Page 147 of The Difference Between

Either way, now that I’ve let myself see Gavin as a piece of my future, I can’t unsee it. I don’t want to.

Paper in hand, I make a run for it. Across Mom’s yard and Gavin’s driveway to his front door that tragically isn’t protected by an awning. Like the maniac I’ve become, in the pouring rain I pound on the door until he answers.

He swings it open, Casual Gavin tonight in his bare feet, sweats, and T-shirt, but says nothing, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorjamb.

I wipe the rain from my face in vain. “Hi.”

He says nothing; I hate this game.

“I’m done with my meeting.” I squint toward the sky and the rain stings my eyes. “We’re playing the silent treatment game again?”

He confirms by way of silence.

I scoff. “Your thirty is showing.” That was stupid, so the obvious choice is to keep talking. “I told you what I was doing.” I’m already shouting over the roar of the rain, but at his cold welcome, heat creeps into my voice, making it sharp. “I didn’t make any promises to you. You know who I am. Where I live.” I sound panicked because I am. “And you said we’d do this one day at a time and figure it out together, and this is me doing it one day at a time.”

I wipe an annoyed hand down my face.

“It’s hypocritical, you know, to tell me that you’re fine with the things I want then”—I wave my hand at him—“act like this when I keep going after them. I want a baby. You can’t—” I clear my throat. “You can’t say things but not say them. You’d get crucified in business.”

I sniff, he’s quiet, rain pelts me with a million drops. I’m soaked to the bone and freezing, and this motherfucker’s quiet and dry.

“You know what?” I blow out a breath and square my shoulders. “I got your application.” I gesture with said application, now soggy. “And it ruined my night. I had to leave my meeting. And he was perfect. He’s smart and a doctor and charitable. Tall. He doesn’t laugh at Chuck Norris jokes, which, you know I think means something. He’d be a good donor dad.”

I’m rambling, Gavin’s quiet, the rain is ruthless. It sends a million feelings rushing through my veins with nowhere to go.

So, I scream.

With fisted hands and a stomp of probably ruined Louboutin-covered feet, I scream right in his face.

Gavin settles deeper into his position in the doorway, mouth pressed in a tight line.

“Fine.” I wipe the rain from my face one last time. “You lava me, maybe I lava you. And Addie. So what? Because you’re also a huge asshole for making me stand out here. You can’t do this.” Am I crying? “And it’s not fair to me that I came down here to do something and you made it messy. And I wish you would have died at the Alamo. I do.” I do not. “And I don’t care”—I shake the paper again—“about any of this.”

There’s that silence.

I want him to argue. Or slam the door in my face. Or wrap a hand around my waist and drag me in his house and press his lips to mine. But he stands there and lets me seethe and talk in circles while I get drenched.

“Application denied, Gavin.”

And with that, I spin on my heel and march to my mom’s house, and once again, he doesn’t chase me. As someone who excels in mindfucking, I may have met my match. Gavin might be a master. What was that? He gives me a love note guised as an application then lets me act like a madwoman in the rain?

And says nothing?

In my mom’s empty house, I laugh, loud. I was about to make some life change for this man. Like an idiot. Now that would be stupid.

I mean it with my whole heart when I say he can go to hell. I hope he has a pleasant trip. I hope he burns slowly and for all eternity and comes back as a glass beaker used to hold infectious diseases.

I peel off my wet clothes, muttering the whole time. Because I’m angry, not because I’m worried I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me by doing the exact thing I told him I was doing.

“We’ll figure it out,” I say in a namby-pamby voice. “Figure this out.” I flip a bird at my bedroom window that faces his house.

Before I get in the shower, I put his homemade application on a towel and try to salvage it. If it’s going to be destroyed, I want it to be with a match.

That I light.

Right after I get rid of this hole in my chest.

Forty-Three