Escaping Death [Watty Awards]

Chapter 5-Gabriel

Well here is the next chapter!!! I hope you guys like it and enjoy it :) I'm sorry that it's not as facepaced but its setting up the story...I promise that it will get way better after the first few chapters! :) Well, Happy Reading! :D

Chapter 5-Gabriel

When class ended.  I walked with Gwen to the parking lot.  Earlier in class, I had touched her arm and it had felt like old times but I had to remember that I couldn’t be the way I used to be with her.  If I was here to start over, that is how things should be.  I’ve come to realize that this was going to be harder than I thought.  Gwen just made me feel so out of bounds and relaxed.  It would have been easier if I could just tell her everything...but I couldn’t.

Gwen was telling me about the Homecoming Dance that was to take place in two weeks.  She was telling me about her plans and who she was going with.  I cut in and said, “I don’t think I’ll go.”

“Oh.”  Her face had fallen and looked disappointed.  “Well, you are new and everything.”

“No, it’s not that.  I’m not into dances.  I’d rather be out doing something else.”

She looked at me inquisitively.  There was so much power held in her eyes; so many questions that lingered inside.  In the end she never asked any of them. –It’s not that I didn’t want to go to the dance; actually the only person that I wanted to with was Gwen.  I couldn’t exactly tell her this.  I had to start things slowly and earn her trust back.  I first had to be her friend and everything else later.  All that mattered was her safety; I lost her once and I was not going to lose her again just because I had feelings for her.  I wasn’t going to lose her while I was here.

“Well, I’ll just see you tomorrow then.”  She said walking away.

“Hey, do you need a ride?”  I asked from across the lot.  She had gotten some distance between us before I could have even noticed.

“No, I’m fine.”  She called back.

I looked at her walk away and then got into my car and turned on the engine.  The thing that I had forgotten about Gwen was that she was independent.  She didn’t need anyone else for things that she could do herself.  I remember how I was the only person who she once depended on.

I drove for half an hour until I saw the familiar streets and the view of my old home come into view.  As I pulled into the driveway of my old childhood home, I was afraid of what I might find there or what I wouldn’t find.  The place had been deserted for years.  My parents had found a new home to live in and I was going to occupy this one for the time being.  I walked the path up to the front door and noticed my surroundings.  I saw that the lawn was dead and it needed to be watered.  My neighbors, the McAllen’s, were still living next door to me, just as how I remembered them.  There blue Suzuki was parked outside on the curb and I saw a little girl with blond hair playing in their front garden.  The low fence that surrounds my house needed to be painted in a fresh coat of white paint.  There was a lot of work that needed to be done and I dreaded to have to them.  I took the key out of my pocket and turned the door knob.  The door opened and there was a slight creak.  I have to fix that too, I thought.  I turned the light on and saw that my things had been delivered and closed the door behind me.

Stepping foot inside was surreal.  Nothing had changed.  Nothing had been moved.  It was exactly how my family and I left the house six years ago.  Everything was as I remembered it to be.  The family portraits were still along the walls and then I saw the carving that Gwen and I had made when we were kids; it was still intact. I knelt down and ran my fingers through the wood, feeling the rough letters of our names. 

It was the beginning of fall and Gwen and I had come in from playing in the backyard because it had suddenly begun to rain.  My parents weren’t home because they went to the store and told us that they’d be back soon.  When we came inside, we were shivering because of the cool air of the house but I got Gwen and I blankets from the hall closet and it was a better.  We started to talk about all the carvings on the trees that we had seen at the park a few days before and she mentioned that maybe we should carve something.  I was the one to think of the idea to carve our names at the bottom corner of the stairs.  No one had ever found out about the engraving and everything Gwen and I would see it, a silent secret would be shared between us. 

I stood up and dusted myself off.  Everything was the same and it meant that there was a lot of dust and cobwebs, especially in the corners of the door frames.  My parents had kept the house in their names and never sold it but they didn’t hire a housekeeper to keep it running and in shape.  The job fell upon me now.  Dropping my backpack in the foyer, I went into the kitchen and started to take the old cleaning supplies from underneath the sink.

I sighed, “Time to get this place back in shape.”

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