He grips my shoulders and turns me around to face him; he’s frowning so hard it’s causing a deep ridge in between his eyebrows, making him look quite severe. “Piss me off. When?”
“First thing, the sex you woke me up with, it was a bit.” I screw my face up trying to think of the right word. “Harsh, rough?”
He’s very quiet for a long moment as his eyes scan my entire face; he lets out a deep breath and pulls me into him so I wrap my arms around his neck and hold onto him. “Gabe. Whatever’s wrong?”
I lean back away from him so that I can see his face; he’s still frowning as he studies my face. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. You still made me come, it’s just that it was a bit different, you’ve been so gentle with me since we found out about the babies, that’s all.” I shrug as I speak, there’s something up and I can’t put my finger on it. Surely he can’t be that worried about leaving me just for a couple of days.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?” The water is hitting our backs and splashing down in between us. He rubs his hands over his face and pushes them up and through his hair.
“You’re gonna think I really am a freaky weirdo when I tell you this.”
“I think you really are a freaky weirdo anyway so tell me. I won’t judge, promise.”
He looks down at me and gives the tiniest of smiles. “I wanted to make you sore so that you would think about me while we are apart.”
The little lump that’s been lingering permanently in my throat these past few months instantly expands to the size of the entire Southern Hemisphere and my eyes fill with tears. “Babe. Whether we are physically together or not, we are never apart, you’re my first thought in the morning and my last as I drift off to sleep at night and that will be no different these few days that you’re away. Where has this come from?”
I’m confused, does this man not get how he consumes me? “I get scared Lauren, I worry that I’m not enough, that I will fuck up and you will leave me. That you’ll go back to him.”
“Gabe, why the fuck would I do that, I don’t understand why you would ever think that? Don’t I show you, don’t I tell you constantly how much I love, want and need you. Where is all this coming from?”
“I’m just scared that while I’m away that you will have time to think and you will change your mind. Everything has happened so quickly, we’ve both gone through some massive changes in our lives these past few months, you especially and I’m just such a fuck up. I wonder what you see in me, why you would want to be with someone like me? I don’t deserve you, that’s how I feel if I’m being honest here Lauren.”
“Always honest Gabe, always, remember, total honesty, always.” I interrupt him.
“Well, if I’m being totally honest, that’s how I feel, like I don’t deserve you, or Ava or the new babies or this, what we have, this fucking amazing, beautiful thing that we have together. I don’t think I deserve it and I worry all the time that it will be taken away from me. It nearly was a couple of weeks ago and I’m scared that it will happen again. Another accident, you deciding to get rid of the babies and go back to Jason, Ava realising how badly I treated her Mum and deciding she doesn’t want me in her life. I think about, I worry about these things all the time. As well as thinking about you, us and how much I love you. I have to actively make a conscious decision to stop thinking about you, when I’m at work and in meetings and stuff, I find it hard to focus, it’s you, all day, all the time, it’s you, I’ve never experienced anything like it before.”
Bloody hell. Well, I actually feel a bit better about all my own issues now, the way I see it is if Mr Perfection here has all these hang ups, then little ol’ me is entitled to have mine, but what I’m confused about is why? Why doesn’t he think that he’s worthy or entitled to be loved?
“But why Gabe? Why do you think you don’t deserve to be loved?”