Healing Gabriel (BoyxBoy)

✣ Chapter Twenty-Nine ✣

        Now, back to the emotional rubber band ball, I believed that the snapped rubber bands in question were sorrow, grief and regret. Those three emotions had been strangling me for so long, that when the topic of Sixx was created, they just broke. And they just so happened to snap right against me.

        The relief I'd felt afterwards was like a cool ice pack that a caring hand had applied to the throbbing marks, relieving the pain.

       Evan, my stubborn, caring, brown haired Johnny Bravo, was my relief.

       The thought made me grin even wider.

       "What're you so happy about?" he asked me, raising his eyebrows. The show was on a commercial break which was probably why he was paying attention to me. "Did your little date with Jurnee really do that much for you?"

      I scoffed a bit, rolling my eyes. "It wasn't a date."

      "I'll be the judge of that. What'd you guys do? You never did tell me about it."

      I wrinkled my nose, trying to remember what exactly the preppy ex-bully and I had done Friday afternoon. My mind was somewhat foggy at the moment, even if it was five in the evening. I hadn't gotten a wink of sleep for almost three days now; I was too fearful of having that same dreadful nightmare again and wake up with that same agonizing panic attack. I figured it would be better for me to just stay awake until I was too tired to even dream of the horrors.

      "We went to a coffee shop," I murmured after a couple more seconds of thinking, recalling the small caffeinated place downtown.

      "How was it?"

      I made a sort of blegh face, making him laugh. And cough. But mostly laugh. "I discovered that I don't like coffee. At all. Period."

      He arched an eyebrow up at me. "Why? I don't think I've ever heard of a teenager not liking coffee before."

      "The taste of it is too distinctive. And, like, there's an aftertaste that takes a while to go away. I don't like coffee breath."

      He smiled, chuckling a bit. "That sounds like something a child would say."

      "Mmm, well, I'm not exactly eighteen yet, so I'm still a kid," I said, doing a slight purrow expression.

      "Wow, first you don't like coffee, now you refer to yourself as a kid?" He clicked his tongue in mock disdain, making me smile a little. "Maybe you'd prefer to be back in kindergarten, finger painting and taking naps throughout the day."

      The mention of napping made me bite the inside of my cheek. I was really desperate for some shuteye, yes, I'll be the first to admit that. But I wasn't going to give into my body's needs so quickly after what it'd done to me--given me painful memories, nightmares and anxiety attacks that I wanted no part of.

      "What else did you guys do?" he asked a moment after I still hadn't replied.

      I shrugged my shoulders. "Nothing special, really. Just went to the coffee shop and talked."

      He seemed to perk up at the mention of what Jurnee and I had been discussing. "Conversation? About?"

      I waved my hand dismissively through the air. "School, basically. Um, she agreed with me when I mentioned that substitute's crazy cashew-shaped bottom."

      He gave me a disbelieving look. "And?"

      "That's it. That's the basics."

      He seemed confused at my words. "But she was so weird, practically begging for you to hang out with her. There has to be more to the conversation than you're telling me."