Page 35 of Counting the Stars
Alex
Istand before Gabby, completely dumbfounded by her confession. I cringe thinking of all the times I recanted my craziest stories and my close calls on the job. All this time, I thought I was earning extra points by showing her how heroic I could be, but instead, I was pushing her farther away.
Gabby starts crying again, so I pull her in close to me and hold her tight. I’m already emotionally spent from this night. I can’t imagine how she’s still upright. Resting my chin on the top of her head, I tell her how sorry I am over and over again. I wish I had better words to say, and for a moment, I wonder what Carter would do in this situation. He’s the one who’s never at a loss for words in these circumstances.
“Stop saying you’re sorry,” she mumbles into my extra-tear-soaked shirt. “It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not your fault either,” I counter as revelations and more questions invade my mind. “What happened to you? You know, after everything happened?”
“I was sent to a group home with the clothes on my back.” She pulls away from our embrace and uses her hand to wipe away her tears. “My family’s car was impounded. It’s not like I had the money to afford the payments. I don’t have any other relatives and people don’t chomp at the bit to foster a teenager who just lost her entire family. I was a mess and so angry.”
I rub my hand up and down her arm, hoping to calm her but also trying to satisfy my need to touch her…to be close to her. As horrible a situation she’s been through, I can’t help but think of the strength it took for this young, beautiful, smart teenager to muster through it all. My admiration for Gabby hit a new level.
“The first group home didn’t work out,” she continues. “So I was sent to another…then another. Eventually, I aged out of the system. My parents had a small life insurance policy that I received when I turned eighteen. I used that to get myself a little apartment and enroll in nursing school.”
“That was so brave of you. To do that at such a young age,” I say with true adoration. I floundered after high school. My parents pushed college on me. They wanted me to follow in the footsteps of my siblings, which included multiple degrees and cushy jobs. I wanted to appease them but always felt like a fish out of water. I changed my major three times with the hope that I would find something that would make me happy, but nothing ever did.
Then one day changed everything. I was driving home from a class and witnessed a car wrapped around a tree. I ran to help the driver but had no clue what I was doing. An off-duty fireman came upon the scene and started barking orders at me. Everything he told me to do made perfect sense. We worked seamlessly together to safely extract the victim and tend to his injuries. I later learned that he lived because of our quickresponse. I had never felt such a sense of purpose until that night.
The very next day, I dropped out of school and signed up for the Fire Academy. While waiting for the semester to start, I took classes to become an Emergency Medical Technician and later became a paramedic. I love being a first responder. My family, on the other hand, is still livid that I choose to live my life so recklessly. Their words, not mine.
There are times I feel like I’ve never been so sure of my decision to leave. Then there are times that I become overrun with guilt because I abandoned the rest of my family. I’ve overheard the snarky remarks and seen comments on social media. I may not live a glamorous life like the rest of them, but I finally feel like I found my calling.
A breeze from the ocean comes rolling in and I watch as Gabby shivers. It’s then that it dawns on me that she’s only in her dress from her horrible date earlier. God, that feels like a lifetime ago.
“You must be freezing.” I want to hold her again but realize that my wet shirt will do nothing to provide warmth.
“I think I’m more numb than anything.” She wraps her arms around herself.
“Come on, we don’t have to go home yet, but we can at least sit in my car, and I can put the heat on.”
She agrees and I run over to the passenger side to open the door for her. The scent of her lemony shampoo hits my nose and something dawns on me.
“You’re using your normal shampoo again,” I say when I slip into the driver’s seat. I’m very familiar with the scent. When the girls’ condo flooded, Gabby not only moved into my bedroom but my bathroom as well. I loved the fresh clean scent that was always left behind from her showers…and also on my pillows.
“Oh yeah. I wasn’t fond of the new stuff I tried either.” She bites down on her lip.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Her big, beautiful brown eyes look up at me as she shamefully nods.
“And the imposter burgers?” I rub my chin. Things are starting to make a bit more sense.
“I found your list and got worried that you were planning to try harder. To, ahh—” Her cheeks flush. “I’m so sorry, Alex. I didn’t want to push you away. I was just so scared. I still am. I can’t lose you too.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her.
“But you don’t know that!”
“Do you want me to quit?” I challenge, knowing she’d never ask that of me.
“No!” she says emphatically. “You love your job and you’re damn good at it too. I would never ask you to change yourself for me. The world is a better place because of people like you.”
“The world is a better place with you in it too.” I start up my engine and blast the heat. “I understand that you worry for me, but crazy things happen all the time. You can’t avoid everything in your life, hoping you’ll get by unscathed. One of us could become terminally ill, or the world could end tomorrow and you never got a chance to live while you had the time.”
“You sound like Miss Ruby.”
“You talked with Miss Ruby?” I don’t know why that surprises me. Miss Ruby tends to be privy to lots of people’s innermost thoughts. She has that effect on people. Still, I wish Gabby had opened up to me sooner. She’s been grieving all alone.