AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So even though my back is screaming at me, I bend to pick up three tuna cans, a bell pepper, a package of macadamia nut cookies, and two drinkable smoothie yogurts. The half-gallon of milk is a goner, having popped its top on impact and spilled half its contents down the sewer drain below.
“I can try to carry these to your car, but it looks like you’ll need a new milk,” I point out, not trying to make conversation or friendly small talk but trying to alert this person to my presence on a relatively dead morning street.
“Dammit, I knew I should have just rolled the cart to my car. That’s what I get for trying to be a grocery bag warrior and tough it out.”
The brim of the white ball cap rises with the person’s chin, and I’m struck by lightning on the spot as two green eyes nearly swallow me whole.
Or, well, that’s what it feels like. That’s what it feels like every single time she looks at me.
Eyes so green they resemble a field full of leafy, gorgeous plants ready to be picked. Cheekbones high and naturally tinged with a dusky rose color so that it always looks like she’s halfway to a blush. Long sunflower blond hair that looks like it’d be softer than the finest silk if it ran between your fingers. A mouth so luscious and full and pink, it would be sweeter than the ripest strawberry if I ever got just one taste.
Not that I ever would. Gabrielle Murphy is as forbidden as the most tempting creation in the Garden of Eden, and she’s made it clear for twelve years now that when it comes to me, she is strictly off-limits.
Because the first time we met, I was off-limits to her.
She was my teacher, and I was the senior who couldn’t stop trying to get her to notice me.
I walked into that classroom on my last first day of high school and a switch flipped. Math was my first period of the day and never a subject I particularly excelled in. There was actually a pep in my step though, because I was about to be done with school forever. I’d have to make it through the months of senior year, and my parents didn’t yet know about my plans not to follow through with college, but the finish line was on the horizon.
Then there she was, standing in front of the whiteboard with a marker idling in her hand, her plump, understated, pink-colored lip worried between her teeth, and she thought no one was watching yet. She hadn’t gotten into performer mode, the kind of role teachers assume when they want high school-aged kids not to mess with them. Gabrielle hopped from foot to foot, that maroon flowy skirt she’d chosen swishing around her as she rolled her slim shoulders back in that snow-white blouse with sleeves like angel wings. Her blond hair had been secured in some clip with pearls at the crown of her head, and those emerald-green eyes rimmed by thick black lashes seemed to dart around the room in search of something that would bring confidence.
At that very moment, I knew for sure that love at first sight existed. Because it happened to me, just like my father had always said about my mother when he told the story of the first time they met. The men in my family have a pattern; glimpse the one woman who would bring them to their knees, fall in love with her, and spend the rest of eternity trying to make her happy. It’s happened with almost every Ashton and DiNicoli, my mother’s maiden name, man down the family line.
Oftentimes, my brothers and I would make sarcastic kissy faces when my father would wax poet about this topic. But at that moment, I knew I’d been a fool. Because Gabrielle Murphy hit me like a ton of bricks. She was Cupid’s arrow to my heart. She was birdsong and rainbows and all the other flowery bullshit people write love songs about when they find the one in a sea of millions.
I’d found her, of that, I am sure. To this day, I can’t describe exactly what it is about her; I just walked into that classroom, and something rooted deep in my soul recognized that this was the person I wasn’t even looking for. I was young, a newly minted adult, and love was the furthest thing from my mind. I’d had girlfriends, been a bit of a player during that summer, and was looking to finish out the year and sow my wild oats. But one look at her, and something fundamentally shifted, like the earth’s plates beneath my feet.
Being the situation as it was, Gabrielle wouldn’t come near me with a ten-foot pole. But the way she looked at me, the almost tangible field of energy between us, I knew it wasn’t one-sided. She could convince herself that anything concerning her and me, even though I was nineteen and she was a brand-new twenty-two-year-old teacher, was downright wrong. But she’d never convince me of it.
To this day, I cursed her for not trying. Even after I graduated, she wouldn’t relent. It crushed me more than anything else in life had up to that point. Her refusal changed who I am as a person and man, and I’ve been different ever since.
“Oh, I, uh …” Gabrielle stutters, then trails off the second she realizes who is kneeling to help her.
“Where do you want them?” I grit out, the ugly side of me rearing its head now that I’m in her presence.
“You don’t need to help, just leave them. I’ll get them where they need to go.” Her voice is even and measured, which only serves to tick me off more.
How can she always be so prim and proper around me? As if I don’t affect her whatsoever.
“This is a hazard. If someone were to trip because you were too careless to grab a basket or cart, there could be injuries or a lawsuit. So tell me where to put them.” My molars grind down so hard I nearly break them.
I don’t mean to be this way; I swear I don’t. But I’ve been this sullen, miserable version of myself for so long that even if the softer side wants to make an appearance, I drown him in my irritability.
“I was walking them back to my grandmother’s condo on the canal towpath,” Gabrielle mutters as if not wanting to admit it.
Because we both know what that means; it means I’ll have to walk the array of groceries currently rolling down Newton Street all the way back to her place.
Could the fucking universe not give me a break? If I had to be the only person to bump into this woman, could she at least not have her car with her to cut this interaction as short as possible? But no, the world seems hellbent on fucking me over.
“Lead the way, then,” I grumble back, casting a cloud of gloom over the entire interaction.
Again, I don’t want to be this way. Once upon a time, I’d jumped at any chance to talk to her, to convince her that I was more than just some stupid boy. I was probably inappropriate in my effort and approach, too forward and way too obvious.
That all changed after she left, took off without a trace, and hadn’t been seen or heard from in twelve years. Ever since, my anger at her abandoning us before we could be an us is the only thing I can seem to feel when she’s near.
But deep down, no matter how many times she turns me away, leaves, or rebuffs what things could have been, I’ll never forget the first time I ever saw her.
Or the last.
