CHAPTER SIX
Gabe
“I have seen a medicine
That’s able to breathe life into a stone.”
-Shakespeare
Visions of all the times Caitlin and I were naked together dance in front of my eyes as I guide the Beamer through the sleepy Sunday streets of downtown Giffney, headed for my father’s office. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but of all the things I’ve remembered about Caitlin so far, our time in bed has returned with the most clarity.
“I can’t remember your birthday, but I remember fucking you in seven different positions,” I confess, because I’ve decided to be honest with her, even when it’s embarrassing, even when it’s hard. Realizing my parents are such accomplished liars made me determined to excel at telling the truth.
Caitlin shifts in her seat as she turns to face me, causing the jean skirt she pulled on over her suit to ride up her tan thighs, and my blood pressure to spike. “It’s April tenth, the night we ran into each other at the club.”
The words trigger a chain reaction in my brain, like dominos toppling in a line, and I suddenly remember. “We were dancing, and then you ran away…but I followed you and started talking to Sherry. She said it was your birthday, but you weren’t in the mood to party because…”
I trail off, heart beating faster with excitement as more memories flood in. “That’s why we robbed that pawnshop. So you and the kids could keep the house.”
“Yes!” She reaches out, squeezing my leg through my shorts, her excitement obvious in the way her fingers dig into my skin. “All the robberies were like that, Gabe. We robbed the people we found in your father’s old files, people who deserved to be in jail for the horrible things they’d done.”
“And we put the money in your college fund,” I say. “Have you—”
“I’ve already finished a year of my degree in social work,” she says pride in her voice. “I’m hoping to finish in another two years.”
I smile. “So you decided to go for the big money career, huh?”
“You know it,” she says, with a chuckle. “But seriously, I don’t need that much money to be happy, and I like the idea of helping kids that are in situations like the one I was in growing up. I certainly know what it’s like to be in their shoes.”
I glance at her, hating myself for being so quick to judge her this afternoon. I should have known better. “I’m proud of you.”
“Don’t be too proud. I haven’t graduated yet, and I’ve had…other things keeping me busy. Things I’m not so sure…” She trails off and her fingers tangle in her lap, the way they do when she’s nervous. I remember that. I’m remembering so much more quickly now that Caitlin is back in my life.
“Tell me, please,” I urge. “This is helping me remember.”
She sighs and glances down at her hands. “This isn’t about our history together, but you should probably know…” She looks back up and I feel her watching me as I take a left toward my father’s office. “I’ve been pulling jobs on the island, helping people in impossible situations.”
The phrase sparks something in my brain. “Impossible situations?”
“That’s what you said to me on my birthday last year,” she says. “That none of us know what we’re capable of until we find ourselves in an impossible situation. A situation that makes us think about the best way to use the time we’ve been given.” She pauses, adding in a softer voice as I pull into the parking lot behind my father’s office, “I remember the first night we came here. It seems like so much more than a year ago.”
I guide the Beamer into my father’s reserved space and shut off the car, but I don’t unbuckle my belt or move to get out. “So you’ve been stealing from people?”
She nods, but she doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are on the red door that leads up to my father’s second story office. “Just a few people so far. One man owed years of back child support, and another was blackmailing a woman into continuing their affair. The people they were hurting were in impossible situations and I guess…” She shifts her gaze, a naked look in her eyes that makes me want to pull her into my arms and kiss the furrow from between her brows. “I guess I was in an impossible situation, too.”
I thread my fingers through hers, waiting for her to continue.
“Trying to move on with my life without you was…so hard,” she says, a catch in her voice. “So much has happened. Awful things I should tell you, but I just…can’t right now. I’m not ready.”
“We agreed we don’t like the word should.” I lift her hand to my lips and press a kiss to her soft skin. “Tell me when you’re ready. But I want you to know that I realize I was an asshole this afternoon. I’m in no place to judge anyone or anything. I’m stuck between who I was, who I thought I was, and who I want to be. I don’t know how everything is going to shake out, but I know I want to be with you when it does.”
“Me too,” she says, eyes shimmering with emotion. “I want that more than anything.”
“But I’m going to be honest with you,” I say. “I fucked about half of the town this summer. Any blonde between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight who would let me follow her home from the bar.”
Caitlin’s lips curve on one side in an unexpected smile. “Well, that’s very…you. Old you. Before me.” She narrows her eyes. “I hope you were careful.”
“Wrapped up tighter than a Cuban cigar every time,” I say with a grin that fades quickly. “But none of them meant anything to me. Only one was even a friend, and it never got more serious than that. I called her this afternoon to tell her it was over.”
“So you’re fresh from a breakup,” she says, brows drifting higher on her forehead.
“It wasn’t like that. She was a place to hide, not a place to find the things I’ve been missing.”
Caitlin nods, the tenderness in her expression making it clear she understands. But then, she seems to understand me better than anyone, maybe even better than I understand myself.
“I was with someone, too,” she says. “Isaac and I were living together until a few days ago.”
The way she says the name makes it clear I should remember this person, but I don’t. “Isaac is…an old boyfriend? Before us?”
Caitlin blinks before she shakes her head. “Sorry, I forget. No, Isaac is an old friend from Giffney. You two met once. Big guy, very protective of me?” I shake my head, indicating the description still isn’t ringing a bell, and she continues with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter, but I think you liked him. Anyway…Isaac followed me to Maui a couple of months after the kids and I left. Eventually we became a couple, but I never loved him the way he deserved to be loved. I broke things off right before we flew back for the funeral. I couldn’t live that…half life anymore.”
I make a considering sound, fighting to keep the spark of jealousy in my chest from catching fire. “So you’re fresh from a breakup, too.”
“Not really. Isaac will make someone a great husband someday, but for me…” She lifts one bare shoulder. “It was like you said, he was a place to hide. And I was tired of hiding.”
A shadow flickers across her face and I suddenly know what she’s not telling me. It is an instinctive knowing, a limb tingling as it sinks beneath cool water, something I couldn’t ignore any more than I could ignore my own arm or leg.
“You don’t have to hide anymore.” I stare deep into her eyes, willing her to see that I’m ready for her, all of her. “Don’t hold back with me. I want you to be exactly who you are, and if I can’t handle it, then I’m the one who’s failed, not you.”
“That’s not true,” she says. “People change, I know that. It doesn’t mean anyone has failed.”
I shake my head. “It does for me. I realized something this afternoon, when I found that memo in my father’s office. Ever since the surgery, I’ve been afraid of myself. I thought I was afraid of my dark side, but I’m not. I’m afraid I won’t have the guts to become the person I need to be, the person I obviously was when I met you.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, brow furrowing again.
“My parents have played with our lives like our free will doesn’t matter. We’ve been pieces in their chess game,” I say, rage and betrayal rising inside me all over again, the way they did when I sat in front of my father’s computer this afternoon. “I come from people who prove there’s no point in playing by the rules. There will always be someone bigger and stronger, with more power, and no moral compass, who refuses to do the right thing. And those people make it ludicrous to think decent people can walk the straight and narrow and expect the world not to go to hell in a hand basket.”
I swallow. “Deep down, I knew that sometimes you have to play dirty to make sure the bad guys don’t win, but until today, I was ignoring the signs, wanting to stay out of the shadows. Wanting things to be…easy.”
“I don’t think life is ever easy,” Caitlin says, laying her hand on top of mine. “But love can be.”
I look at her beautiful face and my heart flips in my chest and I no longer feel like a person who’s gotten the short end of the stick. I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world, because she’s talking about me, and there is a place in her heart that is mine.
I lean in, pressing a grateful kiss to her lips before resting my forehead against hers. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me…but there is something I would like.”
“Anything,” I say, meaning it.
“Take me inside,” she whispers.
I reach for my door—not needing to be asked twice—but she stops me with a hand on my arm. “But not the couch,” she says. “I want a new memory, without any ghosts in it.”
I nod, already knowing exactly where I’ll take her. To a place where I can watch the setting sun turn her tawny skin gold as I kiss every inch of her body, until she’s begging me to do more than kiss, and I sink inside her, and finally find out if real life can compare to all the dreams I’ve had of her.
Dreams of being shattered and made whole, dreams of finding everything I’ve ever wanted in one beautiful girl’s arms.