Chapter Six
Alex
I sat in my car out the front of Gillian’s house for about thirty minutes before I mustered up the courage to get out. It was a quaint house, a cottage, with a neat, kept garden and lace curtains hanging in the windows. It was so Gillian.
Closing my eyes, I pictured a Gillian from long ago. The delighted look on her face, the way her eyes sparkled. I used to think that was the way she looked at everyone, but I soon realized it was reserved just for me. And what made it ten times better was that she didn’t even know she did it. It came from deep inside her, and was completely unconscious, which made it even more precious.
I’d looked up her home address on the computers at Ink Addicted. At first I wasn’t sure I should come and see her, but then I decided I had to. I wanted, needed this job, and therefore we needed to find some way of working together. I also didn’t like the way she’d gotten sick on seeing me. I was ass for not checking on her straight away, but I thought it would be best to give her some space. And besides, I wasn’t sure I was the best person to comfort her. I might have been once, but now…
After a while of just sitting there and thinking, I noticed one of the neighbors had come out. She was an older woman and she craned her neck to see what I was doing. It probably looked like I was scoping the joint out. I didn’t exactly come across as a wholesome guy or a charity doorknocker—I never had—so I needed to decide whether I should leave or get out and confront the past that I’d never wanted to confront.
Making my way up the path to Gillian’s house felt like the longest walk of my life. I remembered another walk, years ago, behind the tiny, white coffin that carried both our hearts. I remembered hearing the words, the tears, and the sobs through a long tunnel—some of them mine, some of them Gillian’s. I remembered holding Gillian tightly, holding on as if just having her in my arms would bring back what we’d both lost. But it didn’t work. We couldn’t hold on to her. We couldn’t even hold on to each other.
Knocking on the door, I waited, and then, mere seconds—or was it years?—later, she opened the door.
Gillian.
She was thinner than I remembered. She’d lost the soft curves she used to have, the full breasts and hips. Now, she was more angular, her shoulder blades jutting out beneath the soft gray t-shirt she wore. Her arms were well defined and I suspected she worked out, a thought which made me smile. Who would’ve imagined Gillian Crown in a gym?
Her face had aged too. She was still under thirty, but there were faint lines around her eyes which were wizened beyond her years. The freckles, which I’d loved so much, were still scattered across her nose, and her hair, which she’d always worn long, was now cut short around her shoulders. There were tattoos on her arms and I noted one poking out from the top of her t-shirt. I wondered what she’d chosen to ink on her body since the last time I’d seen it. I knew there was a cherry blossom on her stomach that stretched around to her back and a dove on her ankle. I knew about those tattoos because I’d done them. Years ago. In that other life.
“Alex,” she said simply, “come in.”
“You were expecting me?” I followed her in, waiting as she closed the door behind us. Her home smelled like strawberries and vanilla which sent a pang of familiarity right to my core.
“I figured you’d come by,” she said with a slight shrug. “I thought you might give me today, though. To, you know, get over the shock.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know. I mean Miranda said a girl called Gillian worked for her but I never thought…”
She waved her hand away. “Of course not.”
And that was that.
We stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at one another. There was a time when I knew exactly what Gillian was thinking. I knew if she was hungry, if she was tired, if she wanted another tattoo or to lock herself away in her room and paint undisturbed for hours on end. If she wanted me to kiss her or fuck her or just wrap my arms around her and hold her.
“Anyhow,” I began lamely, “how are you?”
She laughed. It was an odd sound, a fake, hollow laugh, but despite its lack of humor, she chuckled loudly, wiping the tears that fell to her cheeks. “How am I?” she said after a long moment. “I have no words, Alex. I’m shocked. I’m upset. I’m scared. I’m nervous. I’m hurt and I’m so incredibly, incredibly sad that it’s hard to find the right words. That’s how I am. Even now, after all these years, that’s how I am.”
I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” she cut me off. “Nothing.”
“I should never have left you…”
“You were young. I was falling apart. We were both grieving. We were both confused and scared. You did nothing wrong by leaving.”
I stared at the ground. Her words were meant to comfort me, to make it okay that I left, but they did the complete opposite. They reminded me of my weakness. They reminded me that in her moment of need, our moment of need, I ran. I packed up and I left. I joined the army and traveled as far away from Gillian and the whole situation as I could. I traveled to hell and it still wasn’t far enough away to forget.
“I guess I thought you would be better off without me,” I said. “You know, if I wasn’t there then your relationship with your parents could get back on track.”
“My parents.” She snorted. “My dad. You really think I would have anything to do with my dad after what he did?”
“He was just trying to protect you.”
“He murdered my baby,” she said, her voice sharp, so sharp that I flinched at the harshness and the truth in her words. “He murdered our baby.”
We were both silent. Thoughtful. Thinking of the life we’d both lost, the little part of me and the little part of her that was completely and utterly innocent and perfect and yet had been caught up in the hostilities between my family and Alex’s.
“Gillian—”
“Where have you been?” she asked suddenly, pushing past me and heading further into the house. “I heard you’d joined the army.”
“I had. I did. Spent eight years serving overseas, eight years trying to forget.”
She stared at me. “And did you?”
“No. I never did.”
She drew a breath and stared at her feet for the longest moment. When she looked back up, her eyes were filled with tears. “Alex…”
“I go by Joe now,” I told her, “Joseph Spalding.”
“Your middle name and your mother’s name.”
I shrugged. “I wanted to put some distance between myself and my family. Didn’t ever want them to find me again.”
I wanted to tell her more. Tell her that I hadn’t seen my dad and my brothers since the day I left town and signed up. I wanted to tell her that I had left them all behind. That I was no longer a part of that family, that I’d been working all this time to make myself somehow worthy for her, for her family, only to realize that I would never be. I’d spent all those years running and I would run no more. Now it was time to return to the world of the living, albeit in baby steps, but I was determined.
“Oh.” She frowned and looked like she wanted to say more before she changed the subject. “So, you ended up here.”
I nodded and couldn’t help the smile that came over my lips at the irony. Of all the towns, in all the states in this massive country of ours, I’d chosen the same town as she had to start over in. I couldn’t even say for sure what had made me unpack my duffle bag here, what had made me rent an apartment for the first time in eight years, and buy a toaster and a coffee machine. There was something about it, something about the streets lined with magnolia trees, the quaint stores, the smiles on the residents’ face as they walked down the main street. I knew I’d wanted to live here before I even realized, and then I saw the tattoo studio, and it felt like I was meant to be here.
“I can leave,” I said suddenly without even thinking. “I mean, if this is going to be awkward for you I can and I will leave.”
She peeked up at me from under her lashes. “Where would you go?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Gillian looked to be considering the idea, which made my heart sink. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t even want to leave her.
“No. You don’t have to leave,” she said eventually. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
I glanced around her house now, taking in the simple furnishings, how tidy and homely it was. The walls were adorned with painted canvases that I knew she’d done. I wandered over to them. “Yours?”
“Yes.”
“Beautiful,” I murmured, examining the first one. It was of a pair of hands, an old woman and a young child. She’d painted them in strong bold brush strokes, the colors bright and colorful. What would otherwise be a poignant image was somehow made joyous and hopeful by her use of color. But that was Gillian for you. Always full of hope and joy. Or at least she had been. Once upon a time.