a thin pale line. “I will never be with Kyle again—what you saw, it wasn’t what you think it was. But I’m still sorry you had to see that.”
I forced down the hope that was beginning to lift my heart. I was still wary and honestly, I was still angry. “T-tell me what happened,” I said, steeling myself.
He nodded, resigned. “Kyle had been calling and texting even before he crashed our cookout, but I’d been telling him to fuck off, that I wasn’t interested in getting back together. But after, he began to text and call my mom and Mason. Then he...he put some shit up on social media about me. And about you. It was enough to make me lose my shit, to be honest. I put together some legal resources and agreed to meet him at the coffee house.”
Gordo rubbed his thumb across the dry skin of my hand, seeming to need to comfort himself as much as me.
“Kyle wasn’t always like this. Or he hid it better, if he was. Because I was in love with him once, and I’d wanted to have a baby with him. But when he left, it was like all the little things I’d been able to sweep under the rug came out. Things about him I’d been able to forgive or ignore. At the coffee shop, he did his very best to remind me of why we’d been together.”
Gordo leaned into me, touching his forehead to mine. “What you saw was his last, desperate bid to win me back. I was trying to gather the strength to tell him goodbye for good, because we’re really, completely over. But then you saw, and it sort of fell apart.”
“Why d-d-did you go to him after the fight?” I managed to say. “When I was the one hurting?”
“Javi...that is my biggest regret. I saw the blood, and I just reacted without thinking. There was so much happening all at once. I want you. Always you. But I’m undoing a lot of muscle memory when it comes to Kyle. That might...that might be something I need you to help me with. If you would be willing to?”
I lay back and stared at the ceiling tiles. “I want t-to. B-but I’m worried. My head wants me to b-believe this is a lie. That it is t-too good to be t-t-true.”
Raising my head, I stared into his eyes, allowing myself to dive headfirst into their worried depths. This was uncharted territory for both of us. I took his hand and pressed it to my chest, right over the shield that had protected me for so long. “B-but my heart wants you. So if you’ll help me, too, I’ll b-be there for you.”
Gordo’s shoulders relaxed and his face lit up, his relieved smile rising like a sunrise.
“Always, Javi.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead, and I felt the heat of it long after he’d returned to his seat. “Look, I need to go tell the nurses you’re awake. I just...I wanted to be here when you woke up.”
My lower lip trembled. “I’m...glad you were.”
It was a lot to digest all at once, but I did believe Gordo—and if I didn’t forgive him, I’d only be hurting myself. But my forgiveness didn’t wipe the slate clean. It would take some time and effort for me to untangle the hurt and anger that I’d balled so tightly within myself.
Gordo stood and, with one more quick kiss, grabbed a nearby nurse to let them know I was awake. After that I was subjected to a whirlwind of nurses, doctors, tests, and needles. I dozed in and out for most of it, my body still healing, only coming to in a fugue here and there to answer questions or verify my current state.
It was exhausting. The yellow light and white walls of the hospital made me feel claustrophobic. I started to hate the nurses when they wheeled in a cart carrying more pills and needles, and the fucking machine I was hooked up to that wouldn’t stop beeping at me. But for all of my irritation, I knew to be grateful I was in a place where I could even be alive to be irritated.
“There he is,” a booming voice said, breaking me from the monotony of sitting in a hospital bed. Reagan stood in the doorway with a vase of flowers. I smiled, glad to have a distraction and happy to see my friend.