Page 34 of Gaming with the Gargoyle in Hallow's Cove

I find the next mine pretty quickly and successfully disarm it. This time, when I open the treasure chest, Brooks saunters in, tipping his cowboy hat.

“Excuse me ma’am, I heard that someone was in need of assistance?”

“Yeah, sure, why don’t you sit there and look pretty, that’ll help.”

“Playing to my strengths, Gwennie? You flatter me.”

“Sydney will be in as soon as you get her out of a chest. She’ll actually be of help.”

“Shut up, we’re havingemotional time.”Jake says, fake punching Brooks in the arm.

“Oh. Sorry, Gwen.” He looks abashed as he sits and I finally turn my attention down to the letters in my hand. I don’t want to read these, but a part of me is also desperate to connect with him, to know what this was like for Gabe.

Good news. You’re with Preston and we own a Game Shop. Woo.

I hiccup, struggling with holding back tears. It’s not that I haven’t cried in front of the guys plenty of times, I just know I will struggle to read through the tears.

“Is she okay?” Brooks asks Jake.

“No, it’ssademotional time right now. Gabe is coming home from school to find out Gwen’s engaged.”

“Oooooh.” Brooks and Jake look like they are watching a soap opera over there, shoving snacks into their faces, eyes trained on me.

It makes me giggle, if nothing else, and I press on.

I haven’t written much, because we’ve spent so much time together this summer. Its… hard. Now that I’m home, any questions I might have had about if I was actually in love with you have been resolved. I’m absolutely in love with you and now, at least, I know why you and Preston are engaged. You’re pregnant. You guys are getting married soon, like, real soon, Preston said something about not wanting a bastard, which felt a littlepointed.

I place a hand over my belly, over my son who is even now, stretching inside me, distending my alreadymassivebelly, and I can’t help but get choked up about my first baby. I didn’t want a baby with Preston, but fuck if I didn’t love that baby. I still don’t know, never will, if they were a boy or a girl, but I know that I will love them until I die, regardless.

There’s no way I’m stopping the tears now. They spill out of my eyes and plop onto the table with big splats. This whole pregnancy, I’ve thought a lot about my other baby, and I like to think that they’d have motivated me to get away from Preston sooner if they’d lived. I tell myself that I’d leave him before he got a chance to die, because I’d know it was important to make sure they lived in a household that was filled with love, and maybe they would have, just as soon as Gabe and I got around to getting together in that lifetime.

Reading these letters isn’t just taking me back to where Gabe was at the time, it’s taking me back to where I was… who I was. I’d let Preston convince me that I couldn’t be trusted to make my own choices, and I was desperately trying to find happiness in the life I’d tripped into. Gabe and the game shop were my saving graces then, but Gabe still had one year of school left, so, after I lost the baby, and he went back to school, late because of said loss, I spent alotof time drunk on Jake’s moonshine. It was probably the worst time of my life.

“Hooooo,” I blow out a breath, trying to ground myself and prep for the rest of these letters and look up to see both Jake and Brooks looking at me expectantly.

“I think we found the next one…” Brooks doesn’t sound sure, but when he points on the map, I play the logic out and I think they are right.

For the first time, I fail two times to disarm it, but the third disarms the trap and when I move Rena, I get two chests.

Ted and Sydney come in next and the second she sees me, Sydney shoots a look at Jake and Brooks. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing! It was Gabe!” Brooks says, holding up his hands. “That motherfucker somehow thought sad letters were a good idea?”

“No, no, I think they were, I think they are!” I assure her as she hugs me. “It’s very sweet.”

I return to my letters and see that the next bit is a package of them. It’s tied together with twine and there’s a little note.

Enough sadness for a bit, read these if you want, when you want. I love you.

-Gabe

Gods, I love Gabe. The stack is hefty to say the least, and I would probably be a blubbering mess once I made it through this stack. Actually, considering how pregnant I am, I’d probably end up a heap of crying woman on the floor and he’d have to come scrape me up. We’d have to cancel this entire endeavor.

I set the stack down on the table and lean over, looking at the grid of what is left. It’s gotten trickier, but Sydney and Ted are leaning over the table, too.

“Do you think there might be one right there?" Ted says, pointing at a spot on the grid.

"It's either there or here." Sydney points at a different spot.