The Fate Date (Glengarry Curse #1)

31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Sabrina

S abrina locked the shop door, lit a few candles, and brewed a cup of herbal tea to stave off the mid-November chill. She’d given the staff the night off, but she never felt alone in her mother’s shop. Still, a little tap-tap-tap on the glass front door startled her, distracting her from her inventory spreadsheet. The backlit stranger was a broad-shouldered shadow in the frosty window.

“We’re closed,” she shouted through the door. The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

“Sabrina, it’s Gavin.”

His rumbling voice caused her heart to race, like she’d stepped on the world’s most masochistic cardio machine.

What the hell was Gavin doing here?

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

let me in, please

She grumbled as she undid the locks on the door, already angry at herself for giving him the time of day when he’d shown her none of the same courtesy over the past few weeks. She cracked open the door but didn’t stand out of the way. He looked…terrible. His jacket seemed oversized, like he’d lost weight. Dark circles lined his eyes. He was scruffy, like Tom Hanks in Castaway but with a sickly pallor instead of a leathery tan.

She was about to insist he leave when a gust of wind blasted her face. She closed her eyes and stepped backwards as she was pelted by tiny cold prickles, which Gavin misconstrued as her invitation to enter. The door shut behind him with a cheerful tinkle. The candles flickered in the icy breeze.

Sabrina had done a full-moon cleansing ritual to ensure that if she ever faced Gavin Glengarry again it would have no effect on her: no heart flutters, no butterflies, and definitely not the sensation of her soul breathing out a sigh of relief to be reunited.

She should really put a disclaimer on their spell candles.

“Hi,” he said. “How are you? How are things with the shop?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned on her heel and started blowing out the candles around the room to put some distance between them. He didn’t move from the doorway, but his eyes roved over the handmade snowflake decorations hanging from the ceiling. A little smile came to his lips as he gazed at her informational plaque about the pagan origins of the Christmas tree.

“Why are you here, Gavin?”

“I…I wanted to apologize, properly. To give you the full explanation you asked for.” His gaze turned to her, studying her reactions like she’d taught him to do.

She tried to mask the fact that her heart felt like it was joyriding. “There’s nothing to apologize for. We both fulfilled the commitments of our agreement.” It was her own romantic delusions that had made her think what happened between them was anything more.

He was silent for a long time. She tried to slow her feet, anxiously buzzing from one flame to the next.

“Our agreement changed, Sabrina. I’m not here to pretend it didn’t. I let you down.”

She blew out the last candle near the cash register, and crossed her arms over her chest, watching the smoke swirl like her insides .

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for walking out on you. I was trying to hide the fact that you were right. I was keeping secrets, putting up walls at work. It was all a strategy I used to keep people away so they didn’t look too closely at my imperfections.”

She picked up a duster and crossed to the crystal display to busy her hands, though her ears refused to tune him out.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” he continued. “I had some shit I needed to work out. I mean, I’m a work in progress. No one is perfect, as I’m learning. But I’ve been going to therapy to try and understand what’s in my control and what isn’t.”

She wanted to tease out the details of that statement, but instead she gripped the duster tighter.

“I thought I needed to reign in my impulses to avoid the same fate as my father, to avoid the curse.”

“The curse?” Her hand flung back and forth over the same spot on the table, like Lady Macbeth had been handed a Swiffer.

“When I gave into my reckless impulses it was hard to reign them in. So, I applied restraint in all areas of my life, including with relationships.” He approached her. “Until I met you.” She knocked over the amethyst centrepiece. It crashed into the bowl of obsidian spheres, sending little black balls in all directions.

She bustled about the shop, picking up the crystals. She’d fantasized about this moment so many times. He was saying all the things she hoped he would. But she didn’t feel the relief she’d imagined. The hurt, the loneliness, the confusion remained. As did the fear that she was being swept up, yet again, into a naive fantasy. She emptied the little crystals she’d gathered back into their bowl. “Gavin, I’m happy that you’ve come to these realizations. But it’s been almost a month.”

“I know. I was…I should have been honest from the start. It took me some time to realize that. You were right about a lot of things, actually. And I wanted to…I made something for you.” He pulled out his phone. “It’s a crowdfunding campaign for your planner.”

Uncertainty warred within her, but she couldn’t help herself. She took the phone out of his hand to take a closer look.

“It’s not live, I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but I was able to take a lot of the graphics from the mock-up to create the landing page. I brainstormed some possible sponsorship packages—which I can modify however you want.”

She saw the appeal instantly—with crowdfunding she could ensure interest in her product and generate the money to realize it. The fundraising levels included glitter cat stickers, copies of the planner, one-on-one astrology readings…it was so professional, so real, so tangible. The cost breakdown included expenses she’d never considered. And it was something she could never have managed on her own.

She stopped scrolling.

“I’m not pursuing the planner right now.”

He did his annoying head tilt, the one he used when he was looking at things she didn’t want him to see. “Can I ask why not?”

“I just managed to get the shop on stable footing, it would be irresponsible to divide my time—”

“You shouldn’t push your own dreams aside though. I was wrong before, when I suggested otherwise.”

“I can’t…” Anxiety had a stranglehold on her. “That’s just it, Gavin: it was a dream, a far-fetched delusion.” One that his words at the retreat had made her feel foolish for even considering.

“We can go over the costs if you want. Or create a risk matrix? We can make whatever adjustments you want to the site, we can start over…” His slate eyes were warm, his smile relaxed. But it made her insides curdle. This is how it was with Gavin. A swell of excitement and then a whoosh of abandonment. A fierce cultivation of her interests and then…nothing.

“I’m not interested.” She shoved his phone back into his hands .

He looked at it, confused. “In the campaign, or…”

“In any of it, Gavin. We can’t start over.”

A tense silence hung in the air—one that typically she would have hated and scrambled for something, anything to say.

He pursed his lips and nodded. “I see.”

He took a shaky step backwards, before catching his footing. “Sabrina, I know I’ve messed up. I’m so sorry you got caught up in my lies. But I’m actively working through things right now. I quit my job. I’ve come clean to my family about my dad’s past. If you give me a chance, I can prove that I’m learning, that I can be the supportive partner you need.”

He spoke like this was a simple matter that could be repaired. Like fixing a bug in his code, or realigning a column in his spreadsheet. It was so much more complex than that. And she knew better now.

“Gavin, your words were cruel.”

He nodded.

“You lied to me. Humiliated me.”

“Unintentionally, but it doesn’t erase the impact.”

“And then you ghosted me.”

“That was my completely poor judgment.”

“You could have texted.”

A flush stained his cheeks, contrasting with his pale skin. “And said what? ‘Hey, sorry, kind of dealing with some monumental life shit right now?’ You didn’t just want a text, Sabrina, you wanted the full truth and I wasn’t ready to give it. But now I am.”

She shook her head and scoffed.

“Sabrina, it can’t…It can’t just be over. It can’t end like this. Being with you showed me that I—”

“It ended a month ago, Gavin,” she yelled. That was the truth of it. She’d been trying, with limited success, to close this festering chapter of her life. He didn’t need to know she’d been pathetically checking her phone for three weeks, four days, six hours and fifty-six minutes, judging by the grandfather clock that was about to chime. She silently cursed her mother because the kissing figurines would be supremely awkward.

She was saved, rather unfortunately, by Gavin’s coughing. He stepped backwards again, colliding with the cash register. He turned from her, one arm on the counter, the other covering his mouth as he bent over, hacking.

“A-are you OK?”

When his coughing stopped, he took several deep inhalations. He turned back to face her and she could see his unusually waifish frame trembling. “Please, let me tell you the truth—”

She shook her head, fearful of what it would do to her. Because this was her truth: “I can’t trust any of it.”

“I’m so sorry.” He stepped forwards then, arm reaching for her. She stepped back and moved behind the crystal table to put a barrier between them. A tiny romantic part of her yelled that maybe this time it would be different. But it was a bet she wasn’t willing to make.

“No, Gavin, I’m sorry. I’m not a naive, delusional pushover anymore, thanks to you. And I think you should leave.”

He ran a hand through his hair. The melted snow had brought out his curl. He tucked his phone back in his pocket. “I’ll email you all the details for the crowdfunding site, in case you do decide it’s something you want to pursue in the future. Everything is filed under your name. Password is Tinkerbell.”

“You shouldn’t have—”

“Yes, Sabrina, I should have. I should have come sooner. I should have been here.”

He gave her one last look. Normally Gavin’s face was impassive, but the abject agony was written across his wounded eyes, heaving chest, and clenched jaw. His eyes traced her face, searching for a break in her resolve. She hugged her arms around her body, willing the tears to stay put just a moment longer. Long enough for him to shake his head, turn away, and walk out the door. Again.

She stormed over to the cash register and ripped open the drawer where she’d stashed the sample of the planner he’d given her at Lac Gaudreau. She pulled out the matchbox and selected a candle—black would serve her purposes well.

She struck the first match so aggressively she snapped it in half. She grumbled out loud, as fat tears crashed down on the wooden counter, blurring her vision. Her hand slipped as she struck a second because the shop door burst open with a large gust of frigid wind. She ran to the door, closed it, and locked it for good measure.

The pages of her planner littered the floor.

She gathered the teasing prototypes, not letting her gaze catch on the sparkly notes she’d written by the water’s edge. Instead, she crumpled each one with an unnecessary force that didn’t make her feel any better.

Who did Gavin think he was, filling her restless heart with what-ifs and illusions? She wasn’t that person anymore. He’d seen to that with ruthless precision. She came back to the cash register to resume her cathartic cleansing ritual, i.e. burning the shit out of it, when her double-crossing gaze landed on a piece of paper the icy blast had revealed. The planner was open to the page where she’d outlined a tarot spread based on The Fool.

Right now, Sabrina hated synchronicity. The Fool, the beginning of the major arcana. The go card. The trust card. The “even if you don’t feel ready, try it anyway” card.

Each spread in the planner had questions with lines underneath them for reflection. Perhaps proving its uselessness would be more purgative than fire. She grabbed a glitter pen from the drawer and looked at the first question.

What new adventures can you explore?

How meta of her planner to ask that .

What has been holding you back?

Delusion. Impulsivity. And fear of failing again. Because this time it wasn’t just her mother’s shop at stake—it was another thing entirely if she disappointed herself.

What is one action you can take today?

The desire to torch the thing surfaced first. But then, so did Gavin’s crowdfunding site. It was a pretty low-risk activity. If people didn’t want to back it, then she could lick her wounds without affecting her bottom line.

Who can you trust to support you?

She did not appreciate her planner calling her out like this. Because maybe she’d let panic cloud her decisions. What if everything Gavin said was possible? Or what if she was just rejected again? Was it her intuition guiding her? Or anxiety?

She stuffed the judgmental papers back into the drawer instead of burning them, for now. Believing in herself, her abilities, and intuition had led to the store’s success. She couldn’t deny there was still a part of her soul that she’d been hiding away due to her own insecurity. What if she could leap forward with both feet into the unknown—yet with the knowledge that the universe would be there to catch her? Ditch this feeling of powerlessness, and grip life by the steering wheel. Learn, finally, how to drive…