor’s breath hitched. “Looking at pictures of you guys together… it destroys me, Gabe. It’s not fair.”
I closed my eyes and held her tighter. “I know.”
“It’s not fair,” she repeated. “It’s not fair that I’m here and she isn’t. It’s not fair that you have to show me your house and that she can’t be the one to make cookies for you every Christmas. She’s never going to come through those doors and walk into your embrace. That is never going to happen.”