Captured Again(The Let Me Go Series)

Chapter 11


GABBY stumbled into the warehouse, balancing a few dozen donuts, her purse, and a workbag carrying flowers while trying not to get squeezed by the heavy door. She made it just inside the door and stopped to let her eyes adjust to the lack of sunlight.

She set her purse and her bag down on the nearby table and held the two boxes of donuts up in the air with one hand.

“Hey, guys! I brought you something,” she yelled out, expecting to be mauled. Anytime she’d ever brought in sweets, she rarely made it past the door with even one left for herself.

The guys stopped working and stood gaping at her. The entire floor went still—everything just stopping while they continued to stare.

Okay, so this is out of character for me lately... at least out of the character I’ve been in for the past six weeks, and they’re a little gun-shy, she thought.

She felt their eyes taking in every detail of her. She’d taken extra care with her appearance today—although her normal work attire was still very casual—and brushed her long, dark hair until it had some shine again. She’d removed Jake’s wedding ring from her left hand and added a silver and turquoise ring to her right, trying to distract anyone who might notice the absence of the ring that had been such a part of her before. She’d replaced her typical T-shirt and old baggy jeans of the last few months with a clingy turquoise blouse tucked into newer hip-hugger jeans—some that fit her well—and added a cute pair of wedge sandals. With a touch of mascara and some lip-gloss, she looked like the old Gabby. Now she just had to convince everyone else—and herself—she was the old Gabby.

Olivia’s come-to-Jesus meeting had helped, and Gabby did feel better. Ready to really try to live again, even if it was without Jake. Come on, guys, work with me here, she thought. You’re making me feel weird.

“All right, guys. You don’t want a donut?” Gabby shrugged, exaggerating her movements for full effect. “I’ll just throw them all away, then.”

She tossed the boxes up in the air, twirling them around and making a show of almost dropping them into the nearby trashcan. She caught them at the last minute, one box dropping to stack atop the other—she actually impressed herself with that move—acting goofy in front of everybody, much like the old Gabby used to do. Then she peeked over her shoulder, smiling.

That got the guys moving. They headed toward Gabby and the donuts, some of them clapping for her silly performance, apparently glad to see her spirits up and looking like herself again.

Gabby felt a sense of accomplishment that she had finally pulled herself out of her slump, along with a feeling of coming home. As the guys came up to snag a donut, some giving her arm a knowing squeeze or a pat on the back, she felt genuine affection from them. A few even muttered a “glad to have you back, Gabby!” even though she’d really been back—physically—for over a month. She knew what they meant though.

She’d worked at this company for close to four years and was one of the few women there, but the guys on the floor and in the trucks had been respectful of her from the beginning. Several of them had played basketball with Jake and would have never flirted with his wife, even before the accident. They had become protective of her, even pushing management to give her an extended leave to grieve. She’d been guilty of using that time to wallow in self-pity and sit for hours a day on her swing, weighed down to it by guilt and the need to feel close to Jake.

When she’d returned to work, she hadn’t been herself. For the first few weeks, she cringed each time someone would ask about Jake. First she couldn’t answer; she would just cry and walk away, locking herself in the bathroom and sometimes heading straight out the door toward home to find her escape under the blankets, away from the real world. After a while, she found herself shooting off blunt answers like, “He didn’t make it.” She would be constantly amazed at the shocked and bewildered look she received back and had thought to herself, How could everyone not know? This is a small company after all. Didn’t they have some type of meeting to discuss it before I came back? Apparently they should have. It would have made it less awkward for everyone.

After a few of those encounters, it seemed everyone except the guys on the floor—the ones that actually knew Jake—avoided her like the plague. She felt sure they were as uncomfortable talking about it as she was, and that made it easier for her anyway. She didn’t want to think about it or talk about it anymore than she had to. Now even the guys on the floor looked at her funny each day she walked in, almost examining her with their eyes, if only for just a second, before they spoke to her. And sometimes they didn’t speak; one look at her and she seemed to scare them away. But they’d all been kind, if not a little quiet, waiting on Gabby to get it together. Several of them even helped, in their own way, to distract her when she’d find herself alone at her desk, staring at the outside window, not seeing anything beyond, letting her eyes get lost in the glass, losing huge gaps of time.

One of the guys would eventually pop into her office, breaking into her silent world of grieving, and get her attention, snapping her back to work. She knew they kept an eye on her through her other glass window, the one that overlooked the floor, taking turns in creating some lame question or problem, trying to help, but unknowingly bringing her back to the cruel reality of her life. They were a good group of guys. She appreciated their patience in waiting for her to snap back into shape, and if not for them, she wouldn’t have been able to stay focused long enough to perform the basic functions of her job.

She’d taken this job for a temporary paycheck so she wouldn’t have to return to the French company where she’d been nearly terrorized by a sociopath, one who nearly drove her to the precipice of death’s door. But she’d decided to stay. It was home here. And what she enjoyed most about it was it was nothing like the last one. No accounting. Mostly personnel and payroll duties, timecards and benefit administration. And it was casual dress—no more skirts or dresses for her; she could dress however she wanted, and typically that was denim and pearls.





After everyone had grabbed a donut, she shooed them back to work and went into her office to pull the small bouquet of flowers from her bag to brighten the room. This was to be her new start—a new beginning. She glanced up at the calendar.

She stared hard at it, wondering how time had passed so quickly—yet so slowly—since the accident. Something niggled at her brain... trying to capture her attention or remind her of something. She couldn’t wrap her head around this... something. The harder she tried, the more her mind and body protested. She stood there staring, and thinking in circles, until she felt her fa?ade starting to slip. Her hands started shaking and her breathing picked up. The room began to spin. She pulled her attention away from the calendar, giving up, and plopped down into her chair, dropping her bag at her feet and holding her head in her hands, trying to keep it together. Focus, Gabby... focus, she wordlessly repeated in her mind.


She abruptly stood up and ripped down the calendar from her wall that hadn’t been flipped since the month of their accident, dumping it unceremoniously into her wastebasket, and put her attention to arranging the simple daisies and baby’s breath—her favorite—in a small vase she kept at the office, then poured a bottle of room-temperature water into the vase. She turned to toss the empty bottle in the trashcan and gasped, startled at the sight of the new guy, Tom, leaning in her doorway. She was still jumpy after René, probably always would be.

Gabby had forgotten Tom’s new employee orientation was to have begun that morning. She rushed him in and got him started on his paperwork right away, apologizing for the delay. He smiled and said it wasn’t a problem, and he told her he’d enjoyed watching the camaraderie while he waited. He seemed sincere, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes, and his gaze seemed to penetrate inside her, as if telling her he could see she was doing this as much for the guys as she was herself, but he wouldn’t call her out on it.

But something felt weird. She’d never met him—someone had just passed her the transfer form for processing—but it was almost like he knew something she didn’t... or maybe like he thought they had an unspoken secret. But if they did, she wasn’t aware of it. She tried to shake off the feeling, but still it remained, leaving her skittish with him.

She nervously walked him through his paperwork and then stepped over to the copier in the corner, not liking having to turn her back to him to make copies of his identification. She could feel his eyes on her and fought the urge to snap at him to stop looking. Keep it together, Gabby. Relax and smile, she reminded herself.

She finished the copies and stepped back behind her desk, keeping it between them. She felt silly at her reaction to this stranger; he’d been nothing but polite and business-like to her, but she was unable to find a smile for him.

“Your benefits don’t change. Everything’s the same except for your location and who you report to, but I’ve included a handbook and benefits guide in this package anyway,” she said stiffly as she passed him a large manila envelope. “Any questions?”

Tom raised his eyebrows. “I guess not.”

“Follow me, then,” Gabby instructed and led him out the door. Since Tom was a transfer, coming directly in from another location to replace a shift supervisor, he basically just needed to learn the layout of this facility and the names of his crew. She hoped he hadn’t felt her rushing through his orientation. She breathed a sigh of relief when he was delivered to the floor manager and off of her hands.

Finally, she was able to get back to her office—alone—and dive into the stacks of too-long neglected reports and mounds of paper in her to-do-later tray.