With everything Gabrielle was going through and her recent fight with her father, it didn’t surprise me that talking about her mom brought that grief back now.
“Long time or not, it never really goes away. I know that; you never have to explain yourself to me. Some days, it hurts like it just happened.”
“You sound like you have experience with grief,” she said.
I breathed out. I didn’t even really talk to Ryder about this, but I wanted to tell Gabrielle the truth. “I do. Both of my parents passed away when I was young.”
I waited for the sympathy that I didn’t want. She displayed the same empathy that I felt for her, but there wasn’t a single trace of pity in her voice.
Talking to her about it felt good. I liked that we were getting closer. Suddenly, not telling her about Harper started feeling like a lie. Worse yet, like I was ashamed of Harper. I wasn’t.
I didn’t like sharing her with the world, and I wanted her life to be as normal as possible. So, I kept her out of the public eye as much as I could, but it was time to tell Gabrielle that she existed.
“What’s wrong?” Gabrielle’s eyes were worried as she lifted her head from my chest. She’d folded her sunglasses on the towel next to her.
“What do you mean?”
“Your body just tensed, and your heart started thumping so hard that I swear my head nearly bounced.”
“There’s something else that I need to tell you.” This was it. I sat up and tugged her onto my lap, almost like I subconsciously wanted to be able to hold onto her if she decided to run once she learned the truth.
“Okay.” She rested a hand on the back of my neck and locked our fingers together as she met my gaze dead on. “You can tell me anything.”
“I have a daughter. Her name is Harper. She just turned 2.”
Chapter Sixteen
Gabrielle
The words in the textbook propped open on the library table blurred and swam together as I entered my fourth straight hour of studying. I had a lot of work to catch up on, but I enjoyed the challenge. When I could see straight, that is.
I had struggled for a long time that morning to get into it. I sat twisting my mother’s old wedding band that I wore on my index finger. It was a comforting feeling, and as absurd as it sounded, it made me feel like she was guiding me, in a way.
James’s revelations from the day before kept playing in my head. I have a daughter. Her name is Harper. She just turned 2.
I didn’t know the whole story yet, only that he was a single father. The mother wasn’t in the picture. James hadn’t seen her since she’d dropped the baby bomb on him and left him with a little girl who was only a few months old.
We had stayed on my towel for a long time talking. He gave me what he had referred to as the “headlines.” It was kind of cute how nervous he’d become before he’d told me, how he had looked at me like I was a deer that he approached with caution, so as not to spook me away.
Not that I could tell him that I thought he was cute. His head would probably explode, though his ego could handle it.
I wasn’t saying that his confession hadn’t shocked me to my core, but I felt kind of honored that he’d told me. Almost like I was special to him.
It was hard to imagine him as a father, especially to a baby girl, but he’d shown me some pictures on his phone. From what I’d been able to tell, he was a big softie when it came to her.
A private smile played on my face as I closed my eyes and basked in the rays of mid- afternoon sunlight filtering in through the stained glass windows. It was almost the exact same time of day that James had come by the other day. The memories of what we’d done just a few yards from where I sat made an ache rise between my thighs.
Heather’s voice yanked me from my dirty memories. I tried to smooth my features before she got too close to me. I still hadn’t come clean to her about James.
“Gabbi,” she gushed. “It’s so good to see you in here again. I’ve missed your clutter!”
We exchanged a quick hug; then she dropped the bulging bag she’d lugged up the stairs. I nodded towards it and laughed. “Yeah, me too.”
“Who needs a good back later in life anyway?” It was a joke we’d often shared as we dragged our books back and forth on campus in college.
“Not us, apparently.” I returned her grin and helped her unpack her haul, growing envious of how organized she already was. Her textbooks were flagged and marked with hundreds of colorful Post-its, and her summaries already had summaries.
“I think I might be crazy for trying to catch up on all of this lost time.”