Undefined | Ken San Jose, Sean Lew, Gabe De Guzman

chpt. eight

She nods and motions her hand for me to follow her. I look around their neatly organized kitchen and take a seat by the dinner table.

"Here you go. I'll be in the kitchen if you guys need me." She smiles as she places the glass infront of me.

"Thank you." I smiled again, pushing my glasses up and taking a sip as she left the room.

"So what brings you here?"

The voice startles me and makes me choke a bit on my water. Gabe fails to hide his laugh as he apologizes and hands me a clean towel.

"Thanks." I mumble as I wiped my chin and straightened my posture.

"Anyways I wanted to talk to you." I look up at him and he gets the message for him to sit.

"About earlier I'm assuming."

I awkwardly looked up at him before looking back down at my glass and nodded.

"What did you mean by the thing you said about your—"

"Let's talk outside." He quickly cuts me off and walks off without me.

Before I could say anything I just pick myself up and run after him so I don't lose him. That last thing I saw was him walking out their back door and I hurriedly follow after him. As I stepped out to their back porch I look around to not see him on sight.

"Gabe?" I called out confused on where he could've went.

"Up here." I hear his voice say.

I look up towards roof only to hear snickers in return.

"Not the roof you weirdo. Up here." I hear Gabe tease before I brought my eyes to a near by tree. I look up to see there was actually a cute looking tree house up there.

"Tree house? Cute." I commented as I kicked off my floppy night slippers and climbed the ladder to meet him at the top.

"Thanks. My dad refurbished it for me." Gabe smiled as he gave me a hand onto his treehouse.

"Refurbished?" I tilt my head a bit in confusion as I took a seat across him.

"Well, you see. When I moved in this treehouse was already here. It was just a bit beaten down so I asked my dad to fix it up. Which he did." He smiled.

"Aren't you a bit too old for treehouses?" I chuckled.

"No one is ever too old for treehouses." He simply replies.

I nod my head in response and awkwardly look out the treehouse.

"So you wanted to talk?" Gabe shuts off my thoughts and I look over at him and nod.

"Yeah.."

"Okay, go ahead."

I stare at him almost thinking of backing out and just walking back to my house but I decide against it. After a little bit of debate, I took a deep breath and ask, "What did you mean by what you said about your sister?"

My voice sounded small. The topic seemed to be a serious one considering he brought me out of the house when I was gonna mention it inside. Seemed like he didn't want his family to hear.

He stares at me for a moment before looking out his treehouse.

"I-I just don't want you, or anyone, to end up like my sister. That's all." Gabe says lowly.

"What happened to her?" I asked, I kind of thought I was already pushing my limits.

He looks down at his fingers and shrugs. "It's a long, complicated, messed up story."

I could hear the tone of his voice change so I decide against asking further questions. I just nod lightly before looking out the treehouse again.

"So.. since when did you wear glasses?"

"Huh?" I look back over at him who was already staring at me.

"You know, the black frames with glass on them? The ones sitting on your nose?" He points at his nose and I laugh a bit at him.

"Oh yeah." I stifle my laugh. "I usually use them at home because I tend to forget about my contacts and I fall asleep with them—"

"You wear contacts?" He cuts me off. He looked surprised to hear I do.

"Well yeah, I'm practically blind without them." I chuckle. "And before you ask, I don't wear my glasses to school because they bother me a lot. And they're also really big and ugly, so that's why I only use them at home." I shrugged.

"I think they look good on you." He smiles.

I stare at him for a brief second before looking away holding back a smile.

"Thanks." I muttered.

I can see him still smiling at me as I sat there rather awkwardly and cleared my throat. "Well, uh.."

"You know I meant when I said I wanted to, needed to, help you." Gabe changes the subject yet again.

"I know but how would you do that?" I asked looking back at him.

"Well first of all, I can start by helping you avoid those who trigger it." He replies, eyes turning a bit dark thinking of the same person as I was.

"I don't even know what I did to him." I slumped my shoulders and looked down at my hands that were slightly covered by the sleeves of my cardigan.

I subconsciously start pulling down the sleeves more and it catches Gabe's attention. "Why do you keep tugging your sleeves?"

My eyes widen a bit and nervously gulp, "N-nothing, just got chilly." I lied, not daring to look up at him.

"Are you lying?" Gabe asks, scooting closer to me.

"Gabe, no I'm not." I lie again and looking out the treehouse again.

"Then show me your wrists." He demands.

I look over to him and shake my head. "I don't need to do that. In fact, I think I'll be going now." I say as I began to push myself towards the ladder.

Except he puts his arm out in front of me and leans closer to me. "What are you hiding?"

"N-nothing." I stuttered.

"You don't cut, do you?" He asked with caution.

My jaw dropped a bit as I shook my head furiously. "Ofcourse not! I would never!" I exclaimed. "I may be an anxious dweeb but I would never harm myself!" I could feel my face turning red from anger as Gabe's sank to guilt.

"I'm sorry if I offended you—"

"I don't know if it's come across you yet but I don't hurt myself in these situations it's—" I cut myself off from my rant realizing what I was about to say and look away from Gabe who was now confused.

"What were you gon—"

"I'm going to bed." I cut him off and began climbing down the ladder, thankful that he didn't stop me this time.