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‘You mean:
it hurt me to put holes in my good clothes
, don’t you.’
‘Yes – all right, all right. I like things tidy. I keep things neat. I don’t want my uniform getting all dirty because I’m a crazy clean freak.’
He called it his uniform! By this point I think it’s certain – we are definitely soulmates. Or at the very least, kind of meant to be together.
‘And bad bad evil jeans just deserve everything they get, huh?’
He shows me those little pointed incisors. Looks so happy I could just bust with the delight all over him – never mind my own.
‘Exactly. I had to go into
The Gap
to get them.’
He says
The Gap
the way most people say
sewage works
.
‘I’m mortified on your behalf.’
‘I know. I look like
Andy
. Next I’ll be eating cold pasta right out of its baking dish.’
He shudders – and gets a kiss on the cheek, for that. Now that we’re all hand holding and love and soulmates and whatever, I’m betting I’m going to see a lot more of funny Gabe – and this pleases me, a great, great deal.
As does the feel of his fingers, lacing through mine.
‘Do you really choose me, Maddie? In spite of the neatness, and weirdness and all the other things I probably haven’t told you about myself?’
‘Are you secretly a woman?’
‘I’m serious, Madison!’
‘Do you own a Simply Red album?’
‘No – come on. Just –’
‘For all I know, maybe
you
choose Andy.’
He shakes the hand in his.
‘You’re just trying to be difficult now.’
I glance at him, side on. Smiling wickedly, but meaning something else with my eyes. I know I mean something else with my eyes, because I can feel it trying to leak out of them, all warm and gooey and love-stuff.
‘No, I’m not. You’re just ridiculous, Gabe, absolutely ridiculous.’ Is it weird, that he looks happy to hear it? ‘Of course I choose you. I’ve never chosen Andy – not even when in the middle of
fucking
Andy.’
He closes his eyes, briefly, on the word fucking.
‘I just thought it was what you wanted. You
told
me it was what you wanted.’
‘It was,’ he says, and I note the past tense. But that’s OK, because it’s past tense for me, too. Especially as it’s kind of obvious, why Gabe really and truly wanted to get into all of those shenanigans.
‘And don’t ever do anything again, just to please me.’
He frowns, and gets stuck between incredulous and protesting.
‘I mean – don’t ever do anything that hurts you, really hurts you, just because you think it’s what I’m missing. That’s not what it’s about. You know it’s not.’
For a moment I think he’s going to stick with the protesting, but then he lets out a big sighing breath. Rolls his head back against the grass.
‘I know.’
We lapse back into silence, after that – but again, there’s nothing uncomfortable about it. Even after a conversation like that everything just feels lax and easy, and I could fall asleep, I really could.
Until he says:
‘It’s not so bad here, is it?’
He’s staring up at that canopy of leaves, and at the way the light is starting to dim, between – I suppose anything could look good, from this angle.
And then it comes to me, in a rush.
‘You’re going to live here, aren’t you?’
Of course he is. The jeans and the gardening and the apartment he’s let go – God, I probably came here half-knowing it. He wants to come back to this strange and dusty place, and make it right again. Clear it out, and make it right again.
And then I think of my old house, down in the valley. The way my dad used to chase me around and around it, just in fun – because I was still little and not yet unwieldy, and confusing. How I used to long to go back there, back to that first home where everything was good and happy.
‘I was thinking about it. I was thinking that it might be beautiful, if I just gave it a little work. Cleaned it up, and made it all right again.’
I breathe out a laugh.
‘Those are almost the words I was thinking, you know – make it right.’
He squeezes my hand, and looks at me through what is now definitely evening light. His eyes, I think. God, those burning dark eyes.
‘You could make it right with me, if you wanted to,’ he says.
And I tell him I do. Always, I do.
