Chapter 2
Gabby
“Thanks for the ride,” Gabby said as she grabbed her suitcase and stepped away from the truck.
“Are you sure I can’t change your mind on this?” Gabby bit back a frustrated sigh.
“Yes, mom. I am very sure.”
“Ok. I just can’t believe you are choosing your father over me. Do you forget who took care of you when you were sick as a child? Do you forget who helped you with everything? Your father was never home. And when he was he just hung out in the basement tinkering with those stupid trains and drinking himself into oblivion.” Gabby hated when her mother did this. When she tried to pin her against her father. It wasn’t fair.
“Goodbye, mom,” Gabby said sternly. She turned and walked away into the train station.
“I love you!” Her mother cried.
Gabby ignored it and kept walking. She heard the truck slowly pull away from the station and only then did she turn around and watch her mother drive away. She felt a tear come to her eye and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. There was no reason for her to cry, but her emotions were on a rollercoaster right now. She had a lump the size of Texas in her throat and she found it almost hard to breathe as she willed her legs to walk one foot in front of the other to the ticket counter where she paid for her ticket into the city.
Rosewood was a hundred miles away from New York City. Gabby would never have allowed her mother to drive her all that way, she couldn’t have stood to listen to her mother’s yapping that long. She agreed to let her mother drive her to Pipestone, where she would be able to catch a train to the city.
After grabbing her ticket, she sat down to wait for the train. The station was not nearly as busy as she’d expected it to be, but then again it was seven in the morning on a Tuesday. She was glad that it was kind of dead. People were really the last thing she wanted to see right now. Usually she considered herself a bit of a people watcher. People were very interesting. It was something she’d done since she was a little girl. Everyone had their own stories. Where they’d been, where they were going, what events had led them to be right there right now at that time and place—it had always captivated her. Gabby suspected that her interest in everyone’s stories came from all the books she read. She always wondered what adventure everyone was headed to.
But today she just wanted as much peace and quiet as she could get. She pulled out a book from her bag and opened it. The truck ride with her mother had been a bear. It would take time but she would just have to understand that this was the way things were going to be from now on. Gabby was going to live her life and put herself first for a while. She’d done her time helping everyone else.
Her father of course was another matter. Gabby had been her dad’s sidekick for as long as she could remember. She could hardly ever remember her dad uttering a cross word to her all the time she was growing up.
She was aware from the time she was about seven that her parents’ marriage was not as solid as the other kids’ parents. Her parents argued and bickered night and day it seemed. They hardly ever seemed to enjoy spending time with each other.
As the years went on they grew increasingly distant until for the last three or four years they were married her father would go to work early in the morning and then come home where he would head for the basement. He would stay down there for hours, putting together his model trains and his model cars. It had always seemed a childish hobby for a grown man to have, even to Gabby at such a young age. But her father loved it and it kept peace in the house.
Gabby became aware later that her father often drank himself to the point of unconsciousness down there night after night. When her parents finally separated and then divorced Gabby was actually relieved. She knew it would be better for the both of them and it was long overdue. But divorce in a town as small as Rosewood Falls was considered almost taboo. The entire town was like some vortex that magically transported everyone there back to the nineteen forties. It was a town stuck in a time warp of sorts, completely oblivious to the outside world. Gabby often described it as a science experiment of some sort, as if the powers that be were keeping them all locked in the town to drive each other mad.
Gabby tried to get interested in the book she’d been reading, but her mind would not really concentrate on it. She kept rereading the same paragraph of the novel only to realize she had not understood it. Her mind was on too many things right now. She just needed to relax.
Why did it feel like such a mistake to be leaving? It felt like she was letting everyone down that she had ever cared about and that she was turning her back on people. But she wasn’t; she was just doing what she needed to do for herself. There was nothing wrong with that.
Oh, why did her mother have to bring up Adam? She had gone almost an entire six hours without thinking about him. But there it was, everything that went down between them happening all over again in her head. What she and Adam had was sweet puppy love. It was the type of love that is born out of young curiosity, inexperience, and necessity due to environmental factors. That was all. And expectations. But it seemed to Gabby that the expectations were mostly put in place by other people and she was sick and tired of living according to other people’s expectations. It was an exhausting life to live according to what everyone else said you should be.
Adam had been devastated. She knew it and it broke her heart every time she thought about it. His face was so broken when she handed the ring back to him. She might as well have shot him in the heart. The crushed look on his face would probably haunt her for as long as she lived. But he would have to get over it. Adam was a smart, good looking, funny, and had a lot to offer a woman. He just wasn’t right for her. But she knew he would find someone.
Even if he chose never to really leave Rosewood. But he could leave if he wanted. Nothing was really keeping him there except the same things that had tried to keep her there. And all of that were mental devices that did not really exist unless you let them.
“Is that any good?”
“I’m sorry?” Gabby asked glancing around. The train station had been empty a few seconds ago but a voice was looming from behind her now. The skin on the back of her neck began to crawl as she turned around a bit too fast.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Gabby was staring into the face of a young man about her age. He was tall and slender, with kind eyes, and an almost dazed look on his face as if he was about to see something spectacular and life altering. He reminded Gabby of a kid in line at Disney World for the first time.
“Oh, it’s ok. I was just thinking,” Gabby replied. “Yes, it is a good book.”
She held the cover of the book up to show him better.
“Ah, for some reason that looked like a sci-fi novel,” the young man said sitting down across from her.
“Oh, no. Sorry, I’m a cheesy romance lover,” Gabby smiled. “Like all women, I suppose.”
“To each his—or her—own,” the man said. “I’m Kyle, by the way.”
“Gabby,” she responded.
The man shifted position in his seat a few times then as if her introducing herself back was some kind of validation or indicator of interest on her part. At least that was how it felt. She might have been reading the situation all wrong.
“So, are you from New York? Or just visiting?” Kyle asked with a friendly, but somewhat goofy smile.
He was a sweet but awkward guy from the looks of things. Gabby appreciated the conversation but she really did not feel like being interviewed.
“I’m visiting. Not sure how long I’m staying,” she said.
“Oh, ok.” After she did not offer a question back Kyle continued the interview.
Gabby felt the awkwardness of it all. She’d been hit on by guys in the past who were obviously interested in her but they pretended not to be and just asked a bunch of boring get to know you questions before finally asking for a phone number. She groaned silently wondering how much longer Kyle was going to continue this before she finally had to shut him down.
He seemed to be a very nice guy and she hated to reject people. He wasn’t bad looking and seemed like he could be mildly funny. There was nothing wrong with him, but she really was not interested in dating anyone right now. She wanted to get settled in first. There were just too many things pulling on her from all sides at the moment and she was not about to go into a long diatribe about it to a total stranger.
“I’m born and raised in NYC,” Kyle said. “There is no other city like it in the world, I’ll tell you.”
“I’ve been a few times,” Gabby said. “It is a great town.”
She checked her clock on her phone. She still had about twenty minutes before her train was supposed to board. Ugh… she was going to have to play along with Kyle for a bit, wasn’t she?
“So, what do you do?” Kyle asked.
Gabby tried to think of a viable answer to this question, or at least an interesting one, but nothing was coming to mind right then.
Suddenly her phone rang. Yes!
Gabby did not even check to see who it was.
“Oh, I’ve got to take this,” she said grabbing her bag and starting to walk away. “It was nice meeting you, Kyle.”
Kyle seemed a bit bewildered disheartened as she smiled slightly and waved goodbye.
Gabby walked away quickly several steps before she answered the phone hastily, grateful for the interruption.
But the gratitude was short-lived.
“Hello?” Gabby asked.
“Hey, it’s me.”
The voice on the phone belonged to Adam.
No!
“Um, hi…” Gabby said.
“I went by your house to say goodbye before you left, but I guess I overslept and you were already gone,” Adam said.
“Yeah. We had to get an early start,” Gabby said. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m ok. I’m taking some classes online this semester from NYU. Not sure if you knew that,” Adam said. His voice sounded meek and hesitant.
“No, I hadn’t heard,” Gabby replied. “Um, that’s great. How many credits are you taking?”
“I’m just taking two classes. That’s all I can afford. According to the financial aid guidelines I’m too rich to get help but I’m too poor to pay to go full time,” Adam joked.
It was a joke he had told her several times before and it was getting old. She chuckled softly. She hated the way that Adam was feeling right now. She could hear the pain and even what sounded like shame in his shaky voice. He was normally full of confidence and bravado. He’d always been the most popular guy in their class. He was funny, he was the top athlete, but not nearly good enough to get a scholarship anywhere it turned out. He had a great group of friends and the two of them were the golden couple. Homecoming King and Queen, Prom King and Queen—it was fun. But it was all so very fake to her now.
That was life in a very small town for you.
“Well, I’m happy for you. I’m sure you will do well,” Gabby said.
There was silence for a few seconds.
“I just wanted to say goodbye and let you know that I’m sorry about the way things ended up. I’m not sure what I did or what I can do to make it better, but if you just talk to me then I’m sure we can work it out. I love you, Gabby.” Gabby felt her chest constrict. She understood that this was hard for Adam, but she just wished he would try and move on.
“Adam, it’s not you. I know that is the most clichéd line in the book, but it’s the truth. I am not ready for that level of commitment. I have goals and dreams that I want to accomplish first. You’ve known that for a long time. We have always told each other everything.”
“Yeah, I guess that somehow in the back of my mind I always pictured it as just two kids daydreaming. But that is one of the things I love so much about you. You are a doer. You are going after something you believe in. I know it’s scary and I know that a lot of people expect you to fail. I want you to know I support you and I know you will do well in anything you give your heart to. I just don’t see why that has to mean the end of us.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to you. Long distance relationships never work out. We just want different things in life. You want to stay in Rosewood. And don’t pretend that you don’t. I know you too well,” Gabby replied.
“Gabby, I am willing to go wherever you want. I can live wherever you want to live, be whatever you need me to be. I would do anything for you. Honey, you are my heart, my soul; you are my very reason for breathing.”
Adam was sobbing now. She could hear him fighting back the tears but the emotions were overtaking him now.
Her heart was aching. She hated to hear this great guy she’d known all her life in so much pain and to know that she was the cause of it. He didn’t deserve this, but he didn’t deserve a fake relationship either. He just needed time to adjust and heal.
“Adam… I’m sorry. Please try to understand. You just have to give it time,” she said.
“No! I’m not giving it anything. You are wrong about us, Gabby. You and I love each other. Do not try to deny it. People don’t just stop loving each other overnight; that doesn’t happen in real life!” Adam was yelling now, hurting her ears.
Gabby felt the anger and frustration rising inside of her.
“Adam, I have to go. My train’s going to leave.”
“We will be together. You are the one who needs time. You need time to rethink what you are throwing away. I love you and I know you love me. You are just scared or confused. Maybe I came on too strong asking you to marry me; that’s my fault, but we will work through this. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Adam, it’s over. I can’t be any clearer. It is over. I’m sorry if you can’t accept it, but you have no other choice. I have to go.”
Gabby ended the call and put her phone on silent.
She sighed heavily thankful the call was over.
Ten minutes later she was on the train departing from the station heading towards The Big Apple.
She was still shaking a bit from the phone call with Adam. She’d never heard him sound truly angry before, not with her. He almost sounded like he was really losing a grip on reality and she had to admit to herself she was feeling a bit scared. People under that kind of stress often did horrible things to themselves or others.
Gabby tried to laugh the idea off. It was Adam she was talking about. He’d never hurt a fly before.
But there was a first time for everything wasn’t there?
She wished she had handled the call better, but when Adam got emotional then she found herself following suit. He was right about the fact that the two of them had a long history and it was tough to just cut someone out of your life who’d been such a big part of your life for so long.
It was going to be a long road, but she knew she would make it through.