Healing Gabriel (BoyxBoy)

✣ Chapter Twenty-Four ✣

      His head shaking quickened. "I wasn't remembering anything, I just blanked out for a second. And no one said that, I just made it up. Leave it at that."

      But I wasn't going to. He was hiding something from me, and as his boyfriend I think I deserved to know. I hadn't pressured him in telling me about his intense flashbacks back in February or when he was upset back at Pop's restaurant. Maybe that was why his mentality wasn't improving. Maybe I needed to start questioning him more.

      "Kitten, I can't help you if you don't tell me more about this kind of stuff," I said, lowering my voice to a more coaxing type of tone.

      He hugged his arms to his chest. "But I don't want to talk about it. There's nothing--there's no one--to tell you about. I told you everything back in January."

      He was so insistent on there being no one that I knew there had to be many more people involved. As I raked my brain for the information he told me about his past, I realized that I only knew vaguely of what took place. I knew that he was kidnapped, molested, and had to partake in explicit and lewd acts. I knew he stayed in some sort of run-down building that could not at all be considered suitable living conditions. I knew that he was traumatized so severely that the terrible memories were constantly replaying inside of his head. I knew of "him," and I faintly recalled the mention of what "he" would do to Gabe and--

      The other boys.

      I was suddenly in a moment of deja vu as I recalled the time Gabe, Alana and me all went out to Pop's after school. I remembered us talking and Gabriel growing uncomfortable with the topic and leaving for the restroom. I had followed him after a couple minutes, and I had found him sitting on one of the sinks, obviously distressed.

      The look in his eyes immediately flooded to the front of my thoughts. That was the deja vu I was feeling. The look of grief in his eyes then was the same grief in his eyes now. It most definitely had to be one of the boys he was thinking about at the time and right now.

      "One of the other boys?" I guessed. He flinched, confirming my suspicions. "Gabriel, which one of the boys told you that?" I asked, resting my hand gently on his shoulder.

      He immediately pulled away from me, shaking his head even faster than he had before. "Stop, I really, really don't want to talk about it."

      "You can't just push the memories back inside your head. You've gotta work through them and talk about them."

      "But I don't like to remember them!" he cried, looking up at me with the most agonized gaze in his eyes I'd ever seen. I fell silent, staring at him in the utmost confusion--what was he remembering? "Don't you even care about my feelings? I don't want to talk, I don't want to discuss, I don't want to refer to any topics that include him!"

      I've seen Gabriel mad before, several times actually. I was pretty sure he had minute anger problems, not to be mean or anything. Sometimes he'd be calm about the topic at hand until he'd just randomly lash out about it. So yes, I've seen him be irrationally mad before, but never like this.

      I knew I had to calm him down.

      "Gabe--"

      He was already starting to pace in distress, running his trembling fingers through his hair. Oh fuck, I hadn't meant for it to come to this. I just wanted to know which boy he constantly thought about. I didn't mean to make him freak out. I was supposed to be helping him through his problems, for God's sake, not making them worse!