“Still what?” he says, his brow furrowed.
“I still played a role in it…and I still have to tell my family. They deserve to know the truth….” I stare into Gabe’s eyes, hoping he’ll talk me out of it, tell me there’s no point—or at least no upside. “Don’t you agree?” I ask, holding my breath.
He hesitates, then slowly nods. “Yeah…I think you’re probably right….But I think you need to tell them for your sake more than theirs…so that you can move on—”
“But I have moved on,” I say, cutting him off, thinking that is a large part of my guilt—the fact that I moved on with my life so effortlessly, never visiting my brother’s grave until last week, barely even mentioning him to friends or family.
Gabe shakes his head. “No. You haven’t, Josie. You haven’t moved on at all. You carry this with you everywhere.”
I stare at him, knowing that he’s right, and wondering how he can tell.
“And look what it’s done to you,” he finishes softly.
“What’s it done to me?” I ask, lowering my eyes, afraid of his reply, his always brutal honesty.
“Well, for one,” he says, “you didn’t tell your boyfriend why I was in your bed that night.”
“So?” I say, bristling at the mention of Will.
“So? You would rather have had him think you cheated on him than know the truth about the night your brother died. What does that tell you?”
“Are you saying I should have told Will? That I could be married to him if I’d told him the truth about why you were in my bed? About everything?” It is a thought that has occurred to me countless times over the years, and even more in the last few days.
“No,” Gabe replies, adamant. “That’s not what I’m saying at all….I think if Will had been right for you, he would have believed you when you told him nothing happened with us….”
“Yes. But it did look pretty bad,” I say, wondering why I’m still defending Will after all these years.
Gabe shakes his head, his voice becoming louder, passionate. “So what? So it looked bad? Nothing happened.”
“Well, jeez, Gabe. I know that….I tried to tell him that many, many times,” I say, getting sickening flashbacks to our final few escalating fights and the lonely, empty aftermath, when it slowly began to dawn on me that he wasn’t coming back. Ever.
“You could have done a much better job of convincing him, and you know it. If he had been your soul mate,” Gabe says, using a term I’ve never heard him use before, “you would have confided in him…or he would have taken your word and trusted you. You would have trusted him enough to tell him everything….Instead, you let him think the worst about you….So he did.”
“Killing my brother is worse than cheating on Will.”
Gabe cringes, dropping his head back to his pillow. “You didn’t kill your brother, Jo. Don’t ever say that again.”
“Well, it feels like I did….Do you know how many times Daniel gave me lectures about drinking? About how I needed to be more careful because of our dad? Jesus, Gabe, just a couple days before, he talked to me about it…and I brushed him off.”
“You were a college kid, Josie. Lots of college kids drink too much.”
“He never did,” I say. “Meredith doesn’t, either.”
“Well, you’re not them,” he says. “And you’re not your father. You’re you. Did you have too much to drink that night? Absolutely. Did you drink too much the other night when you made out with Pete at Johnny’s?” He smiles, clearly trying to cheer me up.
“We didn’t make out,” I say, quibbling with his verb, but he raises his hand and continues.
“The point is, I don’t think you’ve ever had a drinking problem. Maybe an attitude and behavior problem,” he says, smiling again. “But not a drinking problem.”
“Well, my behavior, along with my drinking, resulted in my brother’s death,” I insist. “Whether directly or indirectly, it did. And…”
“And what?”
“And I deserved to lose Will because of it,” I finish decisively, truly believing this.
“As your punishment?” Gabe asks.
“Yes,” I say. “As my punishment.”
Gabe shakes his head. “I disagree. I strongly disagree….You and Will broke up because he wasn’t right for you, Josie….That was clear….Hell, that was clear to me long before you broke up….You were never yourself around him….You were…a fake Josie…and you haven’t loved anyone since Will because you won’t let yourself.”
“That’s not true,” I say, thinking of all the guys I’ve gone out with, and slept with, and tried to love, and tried to make love me.
“It is true. And you need to stop punishing yourself.” Gabe stares up at me with a mixture of pity and love, before reaching out to gently touch my arm. The gesture, along with the feel of his skin on mine, instantly floods my eyes with tears.
“Aww, Jo. Don’t cry,” he says. “C’mere.”