Sarah was halfway out of the room. Placing her hand on the wall, she leaned against it and looked at me with such despair. She released a breath. “Why do you care?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet. Once the front door closed behind her, I sat there. My phone broke the silence. I looked down at the caller ID and didn’t recognize the number. I almost didn’t answer it but something in my gut told me I should.
Pressing the green button, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Gabe?” a familiar voice asked.
“How did you get this number and why are you calling me, Dad?” My blood started to boil and my body started to shake. I did not need this right now. Of course tonight the asshole had to call. I closed my eyes. “I’m going to hang up.”
I started to pull the phone away from my ear when my dad begged, “Please don’t hang up on me!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” I bellowed. I couldn’t believe how loud I was yelling. I was enraged.
He was silent for so long I had to pull the phone away from my ear to make sure he was still on the other end. “What do you want?” I heavily breathed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Gabe, I made a mistake. I should have never walked out on you and your mother the way I did. I thought I was making the right choice. I knew it was going to be hard on the two of you and I knew you both would hate me, so I thought I had made it easier. Turns out I only made it harder.”
“On who?” I asked bitterly.
“All of us,” he admitted. “I’ve struggled with this for a while and at the time, in the moment, I thought I had the right idea… but I didn’t, Gabe.” He sucked in a breath. “Look, I know things will never be the same for the two of us. But I hope eventually you can forgive me for what I did to you. And your mother.”
“You can apologize to her yourself,” I spit out.
“I did. A while ago,” he whispered.
“You did?” I had no idea.
“Yeah,” he said. “She told me a few things about you and I’m so proud of the man you have become, Gabe. Normally it’s the son who wants to be half as good as the dad, but with us? It’s the opposite. Gabe, if I could be half the man you are, I’ll die a happy man.”
I could hear my dad crying on the other end of the phone. My anger fizzled away and tears replaced it. I closed my eyes and when they opened, I burst into tears. “Dad,” I choked out.
“Gabe, I’m so sorry,” he said over and over again.
I couldn’t believe what I was about to say, but I said, “I forgive you.” I did. I had a long time ago.
Dad cried on the other end. “I love you so much, son.”
“I love you too, Dad,” I blurted.
Dad coughed. “I want to say something, Gabe-” he paused. “I know I can’t buy my way back into your heart but I want to do something for you…”
While Dad continued to tell me what he was doing for me, my heart sank. All I thought was, What have I done?
Chapter 9
Sarah – 3 months later
I couldn’t believe tonight was the night. Prom night, that is. It was our senior year and while it’s pretty much known to every living thing, prom is the epitome of your year and I was going to make this night the best night of my life—even though Gabe and I weren’t together.
That night broke my heart. It felt like yesterday even though it happened three months ago. I didn’t understand why he did it. I thought his reason was stupid, but when I thought about it, after a while I guess I understood. Only a small part of me, though.
We were all still friends. Even though Gabe and I weren’t dating, I still wanted to be around him. Sometimes I think it was harder to be around him, knowing that at one point he was mine and I had lost him. But I guess I liked to torture myself.
When I told Ryder what happened? he wanted to kill Gabe, but he said he respected Gabe for being a man about it. Whatever that means.
While Gabe and I dated, we talked about prom and said we would go together even though it was going to be cheesy as all hell. After we broke up, even though we were friends, we decided not to go together. I was hurt. I wasn’t going to lie about that, but I guess I understood. It would’ve been hard dancing with him and looking up into his eyes. Not being able to kiss him would have killed me.
Gabe decided not to go, but he bought my ticket for me. It happened a month ago.
We were all sitting at the lunch table talking about prom and tickets were going on sale this week. They sold them during the lunch periods.
“So you’re really not going to prom with us, Gabe?” Ryder whined.
“Nah, man,” Gabe waved his hand. “It’s just not my thing.”
“But you were gonna go with Sarah?” Ryder said as he waved his hand towards me.
I felt my stomach drop. Even though we were all still friends, it was hard talking about our relationship and what we used to be. I looked over at Gabe and attempted to give a smile.