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I put my hand on his cheek to turn his face towards me, and he flinches at the contact.
“Are you breaking up with me?” my voice isn’t above a whisper and it cracks. My heart is beating a mile a minute.
He turns his head sharply to me. “No, babe. I’m in this for life. I am just trying not to smother you.”
The words stun me, and he takes the opportunity to leave. Tears well in my eyes as I realise he must have found out somehow.
The only person I said those words to was Caleb. I decide to text him to see if he had said anything to Gabe. I head back to the couch to get my phone and notice the guys are already gone. My friends are sitting there and, when they see me, they ask what’s wrong. I go to grab my notepad and still.
When I flip through it, my eyes catch the words I had said to Caleb about feeling smothered.
I show my friends and they all look at it with confusion, so I turn back to write down what happened. “I was visiting my friend Caleb and wrote these words. Gabe has been acting weird since then. Just now, he said he was trying not to smother me. I think he read them and that’s why he has been pulling away.” Tears fall from my eyes as I write the words. My friends surround me as they read what I wrote.
“You guys really need to talk about this. That man is crazy about you, but his feelings definitely got hurt,” Quinn says in a soft tone.
“I’m a shit girlfriend,” I write.
“You are not. You guys just need to talk,” Christina pipes in.
I nod my head. I don’t think this talk can wait.
When my friends leave, I sit down and write since I can’t voice everything I want to say.
Tears fall from my eyes the whole time.
Gabe
I barely spoke the whole time I was out with my friends. The only person who knows what’s going on is Dylan because I haven’t felt like talking about it to anyone else.
I already know what needs to happen. My woman and I need to talk.
The hurt has been lingering inside of me all day.
When I get back home, all the lights are off except the bedroom. When I make my way in, Aubrey is sitting on the bed with a piece of paper in her hands.
She hands it to me, and I am completely nervous about what it is going to say.
“There is a lot I want to say that I haven’t been saying since we got back from our holidays. Our communication hasn’t been the best and it’s my fault. I felt lost and lonely when we got back. You were working all the time, and I know that your job is demanding. I get that. I just wished to spend more time with you, but I didn’t know how to tell you without sounding like a needy and clingy girlfriend. You had been someone I wanted for a long time and, once I had you, I was afraid I would mess it up and lose you if I wanted too much too quickly. Then, when you said you were trying not to smother me earlier, I realised where you would have seen that and I’m sorry. I only meant it because it was hard to go from never seeing you to seeing you constantly, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I’m sorry for hurting you.”
I read it over twice before I look up at her. She has tears in her eyes and her face is puffy like she has been crying for awhile.
“Baby,” I rasp before pulling her into my arms. She straddles my lap on the bed, and I hold her tightly to me.
“I’m sorry for not realising that you were lonely. My job can be demanding, but you mean more to me than anything. I just couldn’t find a balance because I never had someone to prioritise more than my job. I promise you that we will find a balance because I won’t fucking lose you. As for the other stuff,” I start and pull her back to look at her in the eyes. “I just didn’t know how to cope with how I almost lost you, and I couldn’t breathe when you weren’t in my sight. You don’t know what seeing you like that did to me.”
She looks into my eyes, “I love you, Gabe,” she whispers.
“I love you too, baby,” I rasp before kissing her softly.
I pull back. “As much as I want to make love to you right now, I want to wait until you’re fully healed so that I won’t have to worry about hurting you or making you worse,” I tell her. Her lung capacity still isn’t the greatest, but the doctor said a few more weeks and she will be fine.
She reluctantly nods her head in agreement.
“Let’s just spend some time together now that we have aired out what has been on our minds,” I tell her.
I grab her hips and place her back on the bed before heading into the washroom and running the bath. I make sure to use the bubble bath she likes, and that the water is the perfect temperature, before heading back into the room to pick her up in my arms and bring her to the bathroom.
She smiles at me, and the look in her eyes makes my breath hitch. This woman really does love me.
