Concealed - A Hiding From Love Novel #2 (24 page)

My heart flails inside of me, and I can’t catch my breath. I’m shaking and I break out in a cold sweat. I think about my Mom and her heart attack. Is this what she felt? Could I be having one too? I drop the laundry hamper on the stairs, where luckily it lands right side up so it doesn’t spill my underwear all over the place. I clutch the banister, panting harshly, and sit heavily on the stair below me. Unable to move another foot, I bend over and place my head between my knees as I struggle to breathe, realizing I’m having my very first panic attack, because the idea of living the rest of my life without Gabe is the most frightening thing I’ve ever faced.

Gabe

Cuando una puerta se cierra, ciento se abren.

When one door closes, another opens.

C
ARLA
and I move from being buddies to dating at some point. I’m such a wreck that I sort of go along with whatever. There’s always been an ease between us, and she’s comforting. She likes me, she wants to spend time with me, I let her. I’m no more miserable around her than I am not around her, so what the hell. At least I have someone to talk to once in a while. It’s slow and simple. We go out once or twice a week, talk on the phone, send each other silly texts. No big deal.

I know I’ll never be in love again, but I think it’s for the best. I’m not sure anyone’s heart can sustain that level of passion long term. It’s too much to feel – too much joy, too much peace, too much sorrow. Carla’s a friend, someone who takes my mind off of the grinding pain that’s rooted deep in my insides.

I take Carla with me to some of Ramon’s family events, and she gets along well with Tina. We also spend time with her family over at Mike’s. I meet her mom and dad. They like me, and I even get along with her brothers. It all helps remind me that while I’m alone inside I’m not alone in the world the way I’ve been for so much of my life. Alexis was the only person who ever took the loneliness inside away, but friends are good too.

There’s no denying Carla is good-looking. Her long blond hair and perfect breasts get plenty of stares when we’re out places. It’s no hardship to spend a few hours curled up to that body, feeling her curves and exploring her mouth with my tongue. But we haven’t slept together. I know the way I lived my life the last few years isn’t an answer to my problems. While I wish I could drown myself in as much dirty sex as I could find, I can’t work up the energy to bother. It won’t solve anything. I didn’t forget her when she was thousands of miles away the last two years. I’m sure as hell not going to forget her when she’s living one hundred feet across the parking lot.

I know Carla wonders why the hell I don’t move things along, but I don’t care. Regardless of what I told myself and the women I was with all those years, sex changes everything. Sex with her or anyone besides Alexis would make all of this worse, because it would remind me in the most intimate and painful way possible of what I’ve lost. I simply can’t go there. So I have a good relationship with my right hand, and fantasies about Alexis keep me from going completely insane. Some days I want her so badly that I can taste her, smell her, feel her skin under my fingertips. And then I remind myself of what she did – twice – and I remember why things are the way they are.

Carla and I have come back from a trip to the convenience store to buy some popcorn and candy for the movie marathon we’ve got planned when I see Alexis for the first time since she came to the garage, apologizing for things that are beyond an apology. I’m following C into the apartment when I do what I do every time I walk in or out that door – I look up to Alexis’s place. I know it’s wrong, especially when I’m with Carla, but I’m unable to control it. It’s a flash each time, a moment full of possibility. The possibility I’ll get a glimpse of her, the hope I won’t. The magnetic pull I still struggle with every hour of every day. My addiction.

This time when I look up, she’s there, standing on the staircase, her hands clutching the railing, her hair tangled and falling in her face. Even from this distance, I can see she’s not well. Her anguish is palpable from fifty feet across a slab of asphalt. She doesn’t move, not a muscle. She simply stands and gazes at me with desperation. It fucking rips me up the center of my soul. Luckily, my body is on autopilot and I continue walking into the apartment and shut the door, leaving her outside in every way possible.

I excuse myself to Carla and go into the bathroom. I stand there, trying to quiet my breathing. I splash cold water on my face to calm down. I’m livid and sick all at once. I can’t understand what it is I’m supposed to feel. She did this to us, not me. She made the choice, left me, ended what we had with her refusal to trust it. So why do I feel like somehow I’ve wronged her? Why do I have a nearly uncontrollable urge to head right up those stairs and make it all okay for her? No matter what she’s done, it kills me to see her like this, but I can’t bring myself to go to her. I can’t risk it again. I’m barely treading water here and I can’t imagine what one more time could do to me.

I want to fucking beat on something or someone, and I know I can’t be with Carla right now. I have to get the hell out of this apartment, away from Alexis. I leave the bathroom and shrug back into my jacket.

“Hey, C?” I say softly as she sits on the sofa, scanning through the channels on the TV.

She looks up at me, her smile sliding from her face when she gets a view of my expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asks as she sits forward so she can turn around further.

I move my head to one side, cracking my neck. “I, uh, I got a text from Ramon. He needs me to go check on something at the shop. Just make yourself comfortable and I’ll be back in a bit. Go ahead and watch one of your chick flicks. I won’t miss it,” I joke, hoping to distract her from the fact I’m ditching out on our date.

She nods her head solemnly. I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but she’s not going to ask right now. If I know Carla, it’ll be addressed at some point, but not now.

I give her a quick peck on the cheek, feeling like an ass, and hightail it out of there. When I get outside, I take a deep breath of air, as if my lungs have been deprived for days. I get out my cell phone, shoot off a quick text, and hop on the bike. I can’t get that building behind me fast enough.

Five minutes later, I walk onto the porch of a small duplex near the UT campus. A short redhead with a pixie cut is sitting on an old porch swing. “He’s baaack,” she crows, imitating Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
. Even without that, she kind of scares the crap out of me.

“Behave, Jill,” Beth says as she walks out the front door and sits on the swing too.

Jill takes a swig from the Coke she’s got in her hand. “Oh fine,” she grumbles. “Takes all the fun out of having him here, but whatever.” She stands up and walks to the door.

I wave to her as she goes inside, although I get the feeling she couldn’t care less, and then I take her spot on the swing.

“Hey,” I say to Beth, who is watching me over the top of her reading glasses like a little old lady.

She smiles, and it fucks with my head just a bit because her resemblance to Alexis is so strong that certain gestures or expressions make my poor heart clutch up like a frozen car engine.

“So, bad day?” she asks casually. Of course she knows I only show up on her doorstep when it is. Which it has been pretty regularly over the last month. I never ask if she tells Alexis when she sees me. Somehow I don’t think she does. We started texting when she took pity on me while they were in Floresville helping their mom. We’ve kept it up, and she’s been a sounding board for me when the frustration and the pain get overwhelming. Beth volunteers, counseling women at a halfway house, and I can see she must be really good at her job.

I lean back and rub my hands over my eyes as if I could wipe away the image of Alexis standing on those stairs, looking so completely destroyed.

“I saw her.”

Beth sits up a little straighter. “Did you talk?”

“No. What the hell would we say? ‘Hey, sorry I ruined you. Can you pass the laundry detergent?’”

“Give me a break. You seriously think the two of you won’t ever talk again?”

I take a deep breath. “I don’t know what I think anymore, Beth.”

“So tell me what happened tonight.”

My mind flashes back to the way she looked. “Is she okay? I mean, she looked…I don’t know, like she wasn’t feeling well.”

Beth snorts. “And you’d expect her to be feeling well why?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t this what she wanted? To avoid the mess of dealing with me
and
your parents? I thought she’d be relieved. I’m out of the way, so she can find someone Mom and Pop approve of. Maybe Marco will take her back,” I say bitterly.

“Do you want my help or not?”

I feel my face heat and look down at my hands in my lap. Finally I nod.

“Then quit being a dick. You’re mad, I get it, but you know she loves you. She panicked, and yeah, she messed up. Hugely. But it wasn’t because she wanted you out of her life. It’s because she couldn’t imagine her life without her family. I think she finally gets that would never have happened, but at the time, it seemed like a real possibility to her.”

“Well, I don’t see her begging me to take her back.”

“She’s scared, Gabe. She’s scared of being rejected just like you are. She’s afraid you won’t want her back, and frankly, as long as you’re doing blondie, who can blame her?”

I glare at Beth. “I’m not ‘doing’ Carla, just for the record. But you know, even if I was, so what? It’s all right for Alexis to take off to Floresville with her ex-boyfriend but if I date someone I’m the bad guy?”

Beth has a little smirk on her face. “So.” She’s trying to sound casual but doing a very poor job of it. “You haven’t slept with her?”

“You know, there was a time in my life when I would have gladly regaled you with exactly what I’ve done with her, but now I know my answer ought to be, ‘It’s none of your damn business.’”

Her smile grows bigger. “Um hm,” is all she offers.

I sigh. “No. I haven’t slept with her. I just…I don’t know. I just can’t.”

Beth busts out laughing and keeps on laughing until tears are running down her face. Somehow, I’d thought I might get some sympathy if I came over here. Instead I’m being beat up by a Garcia woman. Familiar. And not all that much fun.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps out as her laughter finally stutters to a stop. “Really. But Gabe ‘The Studmuffin’ Thompson being unable to get it up for some girl is just so –”

“What the fuck?!” I interrupt as I leap off the porch swing. “Unable to get it up? What the hell are you talking about?”

“When I asked if you’d slept with her, you said you couldn’t.”

I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my ex-girlfriend’s sister. “Beth. I didn’t mean physically couldn’t. Jesus Christ, I’m twenty-four years old and horny as hell most of every day. I could fuck the girl six ways to Sunday. I just don’t
want
to.”

Beth blushes. “Oh,” she squeaks out. “Sorry?”

I stomp over to the porch railing and cross my arms as I lean against it. “You should be,” I mutter.

She snorts as she tries to keep from laughing again. I’m not so sure she didn’t
try
to misunderstand me.

“Okay, seriously though, whether you’re sleeping with blondie or not, her presence is a pretty big deterrent to Alexis coming back to you, wouldn’t you say?”

I stand for a minute and think about what she’s telling me, and I realize she’s got a point. It’s probably a thought that’s been in my subconscious since I started all this with Carla. I’ve got nothing more to lose, so I speak my thoughts out loud.

“Maybe I want that deterrent there.”

Beth nods.

“Maybe I’m too scared of what she can do to me if I let her back in, and maybe I think she ought to have to work for it.”

I see Beth’s eyes narrow, and she opens up her mouth to lay into me. I hold up a hand.

“Not because I’m being an asshole, but because there’s been this unevenness between us all along. Both times she dumped me, I didn’t get a say in it. Both times she made this fucking unilateral decision that we were over. The only reason we even got back together is because I uprooted my entire life, moved four thousand miles, and basically wouldn’t leave her alone until she agreed.”