Breaking Walls

by Tracie Puckett

  The room grew silent, and both Mr. Davies and Lashell looked as surprised as the rest of us. Obviously Gabe’s decision wasn’t something they’d discussed and agreed on in the privacy of the classroom before coming in to speak to us. I sensed that they might’ve agreed on sitting us down, talking to us, encouraging better behavior, but Gabe’s decision to cut the district from the program shocked the other two adults as much as it shocked the eleven students.

  “I’m not the least bit thrilled that I had to drive all the way down here today to tell you to act civilized to one another,” he continued, and there wasn’t an eye in the room that wasn’t staring straight at him. “You want to be part of this group? You want to prove you care about something? Great. Start caring about each other, because at this point, if you don’t, you’re done. Okay?”

  When no one said anything or moved even a muscle, Mr. Davies turned to look at us one last time. “If you guys don’t have anything to say or add, then . . . you’re dismissed?”

  Gabe nodded.

  “Thank you for your time and attention,” Lashell said, almost apologetically. “We’re truly sorry for any disruptions this impromptu meeting may have caused in your schedules.”

  “Just . . . try to work together, guys,” Mr. Davies added as everyone gathered their things to leave. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was all so strange. I couldn’t get the vision of Gabe’s odd behavior out of my head. Was it my fault? Was he acting so strangely at the meeting because of how horribly I’d treated him on Friday? He’d never responded to my apology text, so I had no way of knowing whether or not his anger had anything or everything to do with how we’d left things. Was he mad that I hadn’t treated him better? I wouldn’t blame him if he was.

  Obviously Lashell knew what was going on. She was trying to keep him in check, but his frustration—whatever it stemmed from—dominated his senses.

  Regardless, I accepted that I might never know. After the mandatory meeting in the gym I knew the time had come. Tomorrow was the day. I needed to put the finishing touches on my speech and prepare exactly what I was going to say when I faced my RI leaders. While I felt good about the points I’d made in favor of my decision, I still was uncertain about one, major thing: I didn’t know who to talk to. I hadn’t gotten to know Mr. Davies too well, and speaking to Gabe wasn’t an option. Lashell, I knew for a fact, would probably argue that it wasn’t my best idea.

  But it was. I just had to fight to make them see it.

  I finished my shift at the bakery at eight, and then I swung over to my favorite diner for a late-night sundae pick-me-up. I sent a text to Dad to let him know I’d be late, and then I dug my notebook out of my backpack and got to work. I needed to focus on every possible angle. What would they want to know?

  Who, what, when, where, why? How will it impact the school? The team? The community? Why should Lashell, Gabe, and Mr. Davies agree that this is the best possible course of action?

  I wasn’t going to let them dismiss it so easily. After an hour of working, the hazy answers started to become a little clearer.

  The waitresses and bussers started wiping down the tables and flipping off the kitchen lights just after ten, and it wasn’t until then that I realized I’d overstayed my welcome. I mumbled a quick apology, gathered up my things, left some money on the table, and vacated the building. I slid out the door, only to hear the deadbolt lock swiftly behind me as I hit the sidewalk.

  I’d gotten so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn’t even realized the diner had cleared out. Time had gotten away from me.

  Out on the dark sidewalk, I glanced down each side of the street, looking for the car, only to remember that I hadn’t driven. Right. Georgia had hung around and dropped me off at work after the RI meeting, and I walked over to the diner after my shift. I’d fated myself to walk the couple of blocks home in the pitch dark.

  I let go of a heavy sigh.

  If I had to walk home, and I had to do so in the dark, then I knew there was only one thing that was going to comfort me. It wasn’t a flash light or even a can of pepper spray—I didn’t have either of those on hand. But what I had buried beneath my wallet was so much more valuable, so much more comforting than a light source or a weapon.

  I dipped into my purse and dug out the small digital recorder and headphones. Slipping the buds into my ears, I hit the play button, trying to date myself back to that one preserved moment of time I had with Gabe—back when things weren’t so hostile, so complicated, so confusing.

  “You never answered my question back at the diner,” he said, his recorded voice buzzing through my ears. I closed my eyes for only a second and savored the sweetness in his friendly tone.

  “And what question was that?”

  “What’s with the—”

  “Chip on my shoulder?”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a pause, and again, I was thinking. I was there again, back in that moment with him.

  “Mandy?”

  That was new.

  I looked down to the recorder.

  “Mandy, wait up.”

  I stopped at the curb, lifted the recorder, and examined it closely. It was definitely Gabe’s voice, but it wasn’t coming from the headphones.

  A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jerked back, jumping into the empty street. The buds ripped from my ears, and the recorder crashed to the ground. Smashed. To pieces.

  My hand fell to my chest as I gasped to catch my breath. I looked back to Gabe, and then my gaze fell to the ground.

  “No,” I whimpered, and it was only then that he noticed what lay at our feet.

  “Oh, Mandy, I’m sorry,” he said, bending down to pick up the recorder. It was gone, that one little memento I had of our time together. Gone. He knelt to the ground and plucked the tiny pieces from the pavement. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to…I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “But…it was…,” I stared at the busted pieces in his palm. “It was kind of…irreplaceable.” And I knew as soon as I said it, I’d chosen the wrong words. Gabe’s expression only grew grimmer. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . It’s okay. It was just a thing. It’s…it’s not a big deal.”

  He stood up, holding my gaze. He didn’t believe me. He knew, whatever it was that I’d just lost, was a very big deal.

  “Do you mind?” he asked, opening his hand to show me the pieces. “I can try to fix it.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. It was a lost cause. “You can just toss it.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, dumping the pieces into his coat pocket. “I’ll do that.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to meet his stare, so I looked around the quiet, dark streets of Sugar Creek instead. Every shop was closed, every door was locked. It was well after ten o’clock, and blinds were drawn on the windows of most all of the houses and businesses on Main Street. And yet there he stood.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked, glancing around the faintly-lit street again.

  “Looking for you.”

  “Oh.” Not the answer I’d expected. “Why were you looking for me? How did you know I was—”

  “I was informed not to share the source of that information.”

  “Bailey,” I rolled my eyes, and he nodded.

  “Are you mad?”

  “No,” I said, trying to smile as earnestly as I could. I was still trying to adjust to the whole idea of his friendship with my sister, but I knew it was something I had to accept. Sometimes we didn’t get to choose who we were drawn to—romantically or not. “Did you need something?” I looked down to my watch. “It’s awful late for you to just stop by to track me down.”

  “I never left town after the meeting today. I visited with Lashell for a while, and then stopped by to see . . . someone. ” His brow creased.

  “You can just say Bailey.”

  “Okay, yeah,” he said. “Anyway, she said you were at the diner, so I h
eaded over, but you were concentrating pretty hard on something. I didn’t want to bother you. I grabbed a cup of coffee and waited for you to take a break, but you just kept at it.”

  “You could’ve come over. It was just RI stuff,” I said, thinking of my notebook full of scribbles. I was ready to mention it. I was as prepared as I was ever going to be. Maybe I should just tell him now and get it out of the way.

  “So . . . ” Gabe blew a long breath of air through his lips. We kept standing there, halted firmly in the place where he’d stopped me outside the diner. “Will you walk with me?”

  “Will I walk with you?”

  “Yeah,” he nodded.

  “Is that your go-to seduction move or something?” I asked, glancing up at him. If I counted correctly, this was the third time he’d asked me to go for a walk in a matter of weeks, and no one else I knew had ever asked me once. I couldn’t help poking fun at that. Besides, after the anger I’d seen in his eyes earlier at school, all I really wanted was to make him smile.

  “Seduction?” The faintest grin pulled at the edge of his lip. “How did you come up with that?”

  “Oh, you know?” I shrugged. “You see a girl in distress, and you think ah, here’s an opportunity. So you take her for a walk, talk her through her problems, make her feel comfortable, get her guard down. And then you strike. Bam!”

  “Geesh, Mandy,” he rubbed the back of his neck. Even in the dark, I could see his cheeks flush the faintest shade of pink. “I just wanted to take a walk. No hidden agenda.”

  “Ah, well, a girl can still dream.” His blue eyes widened, and his mouth hung open. I let him stare at me that way for a moment, deliberately taking my time before I said, “Oh, I’m kidding. Come on, let’s go.”

  And so we started walking, stirring up the memories of the night we’d first walked the streets of Sugar Creek. It had been a wonderful and terrifying night, all wrapped into one. He’d shown up at the bakery to check on me after a huge fight with Dad, and I somehow ended up dumping a lifetime of heartache and pain onto his shoulders.

  I hoped tonight wouldn’t be the same. So far we were off to a good start, but I hoped that whatever it was that had brought him to track me down, whatever it was that he had to say, wouldn’t lead to something awful and horrible. I didn’t want to argue with him. Not again. Not after Friday night.

  “You know what?” he asked, and the way he said it, he might as well have said to hell with it! “It has nothing to do with seduction.”

  “Oh, Gabe, lighten up. It was just a joke.”

  “I know,” he said. “But still. I like taking walks. I’m fortunate enough to have two working legs, aren’t I? So why not use them as often as I can?”

  “Well, well…Gabriel Raddick,” I said, throwing him a sideways glance. “You might’ve just told me more about yourself in those few sentences than you have in the past four weeks.” When he didn’t say anything, I turned to him and asked, “What else do you like? Outside of RI, what makes you happiest?”

  The question seemed harmless enough, and I assumed he wouldn’t answer if he didn’t want to. At some point, he’d get to the reason he’d hunted me down. But for now, and until then, I was going to milk this time for all it was worth. I could at least hope he’d share something, but I didn’t count on it, not after—

  “I like waking up before sunrise and eating cold pizza for breakfast,” he said, and then I stumbled over my feet and nearly lost my balance. While I would normally cringe at the thought of doing either of the things, I was still too shocked to respond. I was trying to find my center and put one foot in front of the other. In a matter of seconds, I learned two things—two tiny, minuscule things about him, and I already felt like I knew him better. I couldn’t believe how easily he’d given that up, and I didn’t even have to badger him. “I love the smell of popcorn, but I hate the taste.”

  “I’m the same with coffee.”

  “Oh! All day, every day, coffee’s a must.”

  “Yeah, that one’s no secret.”

  “And I like books,” he said proudly. “Old, dusty, first editions of just about anything.”

  “Wait. Do you like reading them or collecting them?”

  “Both,” he said. “You know that musty, vanilla smell old books have?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love that.”

  “Alrighty then,” I said, trying to hide my smirk.

  “You’re laughing at me now?”

  “Only a little,” I promised. “I’ve just…I’ve never met a man who was comfortable admitting that he loves the smell of books.”

  “Old books.” He eyed me for a second, and even though I couldn’t see his expression, I sensed he was gearing up to ask, “What about you? Outside of school and work, writing, and RI, what makes you happiest?”

  “My friends,” I said without pause. “Georgia, Jones, Fletcher…they’re my only shred of sanity right now. All thanks to you.”

  “Thanks to me?”

  “I would’ve never opened up to them,” I said. “Not before I met you. That’s one thing I’ll always be thankful for. I hope you know that.”

  And after a faint smile, he asked, “Anything else?”

  “Let’s see,” I said, doing my best not to say the most obvious thing: you, Gabe, you make me happiest. “I thoroughly enjoy waking up after sunrise, only eating hot pizza at dinnertime, and movies are only good if you’re stuffing your face with popcorn while you watch them.”

  “Are you trying to scare me off?”

  “No,” I shook my head. “No, I’ve found that I have a natural talent for doing that even when I don’t try.”

  He half-laughed. We knew it was true. I had this incredible ability to say the wrong things at the wrong times, either pushing him back or scaring him away.

  “So let me ask, are you in distress?”

  “Meaning . . . ”

  “You wanted to know if that was some kind of move back there— seeing a girl in distress and asking her to take a walk,” he said. “Naturally I assume that means you’re— ”

  “No,” I said. “No, I’m okay.”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Lie to me?”

  “Careful,” I said, staring up at him. “I could accuse you of doing the same thing.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair, though, would it?” he asked. “I’ve never been anything but honest with you, Mandy.” Right. “Listen, before this turns into another argument, let me get one thing out of the way; I only came by tonight because I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

  “You want a favor?”

  “Yes,” he said, and then he stopped walking. I did, too, and then I turned to face him.

  “What?”

  “I want you to give your sister a break,” he said. “Cut her some slack. I shouldn’t have told her the things I did, and she didn’t deserve to hear it, let alone be burdened by the secrecy. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I dropped a lot of unnecessary stuff on her shoulders.”

  “Oh.”

  “She mentioned you’re not talking to her, that you haven’t spoken a word to her in a week.” True. “Mandy, listen,” he said, grabbing both of my arms and giving them a gentle squeeze. My skin tingled under his hold, even beneath my jacket and sweater. He leaned down to my eye level and held my stare. “I’m on the receiving end of a six-year silent treatment from my mom. And let me tell you something: there is nothing in this world worse than having someone you love turn a blind eye to your advances or refuse to speak to you. It’s heartbreaking. It’s devastating knowing that you hurt them, and yet they get some kind of sick humor out of watching you beg, hope, and plead.” My stomach knotted. I’d gotten my share of kicks out of torturing Dad and Bailey, and I’d never felt truly guilty until that moment. “Silent treatments are an effective weapon, I’ll promise you that. They could almost kill a person.” His hands slowly fell down my arms and away from my body. His arms hung
loose at his sides as he slowly closed his eyes. One deep breath in, and one long exhale out. That’s all it took before he continued, “Mandy, I know you’re hurt, and I’m sorry. But don’t be angry with Bailey for something I did. If you’re going to be mad, be mad at me. It was my fault.”

  “That’s very noble of you to fall on the sword and take the blame, Gabe,” I said, looking down to our feet. “But you’re a little too late.”

  “I am?”

  “I’m not mad at my sister.”

  “Are you sure? Because she seems to think— ”

  “I’m not mad at my sister,” I said again, and this time I met his eyes. “She just…doesn’t know it yet. I didn’t know it until a couple of days ago, and I just…I haven’t found the right moment to talk to her yet.”

  “Oh,” he said, nodding. “Yeah, okay.”

  “And I’m not mad at you, either, for what it’s worth,” I said. “I shouldn’t have expected—”

  “It’s okay, really—”

  “No, it’s not okay. I know firsthand how excruciating it is living under a microscope. I’ve been doing it ever since the park re-opening. Everyone’s picking at me and judging me and making wild assumptions. And while the repercussions of what I did have been especially difficult for me, I never thought about how hard it must be for you. I kinda dumped this whole thing in your lap, and then I was stupid enough to accuse you for running away for other reasons.”

  “Yeah, but you weren’t entirely wrong,” he said. “I did run. And for someone with a busted leg and very little momentum, I ran a lot faster and farther than I ever thought I could.”

  We both smiled.

  I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. I wasn’t going to stand there and plead with him to stop running away from me, so I prayed that’s not what he was after. After how much Georgia, Bailey, and Carla had stressed my selfishness, there was no way in the world I was going to stand there and expect anything more from Gabe. It was up to him now.