THE WARM BUTTERY scent of crêpes from a corner café greeted Bonnie as she exited off the Red Line at Harrison and crossed State Street. Her stomach twisted. Bonnie wished the pain was caused by hunger. Sunday morning. How many lazy Sunday mornings had she and Gabe made the short walk from their apartment to this café together? How many quiet weekends had they sat at one of those tables, people-watching or quibbling over the crossword in the Tribune? The ache in her middle expanded, compressing her lungs and stealing her breath. Bonnie stuttered to a halt.
Maybe it was best Ana had called to cancel brunch. With the way her insides were churning, Bonnie wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep anything down. She wasn’t sure she was ready for this meeting either, but after talking things out with Cassie last night, she knew it was best to get it over with and had arranged a meeting with Gabe.
Her apartment was less than a block away, but she couldn’t go home. Not yet. She couldn’t face him there. So, she’d chosen a location nearby, a place both familiar and safe. A place of comfort. She glanced back, toward the other end of Printer’s Row, focusing on the giant redbrick clocktower of the old Dearborn Station rising in the distance.
Without making a conscious decision, her feet began moving again, carrying her forward. The moment she pushed through the doors of the Harold Washington Public Library, the ache receded, still there—a black hole of bitterness and pain—but more compact. Manageable. Riding the elevator up to the ninth floor, she took several slow, deep breaths.
The atrium on the library’s top floor was one of her most favorite places in the city. It was a secret haven, a bastion of quiet. A refuge. Morning sunlight spilled across the tile floor from the wall of windows on the east side of the building. She walked toward the small nest of tables and chairs, her footsteps echoing in the open, airy space. Rarely crowded even on the busiest of days, on Sunday, Bonnie had the entire ninth floor to herself.
She settled into a chair and closed her eyes, soaking up the silence, the familiar scent of worn books and sun-warmed dust cradling her. The sound of the elevator chiming startled Bonnie, and she shifted, bracing herself.
“There you are.” Gabe’s voice broke the peace of her sanctuary. “I brought you some tea.” He held out a ceramic travel mug. One of her own from home.
Bonnie imagined him in their apartment making this for her. The image shifted, and she saw her, standing naked in Bonnie’s kitchen, wrapped in Grandma Mary’s quilt, kissing Gabe while the tea brewed. Cassie’s temper boiled, and she glared at her former fiancé.
He must have sensed the anger rolling off her because he abruptly drew his hand back, as if realizing offering her a cup of scalding hot liquid probably wasn’t his best idea. Smart man. He set the cup on a nearby table.
Bonnie reached for it. He recoiled, and she smirked. “Calm down, I’m not going to throw this in your face”—she paused and glanced at his groin—“or anywhere else.”
After a moment, Gabe relaxed and took the seat next to her. “I’m glad you agreed to talk.”
Bonnie ignored him and sipped her tea. It was ginger cardamom, one of her favorites. With a bittersweet pang, she realized he’d even put a bit of honey in it, exactly the way she liked it. The problem with dating someone for most of your life was they tended to know everything about you. Or … almost everything.
She thought she’d known everything about Gabe.
Boy, had she been wrong.
“Who is she?” Bonnie asked without preamble, giving in to the overwhelming desire to fill in those blanks, to know the details.
“My adviser’s assistant.” Gabe’s voice was low, the words almost mumbled.
“Well, that’s not very original of you,” Bonnie scoffed. “I thought she looked familiar.” Her mouth twisted. “Though I admit, it was hard to tell at first, since she was wearing significantly less clothes than the last time I saw her. She was at your department Christmas party, wasn’t she?”
Gabe nodded, not meeting her eyes.
“She must have known about me, then.” Bonnie tried to take another sip of tea, but it tasted like bitter ash on her tongue. She set the cup down carefully. “She had to know about our engagement.” Bonnie had shown her engagement ring to more than a dozen people at that party. Quite possibly to the very blonde her fiancé had been banging on the side.
Gabe shrugged. Shrugged. As if he couldn’t muster the energy to form an actual reply.
A fresh wave of pain washed over her. “How long has this been going on?”
He didn’t answer.
“Please, Gabe,” she whispered, as a new thought struck her, “please tell me you haven’t been sleeping with this girl since before…”
“Before I asked you to marry me?” Gabe asked, finally meeting her eyes. “No.”
“Then when?” Bonnie pressed.
“Does it matter?” Gabe shot out of his chair, shoving his hands in his hair.
“Yes, it fucking matters!” Bonnie shouted. Her outburst bounced off the frosted glass ceiling, shocking them both. She didn’t often resort to foul language. Thank God so few people bothered to come all the way up to this floor.
She stood and stared up at him, hating each of the few inches he had on her. “How long, Gabe?” She poked him in the chest. “I deserve to know.” She did deserve to know. She wanted to know. She needed to know.
“Since last summer.”
Last summer. When she’d been on her trip to Europe. Out of the country for six weeks. Away from Gabe for almost two months. “I see,” she said. “You’re telling me this started after I left for Europe?”
“Yeah.”
Bonnie caught his second of hesitation. “Liar,” she sneered. The truth of that word burned like acid in her throat. For a moment, she’d almost felt guilty. Like somehow her absence made her partially responsible for Gabe’s infidelity. She knew that was illogical, and she’d unpack her own messed-up psyche later, but right now, she was going to get the truth.
“Care to try that again?” She stepped closer, no longer bothered by the fact that she had to tip her chin to meet his eyes. Fury made her feel six feet tall. “When did you start sleeping with her?”
Gabe swallowed, gaze darting around the room like a cornered rabbit. He retreated a step, and she advanced.
Why had she never noticed what a coward he was before? What else hadn’t she noticed? She sifted through her memories. That he’d been cheating on her, for one thing. “Come on, Gabe. It’s a simple question. When?”
“My birthday.”
She stared at him. His birthday was June first. He’d been sleeping with another woman for almost an entire year. Bullets of pain and shame and fury ripped through her. “How?”
“My adviser held a little party for me, remember? You couldn’t be there; you were chaperoning some event or something—”
“I wasn’t asking you how it happened, jackass. I was asking myself how I could be so blind, so stupid…”
“You’re not stupid, Bonnie.”
“No? The man I was supposed to marry has been screwing around behind my back for months!” Her voice bounced off the high walls of the atrium, her anger reverberating, building. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
He turned away from her, walking toward the bank of windows.
She followed him. “Were you ever going to marry me?”
Gabe stopped, his back to her.
Bonnie stopped too, her breath harsh and fast in her ears. She forced herself to be calm, to take slow, deep breaths. To wait for him to respond.
Eventually, he pivoted and faced her. “I don’t know. I wanted to marry you—I mean, I thought I wanted to, but then things started happening between Ali and me, and you were never around, and then you took off with your friends for that long vacation last summer…”
His voice held more than a touch of accusation, and it pissed her off. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare try to pin this on me! As if, what? You could have kept it in your pants if I’d been around more?”
“I didn’t say that.” His face flushed.
“It’s not like you were there for me either,” she snapped. Anger roiled, a snarling beast thrashing its tail inside her, wanting to lash out. “How often did you bail on me after I’d made plans for us? And I always made excuses for you, thinking you were working so hard…” Bonnie stopped, realization hitting her like a fastball to the sternum. “All those times you canceled our plans, or came home late, or missed a date. You were with her, weren’t you?”
“Not all the time,” he dodged.
Bonnie rubbed her thumbs against her temples, trying to release the tight knots of tension pounding against her skull. All the moments she’d thought something was off with him, when she’d wondered why he was being so distant and blamed school, their schedule, herself …
“Oh, well, pardon me.” The razor-edge of her voice sliced through the air. “We can at least agree you were with her the other night, yes?”
He didn’t reply. In the silence, she stared at Gabe, her gut twisting. She’d known him since she was barely old enough to ride a bike, a fact clear in her memory because it was the day she’d learned to ride her bike when she first met him. Mother’s Day, when she was six years old. He’d moved into the house three doors down from hers and was standing on his driveway as she’d come barreling down the sidewalk, yelling at him to get out of the way because she didn’t know how to stop yet.
By the time she’d turned eight, she had decided she was going to marry him. How could someone she’d loved for more than twenty years suddenly turn into a stranger? But he was. The Gabe who stood before her now was not the man she knew, was not her Gabe. Her mind raced, and she was six years old again, careening down the hill, training wheels off, not sure where she was going or how to stop. She tried to compartmentalize her feelings, like she did when she was teaching or performing, so she could focus.
“What happens now?” he finally asked.
Her mind formed the answer to his question immediately. “I want you to move out,” she said, without hesitation, her feelings crystalizing.
“What?”
“I want you out of the apartment.”
“My name is on the lease too,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but who pays most of the rent?” She had him there. While he finished school, she covered most of their daily living expenses. She’d never minded. After all, he was working toward their future, and one day, when they decided to start a family, she’d take time off and he’d be the one picking up the slack. All part of her perfect, peachy plan.
All the plans she’d made for their future, the happiness she and Gabe would have, just like Anne and Gilbert, were gone. Erased. Not even. Hard to erase something that hadn’t been written yet. She’d spent so much time focusing on what was going to happen next, so eager to start the next chapter, she’d forgotten to pay attention to what was happening on the current page.
Well, plans had changed. But lucky for her, she had a new plan. Would start a new chapter on a fresh page. And this time, she would focus on the now, and worry about the next, and all the rest, later. She turned her attention back to Gabe. “You know, you’re right. Your name is on the lease too. Tell you what, you can have the place. I’ll move out.”
“Where will you go?”
“Not your problem.” She wasn’t about to tell him about the job in England. “Stay away from the apartment for an hour. I need to get a few things.”
“Where have you been staying these last few nights, anyway?” he asked.
Oh, now he was concerned? “Also not your problem,” Bonnie snapped. She wanted to ask if Ali had been sleeping over but restrained herself. The less she knew, the better. “I’ll be back for the big stuff sometime next week, and see about having the landlord take my name off the lease.”
“I can’t cover the rent myself. I’ve still got another month of grad school!” Gabe whined.
“Now that,” Bonnie said, gathering her things and preparing to leave, “is your problem.”
Back on the street outside the library, Bonnie sucked in a lungful of air. Seeing Gabe had been both easier and harder than she’d expected. He’d been such a big part of her life for so long—no, that wasn’t exactly right. A part can be removed, dissected from the rest. He wasn’t one piece of her puzzle, but part of the whole picture. She had grown up with Gabe, and their lives had seeped into each other’s, like colors bleeding into fabric, blending, leaving it forever changed.
She let herself into their apartment and forced herself to go straight to the bedroom. Rip off the bandage, so to speak. As much as Bonnie would like to bleach her eyeballs and wipe out the memory of what she’d walked in on Friday night, she knew she couldn’t bleach the memory of all the years of Gabe away. Deep down, she didn’t want to. Those memories made up the tapestry of who she was, like Grandma Mary’s quilt … Oh, bad analogy.
She did not want to go there. But her mind went there anyway. And she had to admit, the metaphor worked in more ways than one. Made from pieces of old clothing from countless generations of Blythes, the quilt was a testament to all those lives. And while the last thing Bonnie wanted was a souvenir of that night, she also knew she’d never get rid of the quilt. She’d wash it. Several times. Maybe hide it in a closet, but she would never get rid of it. It was too precious.
Much as it hurt to even think about right now, she knew she didn’t want to get rid of her memories of Gabe either. Or her time with him. If she was truly honest with herself, if she did the deep listening thing Sadie was always saying her acting coach made her do, Bonnie knew the truth. It wasn’t the loss of Gabe she mourned so much, it was the loss of the idea of Gabe—the Gabe she’d created in her mind—the one she wanted him to be. The Gilbert to her Anne.
Beyond that, was the loss of the life she’d planned. Her friends teased her endlessly about how she had it all mapped out: marriage, kids, how many years apart each child would be, their names. She’d even mentally enrolled them in dance and art classes already. Daydreamed about watching her brood perform in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was the loss of all that—all she thought had been meant to be—that she mourned the most.
Admitting that was hard. Admitting that hurt.
Leaving the quilt where it was, Bonnie pulled a suitcase out from under the bed and began packing. As she emptied out her drawers, her mind shifted, as it did too often these past few days, to a certain dark-haired, blue-eyed Brit with devastating dimples. Speaking of devastated, maybe Theo was part of the reason she wasn’t as devastated over the breakup with Gabe as she should be. There was something there between them. Had been ever since she’d first met him back in London.
From the first smile he’d flashed her on a supper cruise on the Thames, she’d felt something. A lot of things, actually. But she’d ignored those thoughts and feelings, tried her best to smush them into a little ball, tuck them inside a box, lock it up tight, and drop it in a lake for good measure. But despite all her attempts to submerge those thoughts, they broke free, feelings rising to the surface again. And the kisses in his suite yesterday …
Knees weak, Bonnie sat on the edge of her bed for a minute. She needed to take some kind of Theo-conditioning class. Strengthen her muscles so she would stop going noodle-legged whenever his dimples appeared. She gripped one bed post, fingers curling around the glossy wood. She’d had this canopy bed since she was five, maybe six. She’d brought it to the apartment as another way to help save money, telling herself they could buy new furniture later, after Gabe finished school.
Now what? Should she bring the bed back to her parents’ house? Put it back in her old room? Moving her bed back to Mom and Dad’s posed another challenge—she’d have to tell them what happened with Gabe. Admit the engagement was off. There would be no wedding to plan, and even worse—in her mom’s mind—no honeymoon trip to book.
Bed or no bed, Bonnie knew she had to tell her family. And she would. Later.
Stuffed with as much of her clothes and shoes as she could cram into it, Bonnie rolled the suitcase out of the bedroom. She grabbed the travel mug of tea Gabe had made for her and headed into the kitchen. Flipping on the faucet, she went to rinse out the mug, but froze when she noticed the dishes sitting in the bottom of the sink.
As the water continued to run, images flowed through her brain. Images of Gabe and that woman having an intimate dinner for two, eating off the plates Bonnie had bought when she and Gabe had first moved in together. Plates she’d washed hundreds of times after hundreds of meals they’d shared. She shut the faucet off, but the images kept coming.
They’re just things. They shouldn’t matter. But it did matter. And it hurt; it hurt so bad. Stomach cramping, Bonnie pulled a wineglass out of the sink, noticing the smudge of lipstick along the rim. Holding it by the stem, she smashed it against the countertop. It shattered.
Yesss. The sound the glass made as it broke, shards flying, felt good. Really good. She stared at the jagged stump that remained, touched her finger to the edge, watching as a thin line of blood beaded on her skin.
It was a fitting reminder. Broken things were sharp.
Setting the cracked stem aside, she reached into the sink again and took out a plate. Bonnie lifted it over her head, dropping it on the tile floor. Smash. She did the same with the other plate. Shards of crockery littered the kitchen and spattered her clothes.
Next, she grabbed the mug Gabe had given her this morning. Dumping the dregs of the now-cold tea into the sink, Bonnie turned, pulling her arm back and hurling the mug across the room. It exploded against the wall. She ducked, covering her face as fragments rained down.
Breathing hard, she straightened, admiring the carnage. Then she brushed off the pieces still clinging to her and inspected herself for damage. Aside from the cut on her finger, she had a few nicks on her arms. Nothing too serious. The wounds would heal quickly.
She wondered if the same could be said for her heart.