She wants to escape it all. She runs from it. She gets a chance to leave it all behind. And she does, without thinking twice.
Gabrielle leaves France, her home country, when she finds an offer to babysit in London. She doesn't have a lot of ex...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Gabby, are you not hungry?"
I look at Amelia who has her mouth full of food and her chin is covered in sauce. "No, I'll eat later." I give her a tight smile.
I'm ripping apart the napkin, tearing it to pieces. Ever since Alexander said those words to me in the morning, I have that nervous feeling at the bottom of my stomach, making me sick whenever I think about it.
I don't know what he wants to talk about, but I know it has something to do with everything that happened between us. And, yes, maybe I was ready to talk about that ... thing between us yesterday night, but today I'm not anymore.
Not after I threw all those words at his face last night.
I shouldn't have done that!
Like it wasn't bad enough that I kissed him. I had to dig an even bigger hole for myself. And there goes my promise of ignoring him and living like he doesn't exist.
"We can go outside if you finished eating," I tell Amelia.
She nods happily. She puts one more vegetable spoon in her mouth, wipes it with a napkin and jumps down from the chair, still chewing on the food.
"Swallow down first, Amelia," I remind her.
She stops in her tracks, turns around and makes sure I see her chewing on the potato and swallows down. She opens her mouth then to show me it's empty. "And now we can go!" I jump down from my seat and follow her outside.
•••
When I hear Alexander's motorcycle coming to the driveway, I swear I feel my heart jump in my throat and feel my lungs squeeze. I stop pushing Amelia on a swing and she almost bumps in me when I lose my concentration and my focus.
"Gabby!" Amelia squeals.
I push her again, but my thoughts are somewhere entirely else. I hope Alexander won't come back here. Or even better, I wish he forgot about the words he said to me.
I don't know why I'm so nervous. I was delusional if I thought he wouldn't want to talk about this.
I swallow the bile in my throat down and take a deep breath. I can deal with this – with him.
I feel the prickling at the back of the neck, that weird tingling. I put my hand behind my neck and look around.
I see Alexander standing at the house with his legs wide and his arms crossed over his chest, unmovingly staring right at Amelia and me.
Honestly, that guy is scary. With his intimidating eyes and deep look that I feel across all this distance and then with all his tattoos ...
"A word, Little one," he calls out, not moving an inch from his spot.
