Heart storms, p.25
Heart Storms, page 25
Jade covered her face with her hands and groaned. “Oh, Gabe. I get it. You’ve had a rotten life. And by comparison, yes, mine was good, healthy, loving. Devlin was my first betrayal and loss. But we’ve talked about all this.” She looked back at him. “I’m not afraid of the things you talk about. I guess I have more trust and faith than you do. I love you, including your history. I can love you here as easily as back east, as anywhere.”
“But you can’t live here, even with me, as easily as back east. Love is one thing. It has nothing to do with living and surviving every day.” He stopped talking for a second, brooding, planning his logic carefully. “I bet you wouldn’t love me if I were in prison.”
Shocked, Jade looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “Why would you ask me such a question?”
“Because in my world, it’s a real possibility. Three years ago, I’d never have believed my ex would be an addict, hang out with druggies and dealers and johns. Never in a million years did I foresee the young girl I married—beautiful, sweet, naïve—would be such a slut to betray me in my own bed and ultimately end up an addict, in jail, her life ruined. When you live in this environment, these things can happen. I’ll not have you living out here subjected to all of it, worried all the time you might not come home from work; worried every night one of those dealers might shoot up the house or abduct you looking for money Consuela owes them, thinking you’re a rich white woman and trying to get money out of you and me.” He turned to her with tears perched at the bottom of his eyelids. “I care about you too much to risk you being hurt in any way. I’d go berserk if you died because of me.”
Jade grabbed hold of the ‘I care about you too much’ and ignored the rest. “I won’t get hurt and I’m not dying anytime soon.”
He turned his back to her, his head down, arms crossed over his chest and paced again. “My brother said the same words—when he was twenty-one and I was sixteen—when we stood on the street corner in our project waiting for a friend to take us out partying. I had a terrible feeling something bad would happen to us, and I wanted to go home. He told me I was a jumpy, paranoid kid and made fun of me for being scared. Then he said he wasn’t going anywhere soon.
Next thing we knew, a car sped around the corner with its passenger side window open. I saw the barrel of a gun and heard the shot. Then another and another as they sped off. My arm was on fire and I hit the ground. My big brother was already there on the ground, shot in the head, already dead.” Gabe rubbed his chest, then the old wound on his upper arm. “So, don’t tell me we and can’t die tomorrow. Statistically, it could happen here a lot sooner and easier than in Golden Shores.”
Jade reached up and held his arm, her other hand over his heart. “I’m horrified, and so sorry for all the tragedy and trauma you’ve experienced. Your suffering is unfathomable to me. I don’t think I’d ever recover from something so brutal. You are so strong, and I understand now more of what made you who are. But I still love all of you, I love who you are.”
He’d never get her to leave, not even after hearing his hellish life stories, of which there were plenty more. He’d have to say things he never wanted to say, but they had to be said for her own good. He removed her hands from his arm and chest. “You were right in observing I’m not the Gabe you knew. I’m not. You can’t love me if you don’t have any idea of who ‘this me’ is. I don’t want you to know him. With all the possible dangerous situations here because of the criminal people my ex hung out with, my anger boils under my skin along with fear and anxiety. Consuela is safe in jail. But the rest of us who are related to her are out here, in public, in the streets and our houses and cars every day, subjected to the mess she made and the treacherous people she made it with.”
Gabe’s eyes took on a look of panic. “I’m in a constant state of hypervigilance, observing my surroundings and everyone around me—planning for safety, looking for escape routes, constantly watching over Gracie outdoors. I can’t do it for you, too. This other ‘me,’ this man standing here can love no woman because he can’t afford to. Do you understand what I’m saying?” As he asked her the question, he asked it of himself, too. For a moment he wondered who this man was speaking these words. It was his voice but didn’t feel like him. He had to remind himself this was the ‘old Gabe,’ and his old self came out to fight the battle, to hold his ground and survive.
Jade reconsidered. “But you love me if you’d let yourself; and you said you’d love to go back east with me if possible. Now with changing your mind so fast, I don’t accept this ‘old you’ has taken over.”
“The Gabe in Golden Shores told you he loved you. This hard, cold person I have to be now does not love you and can’t afford to love anyone. I’m damaged goods, so damaged I may never recover. In South Carolina with you, I had more than a good chance. But I have none here. Someone as traumatized and damaged as me can’t really love anybody.”
“Even Gracie?”
Gabe had to exaggerate the meaning of his next words or Jade wouldn’t ever go home. “Even her. I’m her protector. Like a soldier. That’s what I am. I’m affectionate, I take the best care of her, I talk nice and treat her better than anyone, including you. She’s my flesh and blood and I love her in that way. You are not. You’re not a necessity in my life. No woman is, not now, not with what I have to do. And if I had to kill someone to protect Gracie, or in self-defense, I would. You wouldn’t be able to deal with it, not in your nice, safe world.” He turned to face Jade, once again with cold, lifeless, now steely blue eyes and said, “So this is it. It’s over. There is no more ‘you and me.’ No more talking. Let’s leave ‘us,’ the old ‘us,’ with dignity, and as you described to Graciela, with grace. You have grace, too, Jade, and strength enough to say goodbye.”
Jade crossed her arms tight around herself trying to keep her heart intact and her body from falling apart. “There’s no hope for us, in your mind and heart, no hope at all?”
Gabe recalled Delora telling him he was a good man who deserved to have a good life and to have faith. But the real truth rose to the surface like toxic black oil on water, and the devil’s voice came through as he answered, “No. No hope at all. Get on with your life, Jade.”
Jade was at a loss for words. If having tried to reason with him, understand and love him hadn’t worked, nothing would. Stunned, she couldn’t comprehend him, talk to or look at him. She felt suffocating, gasping for air and hope. She’d die if she didn’t get out of his space with his words like a noose tightening around her neck. Jade grabbed a bag with one hand, the other stifled sobs so Gracie wouldn’t hear. Gabe picked up her other bag and walked silently with her to the building’s entry, got her keys and brought the car around to the entrance.
After getting into the car, she gripped the steering wheel and couldn’t hold herself together any longer. She wept uncontrollably, a dam breaking in her heart. Her head, heavy with devastation, fell forward onto the wheel between her hands.
Gabe put her bags in the trunk and walked to her window. With seeing Jade in such agony, his fists clenched, and he became a hideous, hateful being, the devil personified. His heart broke for them both, but he couldn’t take back his words. She could not stay. This was torturous but it had to be done.
Jade sensed Gabe was at the window, but she didn’t put it down.
He flattened his palm against the glass, hoping she’d put hers up to meet his as a gesture of affection, of goodbye.
But she didn’t. She was incapable of doing anything but sob.
He knocked on the window.
She gave a quick sideways glance at him.
“I’m so sorry,” Gabe said and waved his hand. “Be safe, Jade.”
She yelled, “Get away from me! Get away from this car!” and drove off.
Gabe, worried for her emotional state, pulled out his phone and texted her to stop down the street at the convenience store and compose herself. He wrote that he was worried, and for her to calm down and get clear before she drove to the airport. He even offered to drive her.
Jade pulled over to read the text and became enraged realizing he wasn’t asking her to come back, to stay with him, to say he’d been wrong in sending her away. How dare he? How dare he fake caring about me? His offer is out of guilt. If he truly cared about my safety, he’d have offered to drive me to the airport long before now, before I was hysterical with a broken heart and life. Quickly deleting his text, she threw the phone and shouted, “Screw you, Gabe.”
Within ten minutes he knew if she hadn’t responded yet, she wouldn’t and it left him depressed, his chest aching and hollow. Within the next hour she’d be at the airport turning in the car, heading to her gate, alone, probably still in tears. That’s when it really sank in—what he’d done and what he lost. The devil on his shoulder didn’t need to speak anymore because the darkness had finally taken hold of Gabe’s entire life. Only evilness would treat someone he loved so much in the way he just had.
In two years, Gabe had come full circle from darkness to a new life and back to darkness again. He’d never be able to talk to or see Jade again out of shame, embarrassment, lies and the pain he caused, but more than that—he’d detonated a bomb in his life. It was blowing up now and by the time Jade reached South Carolina, their once fertile, growing ground along with his heart, would be leveled like a desert with no sign of life and no chance of recovery.
Chapter 29
In the middle of the night, the plane’s dark cabin surrounded Jade with blackness, like being inside a closed coffin covered with the death of love or a future with Gabe. She sat alone, abandoned, and in the deepest grief she’d ever known. While rehashing the impossibility of what happened with him, she grasped for any loophole or place where hope for the future might still be alive. But she came up empty. Whether or not Gabe’s emotions were true, he’d been extraordinarily convincing. He believed his words so strongly they solidified inside him and came at her full-force. With an absence of love, or love buried so deeply it might never come out, Gabriel was a different person. She didn’t like him, or even love the ‘old’ him. What tore her up the most was him saying he didn’t love her. Those words unmoored her from her world. Her heart broke as it never had—to the depth she loved Gabriel, she experienced pain and desolation to the same degree. She felt as a carcass of her former whole self and wondered if Gabe felt the same way to act and say the things he had.
Now Jade empathized with Rick and how he must’ve felt when she left him for Gabe, the day she’d been cruel telling him about their lovemaking and how she loved Gabe and always would. What would she tell Rick when she got back? He’d hate Gabe and probably want to say, ‘I told you so.’ She did not look forward to going back to work, especially so soon when she was supposed to be away for a month. Oh, those karmic paybacks her mother had warned her about, they were coming back strong at her now.
By the time she drove into Golden Shores, Jade, emptied of tears and everything inside her heart, felt black, hopeless and in shock. Only her mother had the ability to help put her pieces together, if it were even possible. But her mother would know if Jade was mendable or not, and she trusted her.
Back inside her cottage, Jade walked through a foreign and empty place no longer filled with love, laughter and dreams for their future. She made a pot of tea, sat in her kitchen and called her mother, telling her the details of what had gone down with Gabe.
Maggie’s heart broke again for Jade, but she gave her the most sensible advice. “If you got through Devlin, you can do this. At least this time you have a wonderful job in a beautiful place, money in the bank, a great place to live, a great boss and a friend in Rick. Being grateful for all you do have eases your suffering. Your heart can’t be full of gratitude and suffering at the same time.”
Jade was silent.
Maggie sat on her patio, the warm Santa Barbara breezes reviving her, wishing she could transport her daughter there to ease her pain. Instead, she searched her heart to find better words to help Jade. “Don’t obsess on Gabe because it’ll only bring more heartache. He pushed you out of his life, so push him out of yours and out of your heart. One thing to remember though, is Gabe lost the most valuable things in his life. You’ve still got a lot of value and meaning in your life, but he lost you, his new life in South Carolina, his job and income, everything. All he’s got now is a life of misery; he’s even afraid for what his daughter’s life will become. Let him go to save you both. It’ll be hard, next to impossible to push him from your mind. But can you accept he wouldn’t have treated you as harshly as he did if he had another choice?”
Jade poured another cup of tea, wanting to switch to something stronger to help ease herself off the painful edge she teetered on. “I can’t accept that. It doesn’t compute in the face of the depth of love we shared.”
“I recall when you were first divorced, all you wanted was revenge. You were full of hatred and rage. I saw you as a different person, not my usual loving daughter, the ‘old’ you. I observed you had to put a facade up because it toughened you, strengthened you to survive the pain, and help you get through the next hard phase of life.”
“You saw that about me back then?”
“Yes, clearly. I didn’t fret too much about the vengeance route you were on. You needed it for strength and stability. It wasn’t really you. While you were telling me what happened with Gabe, and with your description of him, my mind flashed back to the day we talked about revenge. Gabe is facing and living far worse circumstances than you had to face. I’m not minimizing what you went through. It was hell and the end of life as you knew it. Gabe is facing the same thing, plus being responsible for his daughter’s life, plus the whole drug, prison, ex-wife situation is a nightmare. And, don’t forget the most important element—he’s having to cope with every horrible thing having lost the love of his life. Now all he has is a world of pain and fear. He’s hanging on for dear life, maybe literally his life.”
Jade’s voice raised in anger. “But I didn’t leave him, and nobody forced him to eject me out of his life. He didn’t have to give me up.” About to go over a pain threshold now, she pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge and tossed the tea in the sink.
“Calm down, Jade. This situation with his daughter and ex-wife was forced on him. After getting into the thick of it, and seeing the harsh realities in front of him, his only option was to send you away, to protect you. When he saw you wouldn’t let go of being there with him, he had to tell you he didn’t love you. His heart is breaking as much as yours. He did what he had to do to be strong and survive, as you did after Devlin.”
After a couple swallows of wine as she listened to her mother, Jade calmed. “You make sense and I’m struggling to understand. But do you think he truly doesn’t love me and has no hope for the future?”
Maggie looked out over the sea in the distance, looking for a definitive answer but came up short. “I can’t read his mind or heart. For your own sanity, even though it’s so awful, take him at his word like I did with you. I secretly hoped life would turn for the better and you wouldn’t need hate and vengeance anymore. With time, you didn’t need it. In my opinion, you should let Gabe go to do what he needs to do on his terms. I see no other way. You tried to intercede and made it worse. So, you tell me, what should you do now?”
Jade sipped her wine and searched her heart. “I should do what you did with me after Devlin. I can’t turn off love like closing a door, but I’ll try to let him go out of my thoughts and life and leave him alone. I guess we’ll keep in touch with emails or calls. I’ll leave it up to him regarding what he wants to do with me.” She shuddered, recalling those were the same words she’d used with Rick, to no avail. “To tell you the truth, thinking about talking to Gabe now, or soon, hearing his voice knowing how he feels brings more pain. Besides, with how we left it—me leaving immediately after his diatribe and not responding to his text, I’m sure he’s in no hurry to talk to me. I envision him cutting all contact for a while, maybe forever.” She put her hand over her eyes and cried softly at first until her emotions erupted with choking sobs.
Maggie wished she could go through the phone and hold her daughter. But all she had were words.
As if reading her mother’s mind, Jade stifled her sobs and said, “I’m okay. You don’t have to talk me in off a ledge. I appreciate your concern and love, and what you said. You’re my rock.” She fake-laughed, the ‘crying-so-hard-you-laugh’ laugh to lighten things up. “I wish there was such thing as a guy as smart and good as you, a male ‘Mom.’
“A psychiatrist would have a field day with you,” Maggie said, giggling. But her words brought a flash of insight. “Don’t be put off by this but maybe you should see someone professionally. At the very least, talk to Ben and get his qualified advice. Amy’s a good friend who would let you vent—spill your guts to any trusted friend. It’ll help a lot.”
Her brain weak with exhaustion, Jade poured another glass of wine. “I’ll think about it. But I need to sit with this for a while, sort out what’s real and what isn’t, sort my emotions before I can share them. Counseling after the divorce didn’t do much good. I was in such terrible shape; I wouldn’t let anyone’s advice in and couldn’t talk about such raw wounds. It took time to heal,” she said, but thought, It took time and loving Gabe to bring me back. Now there’s no love and no Gabe. Hopelessness set in again, but she wouldn’t burden her mother with more. “I’ll consider it.”
After they said goodbye, the idea of going back to work filled Jade with dread. She needed to rest and regroup. Emotionally drained, she couldn’t perform her job duties well and so, since she had scheduled a month off, she’d take the time she needed right now. But as her luck would have it, Rick texted her to see if she’d made it to California okay. Jade texted back, ‘OK. Be in touch soon.’ She was too wracked with heartbreak to tell him the truth, now or ever, of what happened with Gabe. But now she understood how Rick was stuck in and unable to talk about his losses. They must be like mine, and she empathized with him for the first time.
