Chapter 11
You know that scene in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan walks into the gym and everyone stops talking to stare at her? Yeah, that was exactly what happened when I walked into the cafeteria that day.
There had been a few whispers during my two classes that morning and some very curious glances my way but other than that, nothing too extraordinary had gone down.
Then I’d walked into the cafeteria.
It was almost like a wave went through the students. It started with one guy who nudged his buddy and pointed at me and quickly spread until every single eye in the place was on me.
I backed up a step and bumped into Gabriel. “Looks like we should’ve gone out for lunch,” he muttered as he took in the scene in front of him.
“Yeah,” I said breathlessly.
One guy whistled at me, setting off a bunch of others who seemed to think it was a brilliant idea. I rolled my eyes at the crowd as a few of them started to call out remarks.
“Hey baby, where have you been hiding?” a football player said, looking me up and down.
Gabriel stiffened as he scowled at the idiot.
“I just joined the soccer team!”
“You’re looking hot for a nerd!”
Was that supposed to be a compliment?
I opened my mouth to say something but didn’t get a chance to.
“Stop!” Gabriel shouted, taking a step so that he was standing beside me. He flung his arm around my shoulders and my eyes widened when he pulled me closer to him.
Once I was snug against his side, I hissed, “Gabriel, what the hell are you doing.”
He ignored me and scowled at the guys in the cafeteria. “If anyone says anything about Evie ever again, I’ll find you and trust me, you won’t like the result.” He said threateningly, tugging me closer suddenly, making me stumble until the front of my body was plastered to his side. I ignored the tap dance my heart was doing and put my hand on his abdomen, intending to push away.
“She’s mine,” he said quietly but the sound carried judging by the moment of shocked silence followed by the roar of conversation as everyone turned to the person beside them to gossip about what had just happened.
I pushed away from Gabriel and for a second I could only stare at him with my mouth hanging open. He looked down at me, his expression curiously blank.
I snapped my mouth shut and glared at him. “What the hell, Gabriel?”
He didn’t say anything. I groaned and turned on my heel, leaving the cafeteria. The hallways were mostly empty so I moved quickly towards the school entrance. I needed some air.
I had just made it outside when someone grabbed my arm. I whirled to face Gabriel and cursed my traitorous heart when it did a little flip as his hair blew in the light breeze and his eyes became a lighter blue in the sunlight.
Hormones are so annoying.
“What the hell just happened?”
Uncertainty crossed his eyes for a second and he ran a hand through his now windblown hair. “Evie, I…” he trailed off, searching for words.
“You what?” I asked crossing my arms and tapping my foot. “You thought that when I agreed to hang out with you more it meant that you could make totally barbaric statements and embarrass me in front of the whole school?” His eyes turned dark as he stood completely still and glared at me. I ignored him. “I’m not that fragile, you know. I could’ve handled a few comments about my whore-ish ways. Now everyone’s going to be talking about how the school’s bad boy fell for the invisible yet slutty girl who up until a few days ago, no one even knew existed.” I let out a frustrated breath and impatiently shoved a strand of hair out of my eyes.
“Well, I’m sorry I damaged your feminist pride,” he said sarcastically.
“I’m not a feminist!” I yelled and pushed on his chest. He didn’t move at all as he continued to glare down at me. “I just wanted to let the rumors die down naturally, not create more.” I sighed in frustration and lightly punched him on the chest. “Damnit.”
He looked down at the spot where I’d hit him and raised an eyebrow. “Was that supposed to hurt?”
I shrugged. “It was more to make me feel better.”
“Did it work?”
“A little.”
He grinned. “Do it again, then.” He widened his stance and looked away with a fake grimace as if he was mentally preparing himself for pain.
I tried not to laugh. Jeez, wasn’t I supposed to be mad at him? “I thought your goal was to start fights with other people, not me.”
He turned to face me again and his eyes were serious when he said, “I would never hurt you, Evelyn.”
My heart skipped a beat. I swallowed and planted a shaky smile on my lips as I shot out my fist, hitting his chest again. “Only because you wouldn’t have a chance against me.”
He grinned, making my heart speed up even more. Christ, the guy was going to give me a heart attack. Is this what crushes always felt like? Because I seriously needed to get over this one before I died of heart failure.
“Oh yeah?” he said and before I knew it, I was in a headlock with Gabriel’s arm wrapped lightly around my neck.
“Holy crap.”
I could hear the smug satisfaction in his voice as he lowered his head to whisper in my ear. “See, you’re lucky to have me on your side.”
I swallowed and nodded as his arm moved from my neck to rest across my shoulders, still holding me to him but this was less of a threatening gesture and more of a…well, to the outside observer it might look…romantic.
“Look,” he said quietly into my ear, making me shiver, “I probably shouldn’t have said that whole ‘she’s mine’ thing in front of everyone but it just slipped out.” He pulled his arm back and grabbed my shoulders, spinning me around to face him. All this touching was making my skin tingle and I had a terrible feeling that my eyes were all wide and moony as I stared up at him. “Just think, this is totally going to help both of us. No guy at this school would mess with my girl and Catherine will leave me alone because she knows I have you.” He brought his hand up from my shoulder and brushed a strand of hair from my face. His eyes were dark and swirling with some kind of emotion that I couldn’t name as he stared at me. I really should’ve stepped back but I seemed to be in some kind of Gabriel-induced trance.
His expression became kind of nervous but there was determination there too as he looked at me and opened his mouth to speak.
“Evie!”
I stared at him, confused. He hadn’t moved his lips yet I’d heard my name. I turned my head to the side and there was Ben, the camera guy striding towards us, waving.
“Ben?” I asked.
“Hey Evie,” Ben said as he came closer to us and smiled at me before turning his gaze to Gabriel. Ben stuck out his hand and Gabriel just glared at it for a second before using the hand that he’d brushed my hair aside with to shake Ben’s. His other hand fell off my shoulder and I felt stupidly sad at the loss of contact as Gabriel dropped Ben’s hand and crossed his arms casually.
“Is anyone going to introduce me?” Gabriel asked after an awkward silence between the three of us.
I jumped at his growled words, feeling like I was still in some kind of trance. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. “Gabriel, this is Ben. He’s a…friend of a friend.” I frowned, wondering why he was here. “Ben, this is Gabriel he’s my…friend.”
I felt Gabriel’s eyes on me for a second and I got the strangest feeling he was glaring at me but I ignored it to stare at Ben.
“Nice to meet you,” Ben said in a not entirely friendly way. His eyes were focused on Gabriel and when I looked, Gabriel’s were focused on Ben. Some sort of silent communication seemed to be going on here and I was not part of it.
“Yeah,” Gabriel finally replied rudely.
I rolled my eyes at his bad attitude. “No wonder you have a bad reputation,” I muttered.
He turned to me and gave me an evil grin. “It’s not because of my lack of conversational skills, trust me.” He turned back to Ben and his grin turned into a satisfied smirk when Ben took an involuntary step back in alarm. Gabriel was going out of his way to freak this guy out.
Ben wasn’t that scared though and with a determined look, he faced me. “Evie, I have to talk to you about something.” He glanced at Gabriel and with a smug smile said, “Alone.”
“Okay,” I said feeling the need to get these two guys away from each other. I could be wrong but I think I heard Gabriel growl as I moved to grab Ben’s arm and usher him away from the bad tempered, motorcycle driving, excellent at fighting, Gabriel. “Move fast,” I hissed as we walked really quickly to the parking lot.
A few female heads turned our way as Ben brought us to his car. I noticed as girls looked him up and down and for the second time, I realized that he was really handsome. He had a boyish charm that really worked for him and his surfer hair flipped out adorably at the ends. I definitely understood why the girls were staring.
He just wasn’t my type.
Lately it seemed I was into bad tempered, motorcycle driving, excellent at fighting, Neanderthal types named Gabriel.
Inwardly I groaned as I got into the passenger side of the car which Ben held open for me. He shut the door once all my limbs were inside and moved to the driver’s side. Once we were both in, he pulled out a laptop and set it on his lap. “I couldn’t wait to show you this. I know you have practice tonight and I was going to tell everyone there but I was too excited.” He pulled his eyes from the screen for a second to grin at me and I couldn’t help but grin back. He had a really cute smile.
He tapped on the keys for a little bit then swung the computer around to face me and played the video he’d made at our last show. I pulled the thing closer to me and watched. It was amazing. The first shot was of me, giving the finger to the guy who’d groped me. I grinned at Ben for a second before quickly turning my gaze back to the screen.
There were shots of all of us together and shots of each of us separately. He captured Frank on his knees with his face all scrunched up in concentration as he nailed a guitar solo and through it all, clips of our music played, giving people a taste of our sound. The last shot was of me playing landslide with this completely absorbed look on my face. I felt shocked as I heard my own voice and realized that it was beautiful. The emotions I felt when I sang rang clear through the tiny speakers on the laptop and when the video ended, I just stared at the computer.
“Did you like it?” Ben asked nervously.
I nodded and finally tore my eyes from the laptop to grin at him. “It was amazing Ben! Thank you so much!” I leaned over and gave him a quick, firm hug before leaning back and starting the video again.
Ben cleared his throat. “Evie?”
“Yeah?” I said distractedly, watching Alice sway with the beat as she played the bass.
“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime.”
Shocked, I looked up suddenly to see Ben staring at me, his cheeks slightly pink as he gave me a nervous smile.
“Like on a date?”
He nodded.
I sent him what I hoped was a kind smile but it felt awkward and uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry, Ben, it’s not that I don’t like you but I just don’t really see you in that way.”
His smile fell and he looked half surprised and half sad. I guess he wasn’t used to being turned down. With his good looks, it made sense.
“Besides,” I continued as Alice came across the screen again, “I think Alice has a thing for you and I would never hurt my friend like that.”
He looked completely shocked for a second as he stared at me. “Really? You think Alice likes me?”
I nodded.
After a second he smiled broadly and said, “I thought she was out of my league so I never went for her.”
I frowned. So he thought Alice was out of his league but I was fair game? What the hell?
He saw my frown and his smile dimmed a bit. “Not that you’re not…you know. Alice is just at another level.” He got a dreamy look in his eyes as he thought about her.
“Whatever,” I mumbled and focused on the screen again.
“Um, Evie,” Ben said but I waved a dismissive hand at him.
“Don’t worry about it Ben. I’m over it,” I said, focusing on the video again.
“It’s not that.”
“What is it then?” I didn’t look up.
There was a sharp knock on the window behind me making me jump. I had put my left leg on the seat beside me so I was facing the driver’s side watching the video on my lap. I turned at the sound to face the passenger side window to see Gabriel standing there. “What the hell is that?” His voice was muffled through the glass but I heard him clearly enough as he pointed at the screen which showed me playing Landslide before going black.
I looked from him to the screen and back again and sighed.
“Thanks Ben,” I said, handing him the laptop and opening the car door, letting myself out.
Gabriel stood there with his arms crossed, glaring at me.
“Bye, Ben,” I said, waving at his car as he reversed from the parking space.
“Bye, Ben,” Gabriel said in a mocking tone but instead of waving he was giving him the finger. He lowered his hand and took a step towards me, still glaring. “Care to explain what that was all about?”
“Not really,” I mumbled, looking at my shoes.
“Well too bad,” Gabriel growled, looking down at me. His expression softened a bit and after a moment he said, “Who are you, really? Because I’ve seen two very different sides to you and it just doesn’t make sense to me. Up until today you dressed like you shopped at Grannies R Us and the only person you spoke to in school was me.”
“I talked to Cynthia, too,” I muttered.
He ignored me. “I didn’t even know your name and then one day you bumped into me and I stole your guitar pick…”
“You never did give that back.”
“…and you glared at me and made me realize I’d never really seen you before, that no one really had. But now I see you, Evie and could you please tell me what that video was?”
I sighed, resigned. “It’s not that big a deal.” He just glared at me. “Fine,” I muttered, twisting my hands together feeling weirdly nervous. “I’m in a band.”
He didn’t say anything for a while and I looked up at him. His expression was bemused. “That’s it?”
“It’s a rock band.”
His forehead crinkled in confusion. “But you never told anyone. You never told me. Why not?”
I shrugged. “It was a secret.”
“But it’s not like you kill people for money or anything. I mean, lots of people are in bands why would you go to such lengths to hide it?”
“Because my mom hates me.” As soon as I blurted the words, I regretted them. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes you did,” Gabriel said softly as he grabbed my arm and pulled me into an embrace.
“What are you doing?” I asked against his chest.
“Hugging you, obviously.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re crying and that’s what guys do when a girl is crying. Now stop asking questions and just let it out.”
I hadn’t realized there were tears running down my cheeks until that moment and as soon as I did, they began flowing much more heavily. I smashed my face against Gabriel’s chest and cried like I hadn’t cried in years.
After a while I got control of myself. I pulled my face off his chest and realized I’d left a sizable wet spot from my tears.
“Oh my god, I’m going to go die now.”
He chuckled and pulled me tighter against him again. “Don’t worry about it, everyone cries.”
“Even you?”
“Of course not.”
I laughed and pulled back again, wiping my cheeks with the backs of my hands.
“Here,” Gabriel said, pulling my hands away from my face. He lifted the hem of his shirt and used the soft fabric to dry my tears. I stood still as his smell washed over me. My heart pounded as I inhaled, not moving a muscle. “There,” he said, looking down at me with tenderness in his eyes and a crooked smile on his lips. He lowered his shirt which was now stretched and soaked from my tears without taking his gaze off of me.
“Gabriel?”
“Yeah?”
I didn’t know what I was going to say. I hadn’t even planned on saying anything. His name had just slipped out of my mouth. I squinted up at him as he looked down at me in confusion.
“What, Evie?”
Nothing. I had nothing to say. I stepped closer to him again and rose onto my tiptoes. I placed my shaking hands onto his cheeks and brought his head closer to mine before planting my lips on his. I closed my eyes and was totally lost.
After a brief moment where he was too shocked to respond, he groaned and wrapped his hands around my waist, drawing me flush against him. I made a sound in the back of my throat that may have been a moan when his tongue swept into my mouth. My tongue met his and his hands tightened on my waist as he tried to crush me even closer to him.
My fingers were in his hair, feeling the silken texture as it glided along my sensitive nerve endings. He moved his lips from mine and started kissing along my jaw, making his way to my neck causing tingles of sensation to race down my spine. He bit down lightly on the tendons there, making my toes curl and a small gasp escape my parted lips. God that felt good.
I wanted to tell him to do that again but first I had to remember how to make words.
“Evelyn,” my name was a sigh on his lips as he continued to trace a path of kisses down my neck. “We should stop.”
I blinked. Had he just said stop?
“No.”
He laughed lightly as he raised his head and planted a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth before shifting back far enough to look at me. “Yes. I think you might be trying to distract me from what you said about your mother.”
“What mother?” I mumbled.
He ignored me. “I’ll admit that your strategy worked for a minute.” His gaze traveled to my lips for a second before focusing resolutely on my eyes again. “But I feel like if we don’t talk about this now, we never will.”
I frowned, trying to focus my brain on something other than kissing Gabriel. It was hard especially since he hadn’t loosened his arms at all and my hands were still in his hair, letting the strands sift through my fingers.
“You’re going to have to stop that,” he said breathlessly, his eyes losing focus.
“Stop what?”
“Touching me.”
“Why?”
“Evelyn, if I kiss you again, I’m not going to be able to stop and I think we’ve already given the students of Westfield High enough of a show for the day.”
I glanced around us and noticed a couple groups of students, staring at us with shocked expressions. As soon as my eyes traveled over them, they turned away and started gossiping.
I groaned.
“C’mon,” Gabriel said, releasing me but grabbing my hand to pull me towards his bike. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait, we still have class.” I looked back at the school which suddenly looked a lot more dull and dreary than it normally did. I turned to face Gabriel again who was leaning against his bike, holding his spare helmet out to me. His hair was tousled and this time it was from my fingers running through it. His t-shirt was wet and it was sticking appealingly to his chest muscles. “Never mind,” I said and grabbed the helmet.
He slung his leg over the bike and I climbed on behind him. He revved the engine as I grabbed hold of him, willingly crushing my body against his. I sighed as we started to move and I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach in an appealing way. I was mostly shielded from the wind thanks to Gabriel but I could feel my hair whipping against my back as the breeze brushed over me. The bike purred as we made our way through the streets, taking roads I’d never been on before.
I closed my eyes and lost myself in the feel of the bike below me and Gabriel in front of me. I turned my head and rested it against his back, wishing I wasn’t wearing a helmet so I could feel the soft fabric of his t-shirt moving over his well defined back muscles as he drove.
I supposed I should feel ashamed or something. Embarrassed maybe that I’d flung myself at him so eagerly after crying like a baby in his arms. I just couldn’t seem to muster the appropriate emotion. Instead, all I felt was peace and excitement and a strange feeling of happiness from finally telling someone what I was really feeling. It was comforting to know that someone else could find out so much about me and not run for the hills. I mean, really, I’m not the most normal girl out there. Up until recently I’d had two very different personalities that even my family didn’t know about.
Yet here I was, leaning my helmeted head against the school’s hottest bad boy with my arms wrapped around his waist shortly after we’d had an incredibly intense make-out session in the school parking lot.
Life was good.
I opened my eyes when the bike slowed and we turned into his driveway. We came to a stop and I climbed off first, not wanting to break the contact but drawing the line at sitting on an unmoving motorcycle with my body pressed against Gabriel just because I wanted to.
My heart flipped a little when he took off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair so it wasn’t so flat. Something was seriously wrong with my emotions today if something so small could make my heart skip a beat.
“C’mon,” Gabriel said, taking my helmet from me and putting it in its compartment before grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the house.
It was quiet when we stepped inside and I could tell that no one was there. He led me upstairs to a door with a Metallica poster on it.
“Nice,” I said, gesturing to the poster.
He turned and grinned at me as he opened the door and led me into his room.
It was tidier than I had expected. A couple school books were scattered across the desk and the bed was unmade but there were no dirty socks on the floor or clothes hanging out of the dresser. It wasn’t a big room and his double bed took up most of it. There wasn’t much in terms of decoration either, just a book shelf above the desk and a lamp beside the bed.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the bed after he’d straightened the sheets a bit. I sat on the edge of the bed and he sat beside me, taking my hand once again. After a minute where we both sat and stared at our hands wrapped together, he turned to look at me and said softly, “Evelyn, I want you to tell me about your mother.”
My stomach clenched and my throat worked, wanting to tell him no. Everything inside of me rebelled against voicing the way she made me feel but I knew that I had to. I knew that I couldn’t just tell a person that my mother hated me and expect them to drop it, least of all Gabriel who seemed to be overly curious about me.
“Okay,” I said in a near whisper.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and started from the beginning. For me, it had all started when I saw that guitar for the first time. Up until that point, I didn’t realize that my mother was cold, I just thought that was how life was. After that, I began to see other children with their mothers and noticed a difference in the way my mother treated me.
I told him about how when it was just the two of us, she’d barely spoken to me and then once she got married, she couldn’t even look at me. I told him about John and Jam and I told him about my father and what I knew of him.
Once I had started my story, it seemed like I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t just telling him why my mother was so cold to me, I was telling him my entire life story and a huge part of me was telling my mouth to shut the hell up but an even bigger part of me was rejoicing in the freedom of finally opening up to someone.
When I told him about the slap she’d given me just after he’d kissed me, his grip tightened on my hand and his eyes clouded over as he focused on the rug in front of him.
“That was my fault,” he said, his voice quiet.
“Yes,” I replied and his eyes shot up to mine, filled with guilt. I smiled at him and raised my free hand to touch his cheek. “And it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I stood up to my mom and got rid of those stupid clothes. That kiss gave me the courage to change so thank you, Gabriel.”
He frowned at me as I dropped my hand back to my side. “She still shouldn’t have slapped you.”
After that we just talked for a while. We talked about music and the band and random things until we ran out of stuff to say, then we just sat there in a comfortable silence, holding hands.
I sighed, feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders now that I’d told him everything.
“There’s just one thing I want to clear up,” he said suddenly and I looked over at him to see his blue eyes focused on me, serious. “That Ben guy, he’s not your boyfriend, right?”
I shook my head, feeling the corners of my lips twitch.
“There’s nothing between you? Because I saw him hug you.”
“Nothing.”
“I wasn’t following you or anything it’s just that, he took you to his car and then you guys were just sitting there and he seemed kind of shady.”
Shady? Ben? He was the least shady looking guy ever. His boyish, surfer dude looks were about as intimidating as a teddy bear.
I smothered a laugh as Gabriel frowned at me.
“It’s not funny.”
I shook my head, not trusting my voice.
“You better not be laughing.”
A bubble of laughter escaped and I couldn’t stop it this time. He just sat there as I laughed, wiping tears from my eyes as his expression grew darker. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. He’s just not shady at all.”
His eyes were so dark when he looked at me, they were almost black. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned in close and kissed me.