First Night(14)

Considering he’d kept them in his nightstand, apparently I had lots of girls to thank for his practice. I wondered who would thank me in the future as she lay in the spot I vacated.

Eventually I slipped out of his bed, got dressed, and walked the four miles back home. My mother took one look at me and knew. She didn’t yell or lecture me as I’d expected. She simply opened her arms and let me fall into them. I had no tears left, only a soul-wounding scar of regret that things couldn’t be different.

“It’ll be okay, baby. I promise.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t make this okay. Everything in the world but this.

* * *

Our story should’ve ended then. But it didn’t. We found each other again seven years later.

And here we were at another formal event, him looking like a Hollywood god of old and me in an evening gown he bought for me, having a chance to do it over again.

I hoped things would go differently this time because I feared my feelings for Gabriel hadn’t changed…I was still that girl who’d fallen in love with a beautiful, broken angel.

And this time I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to walk away again.