Gabe

by Desiree Lafawn

  Until I heard Angel’s car pull into the parking lot, then my body tightened like a steel coil. All of the tension returned, and what the hell was that? Was I nervous? No way, that’s not what it was. I was angry. Angry at Angel for being so goddamn secretive, and angry at myself for being the reason she thought she had to be.

  She was the last one in the building, finding a reason to fuss around in her car for a bit after Gerta and Jolene had already made it to the door.

  “Be gentle with her,” said Jolene, with an uncharacteristic lack of sass. Like I needed her to tell me how to be with Angel. Gentle. Angel didn’t need gentle, she needed to deal with this, with us. And if she wouldn’t do it, then I would.

  Angel didn’t say anything as she met me at the door and led me up the stairs to her apartment. She just gave me a questioning look, her troubled glances telling me she knew something was wrong. Of course something was wrong, but she didn’t know what. She didn’t know what I knew. I waited until we were in the apartment and the door was closed before I spoke.

  “Angel, we need to talk.”

  “Yeah, you said that before. Twice. You mind telling me what is so ominous that you had to make it sound like a threat?” She was agitated and defensive, this was already not going well. First thing’s first.

  “Before we get started, Angel, is there anything you want to tell me? Anything at all that you want me to know? Something that you’ve always wanted to say but never have?”

  Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed slightly, but that was the only indication that she might have understood my underlying question. She said nothing in response. Nothing until I took the grocery bag I had been carrying off my arm and started pulling out the contents and laying them on her low coffee table. Delia Dates: Diary of a Single Girl, books one through eight, all laid out in a row.

  “No,” the word was whispered, so low I almost thought I imagined her saying it until she repeated it, louder this time. “No.”

  “Why? Why do you have those? What are you doing right now?” Angel’s voice became high-pitched and reedy, I could tell she was in the throes of panic, but I couldn’t have any sympathy yet. Not when I knew what I knew, after fifteen years of not knowing anything at all.

  “Samantha Ice,” I said, picking up volume one and thumbing through the pages so they made a nice zipping noise between my hands. Sort of like the sound of a deck of cards being shuffled.

  Zip Zip.

  “It took me a little while to figure it out, but honestly it should have come to me right away. We used to watch those reruns of Who’s the Boss, and you always loved that Alyssa Milano’s character was named Sam. You even tried to get your parents to change your name when we were in middle school. Thought you were much more of a Sam than an Angel. I disagree.” Angel had her fists clenched together so tightly I was sure her nails were going to carve into her skin and drops of blood would come sliding out through the cracks, but they didn’t, so I kept talking.

  “Ice is for those little chocolate cubes in the blue and white foil wrapping that we used to get at the gas station when I filled up my car on the way to school in the morning. They were in a little bucket on the counter by the lottery machine and you always bought four. Two for you and two for me. Very clever, Angel.”

  It was me saying her name that spurred her into action. I was standing in between Angel and the apartment door, but I could see the wheels turning, I could see the moment in her eyes when she completely snapped and made the decision to flee. There was nowhere to go and I wouldn’t let her hide. Desperation made her fast, though, and she made it down the hall to her bedroom before I could catch the door shutting in my face so quickly, I felt the breeze brush my nose before I heard the lock click.

  “Go away.” She was sobbing now, and the sound of it scraped at my insides, tearing my flesh from my bones. I didn’t want to hurt her, but we had to do this. She had been hurting for so long. Me too, hurting from the not knowing, and now I knew. This had to happen.

  “I don’t want this,” she continued, pounding her fist on the closed door for emphasis. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  “That’s too bad, Angel,” I said as I slid slowly to the floor and leaned my back against the door. “Because I am going to talk about this with you.” Then I opened book one to the page that I had previously marked with a bright yellow sticky note and began to read out loud.

  I had been so excited to get the part of Mabel in our school’s production of Pirates of Penzance. It was my first female lead, and it was a big one. I was more of a mezzo-soprano than a true soprano, but the director must have seen something in me that fit the part because I beat out Jessica Colby for the lead, and she had been taking voice lessons since she was ten. I think she might hate me a little bit now but that’s okay. I’m used to other girls hating me.

  One of the reasons for that was in the audience tonight, probably waiting for the show to end so he can meet me backstage with a bouquet of pink roses, which he knows are my favorite. Gavin is my best friend. I wish I could be more than that, but if that is what I am allowed in this world, I’ll take it. He knows how hard I’ve been practicing, he’s had to sit through my fumbling and screwing up and sore throats until I thought my lungs were bleeding. He knows how important tonight is, opening night. So I know he’ll be here.

  And he was there. Waiting in the auditorium after the show along with his date, Kathy Dillman. Of all the girls that had a thing for Gavin, I wished he wouldn’t have picked her. She was one of the ringleaders of “girls who thought I had no business being close to Gavin Ainsley” and had an especially mean streak running through her. I never told Gavin about the nasty shit they used to do to me, to pound the message that I needed to learn my place into my brain, because he would just feel sorry for me, and what good would that do? I didn’t need Gavin to feel sorry for me, or feel like he needed to protect me. I just needed him to stay by my side and be my friend. No one knew me like Gavin did, and I trusted no one as much as I trusted him. Even if I had to watch him grow up and marry a bitch like Kathy Dillman. It wouldn’t be her, though. Gavin’s relationships were about as deep as a kiddie pool, but probably someone like her.

  We would always be friends, and we would always be there for each other. And even though he brought a date with him, he was still there supporting me on my opening night. But he wasn’t carrying any pink roses, which was weird. He knew how much I liked them, and Gavin always gave in to the things I wanted, because I think he needed a little sister to spoil. I liked being spoiled, so I let him.

  It took me a minute to see, because there were a lot of people in the auditorium and I had snuck in through the side door to avoid getting squashed by the crowd. It was just pure luck that brought me in directly behind them, and I happened to notice the bundle of pink roses that Kathy was holding down at her side, like she had picked a newspaper out of a puddle and was carrying it upside down so she didn’t get her hands wet. Why was she holding my roses? I tried not to think such petty thoughts, but I couldn’t help it. She was a super bitch and I really didn’t like her, even if Gavin did.

  Gavin was craning his neck to look over the heads of everyone that had filed into the auditorium. I knew he was looking for me, and I was about a foot away from grabbing the back of his jacket to let him know I was behind him when Kathy opened her mouth and destroyed everything.

  “Okay, I sat through that stupid show, can we go now?” she huffed, shifting her weight from one foot to the other like an impatient princess. “Do we really have to stay to see her? You see her all the time and you promised to take me out after this. Hey, Gavin, I’m talking to you.” She pulled on his shirtsleeve to get his attention and he looked down at her briefly, and then returned to scanning the room.

  “What? Yes, I said I would take you out after the show, just give me a minute. I want to congratulation Delia and then we can go.” I was right behind them but they didn’t know, and I wasn’t in a hurry to tell them ei
ther, just so I could watch them rush off on their date.

  “Really, Gavin, I don’t know why you spoil her so much. She’s not your girlfriend, you aren’t even dating, although, what anyone would see in her any way, I wouldn’t know. She’s so…dumpy. You don’t have to feel sorry for her just because her mom works for your dad. She’s not your pet project, and if you keep slumming around with her she’s only going to drag you down.”

  She pulled his sleeve again and Gavin finally looked at her, really looked at her. I stood there, my mouth open in shock. She had spoken to me like this before. All of Gavin’s old girlfriends, as well as some girls that were just part of his unofficial fan club did, but this was the first time I had ever heard anyone say such things in Gavin’s presence. She had just put the nail in the coffin of any relationship those two might have had. There was no way Gavin was going to be cool with anyone talking about me like that. If someone spoke about him to me like that, I would have lost my shit. I waited for him to snap at her, to set her straight, but that didn’t happen.

  Gavin just looked at her for a second, and then he laughed, the sound cutting straight through the middle of my body, the center of my heart. A clean cut that I almost didn’t feel until he planted a kiss on her, the kind of kiss that has a girl leaning up onto her tiptoes to get closer. I would have done anything to have Gavin kiss me like that just once. Instead, it was Kathy Dillman on her tiptoes, holding my favorite pink roses. And it was me that backed out of the auditorium, through the side door and out into the parking lot, still wearing my peasant blouse and skirt from the play. I ran the entire four miles home, something I would have never done without the fuel of my agony burning through me. No one was home. I was alone, and for that I was glad. I was glad I didn’t have to explain to anyone why I was crying so hard I threw up. Why I screamed the agony out into my pillow, and how the sobbing was so bad and so violent, that I broke a ton of capillaries in my face, and had to use extra thick makeup to cover it up for the next two nights the play ran.

  I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it, considering the closest person in the world to me was Gavin himself. I couldn’t even talk to my mom about it because there was no way she would be able to keep it to herself. She worked for Gavin’s dad and was best friends with his mom. There was a zero percent chance she would keep it a secret, and if that were the case, then Gavin would end up finding out. Finding out everything. There was no way. I just had to figure out a way to handle it. I couldn’t trust myself to be around him, to even see or speak to him until I could swallow this down. He must have really liked Kathy Dillman, because I knew deep down he didn’t agree with her. I knew he didn’t think the things she said were true, I knew him better than that.

  I just had to take some time to myself, like I always did when one of his girls did something to hurt me. I would need to rebuild myself and get stronger before I could go back to being Gavin’s best friend. It would be okay, it would just take me a little longer this time. We would be okay, we would be fine.

  It wouldn’t be okay, though, and it would take me a lot longer than I thought before I could even pretend to be fine again. Gavin graduated from high school two months later. As soon as he turned eighteen in June he joined the army and went far away. It caused a big scandal in his family because he was supposed to go to an Ivy League school and get a stellar education so he could take over the family business. I knew he was struggling with that, but it must have worked out in the end. He didn’t take over the family business, but from what I understand, as an adult he is doing quite well for himself. He turned into super GI Joe and travels around the world, kicking ass and rescuing princesses. That sounds pretty cool. If that’s what he wanted, I could probably be happy for him. I just wish it didn’t feel like my insides were being torn apart, even all these years later, just hearing his name.

  22

  Angel

  It wasn’t the words that tore me to pieces and had me sagging against the door with my hand over my mouth to stifle the sobs. I had started writing that first book when I was nineteen and struggling through classes at my performing arts college. My drama professor told me I had a problem syncing with the emotions of my characters, so he advised me to keep a journal. Apparently writing out my feelings was supposed to be cathartic or some shit, but all it did was make me realize how pathetic I had been as a teenager, so I added some other things to spice it up, and Delia Dates was born.

  Everything in that book was fiction. I didn’t have much in the way of human connections when I was college. I don’t know why. I guess I just didn’t see the point in investing that much of myself into something that was going to be so fleeting. Being nice didn’t cost anything, and I could be friendly with a lot of people, but I didn’t really feel the need to go any deeper than that. Of course, I went out and I dated, and I did take some of those experiences and turn them into Delia’s, but every single word in my books was fiction—except for that first bit.

  Those words Gabe read aloud through the door were the catalyst that got me writing, and in doing so, found the thing I was really good at. I sucked at acting, but music and the written word—those were my jam. I didn’t publish volume one until I was out of school and still living in California, but it didn’t take long for book two and three to follow. Writing was something I could do no matter where I was, and before long I had thrown myself into it with reckless abandon.

  So it wasn’t the words that had me shivering and shaking on my side of the door, thinking my legs weren’t going to be able to hold me up much longer. No, it was the way Gabe’s voice had cracked and almost given out several times while he had been reading. It was the raw emotion and pain I could hear coming through the door that cut me like a knife. The emotions I had tried so hard to bury deep inside of me oozing sluggishly through the open wound.

  I never wanted Gabe to hurt. I had never even wanted him to know.

  “Can you please stop now?” I whispered the words because I couldn’t make my voice sound any louder. I was surprised I was able to get that much out, but he heard me through the paper thin hollow wood of the door anyway.

  “I’ve already read the first five books. They are hysterical, for the most part, and I can totally hear you saying the words as I read them in my head. All except for that first part of that first book, when we find out what happened to Delia to essentially fuck her up from having any meaningful relationships in the future. Angel, open the door.”

  “I don’t want to.” I really, really didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to look at me, to judge me, to see my face destroyed by the tears I hadn’t cried since that night when I decided I hated pink roses.

  “Angel, open this door or I will rip it off its fucking hinges, I swear to God. Please.” I didn’t want to test him, he sounded serious. Steeling myself against the agony of the eye contact, I slowly unlocked the door. Stepping back I swung it open to find Gabe standing there, book in his hands, looking down at me. My legs almost did give out on me then, and I had to back up and sit on the edge of my bed or I was going to fall down.

  A crying man was my kryptonite.

  There were no actual tears, no, I am sure Gabe was much too manly for that. But his eyes were red and bloodshot anyway, and they had a glassy sheen to them that breathed of leaking emotion.

  I wanted to vomit.

  “Those books are fiction, Gabe.” Most of them anyway.

  “Oh, they would have to be,” Gabe said conversationally as he walked a little farther into the bedroom, eating up my personal space and forcing me to look up at him with his hand on my chin. “Some of the shit that happens to this chick is over the top. Works well with the continuation of the series, though. But let me ask you this…who’s Gavin Ainsley?”

  I’m already sitting here fucking destroyed, Gabe, don’t make me say it.

  “You know,” I whispered, trying to break eye contact but his hand under my chin wouldn’t budge, and I was so goddamn angry with him for making me do this I alm
ost couldn’t see straight.

  “Oh, I have an idea, Angel, but I want to hear you say it.” He looked down at me, mouth hard, expression in his eyes even harder.

  Oh, fuck this.

  I finally found my voice. “Fine, Goddamnit, you want to know so badly? It’s YOU. Gavin Ainsley is you, and Kathy Dillman is Lila Dickerson, and I’m Delia, or at least, I was in the beginning. All of the rest of my books are completely made up because I am apparently an emotionally stunted fuck up. Is that what you wanted me to say? I’m sorry I wrote about you to come to some kind of closure over something that happened when we are kids. I’m sorry, okay? Are you fucking happy now?” I screamed as I stood and shoved him in the chest. Hard. I was shocked I had even done such a thing, put my hands on anyone in anger, and I immediately regretted it. Gabe hadn’t even moved, though. It had been like shoving against a wall. Didn’t do anything but hurt my wrists a bit.

  Gabe flexed his hands a little and looked like he wanted to reach out for me, but he changed his mind and folded his arms across his chest instead. “No, I’m not happy. I’m not happy at all, and I think you are misunderstanding something very important. I’m not pissed because you wrote a book, Angel. You make your money any way you want to. I do. I’m a grown ass man and no one is going to tell me what I can and can’t do. No, Angel, you are completely missing the point about why I’m upset.”

  Gabe rolled his shoulders and lifted his head to the ceiling like he was praying for patience, and maybe he was, because he was clearly still mad at me. When he lowered his head to look at me again, there was something else in his still red-rimmed eyes. Something besides anger, and it twisted my guts to see it because I knew I was the one who put it there. He was hurt.