by Lane Hart
I’m on edge all day, thinking about Gabrielle and wondering how things are going at school.
And for the first time, I actually wish I could go too like a regular teenager. That way I could be there to make sure no one fucks with her.
At the gym, I keep an eye out for the piece of shit who sold his sister. It doesn’t take long to spot him in the boxing ring, sparring with Vaughan, one of the coaches. Robbie’s hair is a little darker blond than his sister’s but there’s certainly a resemblance. He’s taller than I am by several inches and probably has thirty or forty pounds on me. I may not be able to take him one on one right now, but someday I’m gonna kick his ass for sentencing his sister to this god-awful life.
After I finish weightlifting, I pull up my black hoodie and start in the direction of the campus to check on her. But just a block from the building, I talk myself out of it.
The heat is still on me because of the fire, so it’s not worth risking someone recognizing me from the news. At the gym, I’m safe because they’re all Scarfone’s guys who would never rat, but anywhere else and I could be spotted, setting myself up for a world of trouble.
Back at the house, I try to sit down in the den and draw. Unlike most days when the dark images are trying to fight their way out of my head and onto the page, today I’m coming up empty.
Well, not exactly empty.
There’s one thing that I can’t get out of my head, so eventually, I give in and sketch her, remembering in detail the heart shape of her face, the slope of her feminine nose, the way her pink bottom lip is fuller than the top.
Usually, I only draw in black and white, but for Gabby, I need colored pencils to do her justice. That’s the only way to capture how beautiful and angelic she is with her pale blonde hair, dark lashes, and eyebrows that make her bright cerulean eyes stand out even more…
Fuck.
Once the picture is finished, I look down at it and feel like the biggest pussy on the planet for drawing her. What if Ivan or Knox find my notebook and see this shit? I’d be the laughing stock at the gym with all the guys, big ass dudes I’ll have to fight in just a few years.
Even though it pains me to do it, I rip the thick sheet of paper out of the notebook and start shredding it into tiny pieces before I go dump them in the kitchen trashcan.
Bracing my palms on the counter, I close my eyes and hang my head to try and rid myself of this stupid, juvenile obsession with a girl I just met yesterday. It’s so damn ridiculous that I’m ashamed of myself for how I’ve been thinking about her, especially the filthy fantasies I woke up to this morning and thought about in the shower when I was jerking off.
Gabrielle is certainly not the first girl I’ve thought was sexy and wanted to fuck, but thinking about her that way just seems wrong. She’s not much younger than me but she’s one hundred percent innocent, and I’m…a murderer who doesn’t deserve to lay a hand on her. I shouldn’t have slept in her bed. I’m so fucked up it could rub off on her, and she’s so bright and sweet that she doesn’t deserve to have even a speck of my darkness tainting her.
…
Gabby
This school is…dangerous.
I had no idea how calm and quiet the high school in my hometown was until today.
During my American History class, I was asked to pass some sort of white powder in a baggie to the girl sitting behind me. At lunch, I sat at the end of a table with a group of kids, and even four chairs down I could smell the alcohol from their “water” bottles.
And at the end of the day, just when I’m tossing my Algebra textbook in my locker, a fight breaks out behind me between two big guys.
One of them slams into my back, causing my forehead to crash into the edge of my open locker door, leaving me with one hell of a headache and a big knot.
“Whoa!” Knox says when I walk up to meet him and Ivan on the sidewalk out front when I’m able to escape the chaos in the building. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Ugh,” I groan, reaching up to brush my fingers over the growing egg that’s pounding with every beat of my heart. “Some guys were fighting in the hallway, and I ended up becoming collateral damage,” I explain.
“Who was it?” Ivan asks, his hazel eyes cutting over to the school and his fists clenched at his sides.
“No clue. Haven’t learned everyone’s name yet,” I tell him. “Anyway, it was an accident. Let’s just go home.”
Home.
Am I already referring to that house as a home?
That’s ridiculous.
Who knows? If we can’t go back to Columbia, maybe in a week or so Robbie will have a job and be able to afford for us to get a place of our own here in town.
“Otherwise, how was your first day?” Knox asks as the three of us start walking, again with me in the middle.
“It was…different,” I answer. “Nothing like my previous school, or even the one I went to across town for a few weeks.”
“I bet not. It’s a rough place, but you’ll get used to it,” Knox says. “At least the teachers are pretty lenient. Not much time to teach shit when they’re constantly dealing with a bunch of fools.”
“Guess there’s that,” I reply with a smile.
“Come on, we’ll go in the back way. Mrs. Engle usually has cookies ready for us when we get home before we head to the gym,” Knox tells me over his shoulder as he leads the way to the back door. I can smell the sugar cookies as soon as he opens it.
“Fuck yes,” Knox says, seeing the tray piled high with cookies on the dining table.
Cain comes into the kitchen before I can grab one. “What the fuck happened to her?” he shouts.
“Some guys were fighting and bumped into me,” I tell him as he comes closer to look at my head. “It’s no biggie.”
“Did you kick their asses?” Cain asks, turning to Knox and Ivan, who are unable to answer because their mouths are both full of cookies.
Knox shakes his head until he swallows, then he shrugs. “Don’t know who it was.”
“Then you find the fuck out!” Cain yells at him before he storms over and bursts out the back door.
“Fuck,” Ivan mutters around his cookie.
“We better go with him,” Knox says, grabbing two more cookies. “Stay here. We’ll be back soon,” he tells me before he and Ivan jog out the back door.
Chapter Five
Cain
“Dude, I don’t know why you’re a hermit, but I doubt kicking someone’s ass in the middle of the afternoon will help your situation,” Knox rambles as I storm toward the school.
“Won’t take long, and you can do the talking to figure out who it was,” I tell him, pulling my hoodie up to cover some of my face.
“And then you’re gonna kick their ass?” he asks.
“Fuck yes.”
“It was an accident,” Knox says.
“Yeah, because the assholes didn’t take that shit outside,” I tell him, fuming because of that fucking huge red welt on Gabrielle’s gorgeous face. She was perfect and innocent, and they hurt her.
It takes a few minutes for Knox to find an eyewitness, but he finally gets the names of the two brawlers, along with their home addresses.
The three of us decide it’s probably best to wait until dark before we show up at their houses and give them a beat down.
“I can’t believe you let someone touch her on the first day!” I tell them as we sit on the rail of the bridge near fuck face number one’s house.
“Look, bro, we had classes and shit of our own. We can’t follow her around like a shadow every second of the day,” Knox replies. “And now my and Ivan’s asses are sitting here instead of working out, so Vaughan’s gonna chew us out tomorrow.”
“Well, these fuckers need to know they better stay the hell away from Gabrielle,” I say as I eye the apartment building off in the distance.
“Damn, you really wanna hit that, don’t you?” Knox asks.
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap throu
gh gritted teeth before I shove his shoulder so hard he has to jump down onto the road.
“Hey, I don’t blame you,” he says, looking up at me with palms out in surrender. “I wouldn’t turn down a chance to sleep with her either.”
“I didn’t –” I start to say but Ivan interrupts from beside me.
“Yes, you did,” he says with a chuckle. “Saw you leaving her room this morning.”
“Better go by planned parenthood and stock up on condoms before we head back tonight,” Knox suggests.
“I’m not gonna fuck her,” I tell him.
“Yeah, you are,” both dickheads say simultaneously.
“You’re tracking down two dudes to whoop their asses for giving the girl you just met yesterday a bruise on accident. And she wanted you to sleep in her bed last night,” Knox responds. “That’s got one-way ticket to Bone Town written all over it.”
“Whatever,” I grumble. “You two just need to worry about making sure no one touches her at school or I’ll kick your asses.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” Knox replies, straightening and giving me a military salute that makes me roll my eyes.
The guys are wrong, because no matter how much I want Gabrielle, that’s a line I refuse to cross. Yeah, I may want to fuck her, and I bet it would be fucking amazing, but I could still get picked up by the police any day now and then everything would go to hell.
I can’t take the risk of starting something with her and then getting locked up, but I don’t think I’ll ever be strong enough to refuse to sleep in her bed with her.
A few minutes later, the three of us go up and knock on an apartment door. When the dickhead answers, I knock his lights out before he knows what hit him. At the second house, the bastard tries to run, so I tackle him on his living room floor.
“What’s your problem?” the fucker asks. “I ain’t got any money or dope.”
“You got into a fight at school today,” I tell him as I dig my knee into his back and squeeze his neck. “And because you were both being dumbasses, you hurt an innocent girl. This is your punishment.”
Turning the asshole over, I pummel him with both fists, fucking up his face like he marked Gabrielle’s pretty one. Not that it made her less beautiful, I just can’t stand to see anyone so gentle and sweet get hurt.
“That’s enough, man,” Knox says as he pulls on my shoulder to make me stop hitting the guy sprawled and bloody on the floor.
He’s right. I’ve made the fucker pay, so hopefully he’ll think twice before swinging punches with women around. I wish someone would have taught my mom’s boyfriend that lesson in life…
“Come on, let’s go,” Knox says when I get to my feet again.
On the short walk home, I flex both of my hands and wince at the sting from my bleeding, busted knuckles. Tomorrow, they’ll probably be so swollen I won’t be able to hold a pencil to draw, but it’s worth it to teach the assholes a lesson tonight.
The guys and I are a block away from the house when, from the corner of my eye, I spot a patch of something else crimson, rare and beautiful this time of year, standing out underneath the street lights.
“You guys go on, I’ll be right there,” I tell Ivan and Knox because I don’t need any more of their ribbing for shit tonight.
“Hurry up,” Knox mutters before they go on ahead of me and I pull out my pocket knife.
…
Gabby
After icing my swollen noggin for a while, it seems to have stopped growing. In the upstairs bathroom, I turn my head to the side to examine it in the mirror and realize it’s now turning shades of blue, which is even more hideous. Oh well, at least it’ll be gone in a few days.
I decide to go ahead and change into my pajamas since it’s getting late. The guys still aren’t back yet after Cain stormed out earlier, which sucks because it meant I was alone in the house with a sleeping Mrs. Engle all afternoon. She must have sensed that the guys were gonna be out for a while, because she didn’t bother making dinner and just gave me a few twenties and told me to call in a pizza. I ordered several, figuring the guys would be hungry whenever they got home.
Back in the bedroom, I tidy up my dirty clothes, dumping them into the hamper Mrs. Engle put in the closet for me, then I turn off the light and pull back the covers to climb in bed. My head hits the pillow before I smell it — flowers.
“What the –” Bolting up from the mattress, I sit up and feel around the pillowcase. Finally, my fingertips come across the long, smooth stem and I lift the flower up to my nose to inhale a deep breath of the fresh scent. An enormous smile stretches across my face at the sweet gesture.
I hear Cain clear his throat before he speaks, nothing more than a dark shadow in the doorway, but I’m certain it’s him. “Are you okay? I mean, I didn’t know if…”
“Come in. I could use some company,” I tell him without hesitation. “The house has been lonely tonight.”
“Yeah, sorry,” he says as his voice gets closer.
“Where did you go?” I ask, but he stays silent, refusing to answer. “Thank you for the flower. A rose, right?” I ask since it’s too dark in my room to see it.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I cut off all the thorns.”
“I love flowers,” I tell him, taking another whiff of the bloom. “And roses are my favorite.”
“My mom liked flowers too, especially red roses,” Cain says, but he doesn’t add anything more or climb into bed.
I keep talking just to keep him from leaving because I’m too embarrassed to just ask him to sleep with me again tonight. “You know, I totally get why people take flowers to the hospital when a friend is sick, or to a funeral when a family member dies. That’s why I want to work in a flower shop, making beautiful arrangements and delivering them to see the smiles they put on people’s faces,” I admit to him, twirling the rose around in my fingers. “It’s not like flowers have magical healing abilities or anything, but they do help. No matter how bad things are, you can always look at the bright, colorful flowers you received from someone and know for certain that you have at least one person out there thinking about you.”
“Yeah, guess so,” Cain mumbles. “But flowers didn’t help my mom when she was in the hospital. She got sick, and then she, um, she died.”
“She did?” I ask, my heart breaking in half for him. “Is that how you ended up here?”
“I ran away,” he responds.
“Oh. I’m so sorry, Cain.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he mutters. “Well, goodnight, Gabrielle…”
“You can just call me Gabby,” I say. Before he can leave, I reach out blindly with my free hand to find his and stop him. He hisses at the contact.
“Sorry,” I tell him, realizing I must have hurt him.
When I start to pull away, though, he grabs my hand and squeezes it before he finally lets go and says, “Move over.”
Grinning even though he can’t see it, I scoot backward toward the wall to make room for him. Once he’s settled in on the pillow just inches away, I ask, “What happened to your hand?”
“I hit the guys who hurt you.”
“You did?” I say in surprise, not just because he hit them for me but because I don’t even know who they were.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “They deserved it.”
I could make the argument that they didn’t, that it was an accident, but I think it’s…sweet of him to stand up for me.
“I hate that you hurt yourself for me,” I tell him. Reaching for his hand that’s next to his face, I gently lift it and bring it to my lips to kiss it.
“It’ll heal,” he says like it’s no big deal.
“Thank you, Cain,” I say, before I release his hand and tuck mine underneath my cheek. “So, is that why you can’t go to school? Because you got into a fight with someone else who deserved it?” I guess, remembering the conversation with Knox and Ivan this morning.
“No.”
I wait for an explanation, but it never comes.
“You’re not gonna tell me what you did to get kicked out of school?”
“No,” he answers. “I’ve already told you more than I’ve ever told anyone.”
That makes me happy, even if he won’t answer more of my questions.
Certain from his tone that he won’t tell me any more, I say, “So, I guess we should get some sleep.”
“Yeah, we should. Good night, Gabby,” Cain replies.
“Night,” I say, and then I roll over so that my back is to his front, the rose still in my hand so that I can smell it all night.
Just as I had hoped, Cain moves closer until he’s pressed against my backside with an arm thrown around my waist. It doesn’t take long before I feel him get hard against my bottom. So I guess that means he must like the way my body feels. I try to get up the nerve to move his hand underneath my pajama top, but then he apologizes.
“Sorry,” he grumbles. “Just ignore that. It happens to every guy at night and in the mornings.”
“Oh,” I mutter in disappointment.
So, I guess I was wrong. He doesn’t want me that way. And now I really feel like an idiot for thinking he might.
…
Cain
The next few days Gabby begins to settle in like the rest of us. For the following nights, I don’t even try to sleep in my own bed. After I experienced it, the thought of not being next to Gabby’s warmth is unimaginable. And I really like being needed by someone for the very first time. Having that purpose fills me with something I’ve been missing my whole life.
By the end of her first week at the house, she has me trained like a puppy; and I wouldn’t have it any other way. She may have been sad because she missed her brother and she refused to give up on the idea of him coming to get her, but I prayed each night for the opposite. I wanted to keep her beside me for as long as I possibly could.
Even in twenty or thirty years from now, I’ll never forget the day Gabby walked through the front door of our home for orphans and misfits, and into my life. Her long, golden hair shined like a beacon, and then her blue eyes hit me with the force of a tidal wave. From that second I knew I would do anything for her.
