I forgave you,
Long before you asked for it.
Because even as I tried to let go,
Love wouldn’t let me.
Day 386 Post-Gavin
When I get home, there’s a small red box waiting for me on my doormat.
I grab it and unlock my door, slipping inside and setting it on the counter before calling Sabrina.
“Hey, did you leave anything at my place for me?”
“No. What is it?”
I frown as I examine it.
“A small red box. What if it has anthrax?”
“Is that still a thing?” I can hear her doing something on the other end of the phone. “Peter is anthrax still a thing?”
I roll my eyes when she tells me that Peter says it’s no longer a “thing.”
“Open it. Tell me what it is.” She’s munching on something in my ear and I put the phone on speaker, so the sound doesn’t bother me as much.
I grab the box and lift the lid. What I see makes me gasp.
“What?” she whines. “Tell me!”
“It’s a watch.” A beautiful watch with a colorful face that looks like a painting and hands with hearts on them.
I grab the note tucked on top of the box.
Denise,
So you can keep track of the time.
Gavin
Sabrina screams and it fills my entire apartment.
“Call him. Right fucking now.”
She hangs up the phone before I can tell her that I wouldn’t even know what to say to him. Which seems odd, considering we’ve been talking for hours every night.
Still . . .
I was still wrapping my mind around the idea that he was back and that he was regretful, after us being apart for so long.
But . . .
That was the thing about heartbreak. One person always felt it more when it happened.
Time always caught up to us, whether we faced it or not.
What I’d already felt and gone through, Gavin was just experiencing.
Because, I learned, men tend to put matters of the heart on the backburner.
Until the past caught up to them and lit their asses on fire.
The heart will always get what it’s due. Whether you’re a willing tither or it has to come ’round like a debt collector.
No one can ignore what is meant to be felt.
Not even me.
I message Gavin.
Me: Thank you for the watch. I love it.
I sit down on my stool and stare at it, knowing I’d never gotten a lovelier gift from anyone else.
My phone chimes with an incoming text.
Gavin: I hoped you would.
What’s a woman to do when fate comes back around for the second time?
I’d unconsciously spent our days apart leaving breadcrumbs in my wake, hoping that one day, he’d find his way back to me.
Gavin: May I call you?
My fingers rub over my bottom lip as I smile.
Me: Of course.
He’d found his way back to me.
The phone hardly rings when I answer.
“Come over,” I tell him.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say, a little breathless.
“Don’t freak out, but I’m already here.” He lets out a chuckle. “I had to make sure you got it.”
I barely hear the rest of it, dropping my phone and flinging my front door open. When I see him at the end of the hall, I rush to him and jump. His arms are around me and his hands keep me against him as he kisses me.
“God, I’ve missed you,” I whisper as we break away and he walks us inside.
“Not more than I’ve missed you, love.”
We try so hard to get our clothes off and under each other’s skin without having to let go of one another.
I haven’t been touched by him in so long, it feels like the ashes of who I was are somehow kindling with fire again. I feel everything.
I’m not numb for him. I could never be.
What happens after this? The inner voice makes me pause and look in his eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes stare back at me with so much sincerity.
“Tell me you forgive me. Tell me you still want me.”
His words make me hold him closer to my body, until I feel like I’m crushing him.
I let my worries go as he licks the skin at my neck.
“I’m sorry.” Wet kisses filled with remorse climb up toward my jaw until he’s looking in my eyes. “I was such a scared piece of shit. I didn’t deserve you and I still don’t.”
He presses his forehead into my chest and moves it from side to side.
“I forgive you,” I tell him, lifting his face with my hands. Those magnetic brown eyes look back at me with so much grief, so much sadness that I close mine for a moment. When I open them, his jaw is set, his mouth, a line.
“I love you. I loved you even when it was hard. I was just—”
I press my forgiving lips to his confessing ones.
“Make it unforgettable,” I whisper, a smile on my face. He glances up at me with a grin.
“Challenge accepted.” He sets me down on the couch and starts peeling my clothes off, layer by layer.
“You’re like, God’s gift to my body. You treat it too well.”
His hand drops to my bare breast and he runs his thumb over my nipple. My breath catches in my throat and I run my teeth over my bottom lip.
“It’s a beautiful body.”
I look down and the contrast between his honey skin and my milky complexion dotted with freckles makes me smile. We’re so different but inside, we’re made of the same things. Not just scientifically . . . flesh and bones. I think that the essence of him, our spirits, they’re the same shade of beautiful.
Gavin looks at me like I’m everything he’s been looking for; with eyes wide open and unflinching. He looks at me when I hurt, when I’m sad, when I don’t feel beautiful and those eyes are the antidote. How many people can fix you with just a glance?
I’ve yet to meet another who can.
He looks at how fucked-up I am and it’s almost like he knows it can get worse.
But tonight, he looks at me like he’ll never leave again.