Healing Gabriel: Chapter Thirty-Seven
※(*)※Gabriel's POV※(*)※
Evan wasn't at school today. He'd texted me in the morning saying that his mom was making him stay home "against his will" because he was sick. He hadn't specified how sick he was, but I assumed it was pretty bad if his mom was making him stay home today after she'd been letting him attend all those other days with that awful cough. But, really, how sick could someone suddenly get in a little under twenty-four hours? Plus, he couldn't be that bad if he was acting like a wisecrack.
Needless to say, with Evan not at school, I felt incredibly awkward throughout the day. Especially during lunch; lunch was the worst without him, I'd discovered. For starters, I'd figured 'no Evan' meant 'no seat for Gabriel at the popular table,' so I didn't even bother walking up to the lunch line in fear of risking the chance of getting made fun of by my 'supposed' friends. I mean, without Evan here, they could all agree to turn against me, and what was I going to do about it? What could I do about it?
Nothing, of course. So I made my way to the only other table available, which just so happened to be the juice and crumbs covered one towards the back of the cafeteria. I cringed at the sight of it; sophomores could be such slobs. I used an extra napkin to wipe down a small area of the table in front of me and sat on the bench, my books on my lap, my hands folded on top of them. After nearly fifteen seconds of staring down at the tabletop, a diminutive, moving black dot caught my attention. It was circling a bread crumb that was probably three times the size of it.
Poor little ant, I thought. It wasn't its fault the bread was too big of an obstacle for it to conquer, no matter how hard it tried. If only the crumb had been made smaller; maybe then the ant could join the rest of its colony, its friends, its family, and prove that it was just as strong and capable as the rest of them.
It struck me, then, that I really was the freak everyone had convinced me to be over the years. I was sitting in the corner of the room, by myself, watching an ant and actually empathizing with it. If someone else had been in my position, I would have laugh at them.
No, you wouldn't've, the little voice in the far back of my mind chimed.
Long time no hear, I thought back. Oh, and look: I was having a conversation with the freaking voice inside my head. I was definitely a freak; I would seriously laugh at someone if they were in my position, now.
You would never do that. You understand what it's like to be ridiculed, especially for not being the social norm. You would never laugh at people the same way they laughed at you, the voice reasoned, and somewhere, the conscious part of me agreed, but at that moment, I wasn't exactly there. I was back at that place, in that room, sitting so close to a little boy who couldn't have been over fifty pounds of skin stretched taut against bone--next to Sixx.
"They're cruel," I spat out after Sixx had told me what he had done to him--that he had taken away the very last iota of dignity less than a select few of us were allowed to have. And now Sixx, the one who'd deserved those final bits of gravitas more than any of us here, more than me, was lying on an excreta-covered floor as vast amounts of blood leaked between his thighs, in far too much pain to even fathom about sitting up. "They're all cruel," I continued, every inch of me shaking from fury, "and I'm going to be cruel back, to each and every person I ever meet. I'll never forgive anyone, any of them, humanity. I can't, it's all cruel--they're all capable of so much cruelty, and I'll show them how it feels to be us."
"Don't say that," Sixx begged wretchedly. I didn't look at him when he spoke, too fearful of bursting into even more tears than I had when I first saw him. "Blue Eyes, please don't ever say that. Don't say that you'll put the same cruelty they caused you onto others--don't ever stoop that low, ever make someone hurt the same way you've been hurt. You know how badly it feels to be degraded, made fun of, mocked, hurt physically and mentally. Don't stoop down to their level and make other people feel the same way, because those people are just like you and me, Blue Eyes--innocent. Not all humanity is bad; not everyone is doing this to us, even knows this is going on! And--Blue Eyes, listen--listen to me, Blue Eyes!" I just kept shaking my head and clenching my jaw, my eyes brimming with tears of disaffection. How could he believe any of that nonsense, that humanity, people, he, wasn't bad? I refused to believe it. I refused to listen to him.
My face was jerked downwards by a pair of sticky hands. It was Sixx--he had grabbed my trembling face and was holding it still between his frail, tiny hands, making my eyes widen and my jaw slacken in surprise.
He'd never touched me before. He'd never let anyone touch, even brush up against him. I'd once accidentally bumped my knee against his the second day I'd met him, and he'd erupted into sobs. It took twenty minutes to get him to calm down, for him to hear my apology and accept it. Now, he was voluntarily holding my soot-laden face tight enough so that I couldn't move it, the same way he did when he was forcing himself past my lips. I almost bursted into sobs myself, but something else was there in Sixx's touch. I couldn't quite place it, having not felt it in what seemed like years, but I vaguely remembered it--the slight curl of his fingertips against my cheek, the soft caresses of the pads of his thumbs against the corners of my lips--and it made me hold my breath and tears back.
Comfort, I had finally remembered after waking up in a hospital room much, much later. Affection. Sixx had been showing me--giving me--the only form of comfort and affection I'd ever truly been able to grasp onto at the time, to remember, to remind myself in the far corners of my mind that not everyone was bad, that those who had cruelty brought onto them should not bring back the same onto others.
"Anyone can love if they really want to--it's a natural human emotion that we've all been taught at some point in our lives. Some people are just better at remembering how to show it, is all. And you need to be one of the people who never forgets, Blue Eyes. The world is running low on them, we both know that--we've experienced the brinks of the most inhumane cruelty. We still are experiencing it. But that doesn't mean we have to succumb to it, Blue Eyes. We don't have to be like them, like Eightie, like him. We don't have to be like anyone who thinks it's justified of themselves to make children, adults, people, shed tears."
I was brought out of my reminiscence to the ghost of the feeling of Sixx's forehead pressed against my own, the hallucination fresh in my mind of his dark brown eyes shining hopefully through the abyss of hopelessness around us, consuming us--no, me. Hopelessness had never consumed him; Sixx had never been hopeless, despite the destruction brought onto him. He was the very epitome of the last remnants of humanity I could never truly allow myself to hold onto, but tried to anyways, because without it, without Sixx, without his wisdom, the person I was now wouldn't have been the one to make it out of there. Someone else, a totally other personality than my own, would've replaced the cracked and charred soul that had desperately clung to the thought of liberation. And the idea of freedom had only dared to develop in the pits of my godforsaken soul because of him--because of Sixx.
I sniffled and refocused my attention to where the tiny ant was still struggling with the giant breadcrumb. Any other person would've squished it, put the poor thing out of its misery, but that conversation with Sixx was still swimming through my head. Instead, I picked up the crumb, broke an even tinier fragment than it already was off, and put the new crumb near the ant. The ant came towards it and picked it up, then took off.
I had probably just made that ant's day.
That thought kept me from stressing about anything else for the rest of the school day.
*
*
It was now Wednesday, and the only thing Evan had texted me in the morning was 's ic n b.' I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but I'd figured it had something to do with his health because he was absent again. And his health must've been getting worse because he hadn't even joked about his mom like the day before. Hell, he hadn't even sent me an actual word! And no, I wasn't mad about his incapability to text me legible words; I was worried about him.
Once again I inferred that me sitting at the popular table had been discontinued, so I sat at the same table as yesterday. There was no little black ant today, so I was forced to look at nothing but a puddle of grape juice across from me while listening to the buzz of students around me. That was when, several moments later, I felt various pairs of eyes staring at me. I looked up from the spill and turned around. Standing behind me were Debby, the super skinny girl, the girl with the bump in her nose, and a guy who was, surprisingly, shorter than me. All of their eyes were wide, their hands clenching tightly to the sides of their lunch trays. Debby's face was bright red when my eyes connected with her own. I flitted my gaze away and instead glanced at each of them for at least three silent minutes. Finally, the awkwardness became unbearable, so I spoke.
"Um, can I help you guys?"
The girl with the bump in her nose replied, "You're sitting at our table."
I felt my face heat up from embarrassment. Of course I'm sitting at someone else's table. There was no such thing as a table for Gabriel Adams; people always ended up kicking me out of one, anyways. I began gathering my books right away. "Oh, jeez, sorry, it's just no one was sitting here yesterday, so I assumed--"
"No, no, it's fine, you can stay," Debby quickly cut me off. She was bright red as well. I hesitated for a moment as the others began setting their things down at the table. Oh, God, I didn't want to sit with them. I didn't know them, didn't know how to read them, didn't have the comfort of Evan's hand on my knee to keep me focused on the scenes going on in front of me.
"N-no, really, I don't want t-to, like, intrude, I should just--I'm gonna--" What was I going to do? Where could I go? I was so lonely, stupid and friendless. And if they'd known who I was, what had happened to me, they wouldn't want filth at their table. The only one who acted like they wanted me was Evan, but that was okay because he knew what had happened to me and didn't let that stop him from kissing and touching me. But they, they didn't know any of that, and I didn't know them. I hated strangers, hated interacting with people who could possibly hurt me. I had to leave. "Go," I finished as their stares became unbearable. "I'm gonna go."
"Debby thinks you're cute," the boy blurted out all of a sudden, and all three of the girls gasped. My panic halted enough so that the rational side of my brain could catch up to my anxiety, and I froze.
"Jesus Christ, Tim!" the girl with the bump in her nose hissed as she punched the boy's arm. A look of pain crossed his face as he cradled his arm.
"What? I had to say something to get him to calm down."
"Yeah, well, you could've said that you think he's cute!"
Tim scoffed, flipping his messy brown hair out of his eyes. "I already have a boyfriend, for your information, Janice."
"Just because the 7/11 guy gave you 10% off your slurpee, doesn't mean he's your boyfriend, idiot," the bony girl snipped. Tim pursed his lips and trained his dark hazel eyes on me.
"See, this is why I needed another guy to sit here. Females are mean," he said, and I had no time to respond because Janice and the other girl started accusing him of sexism. My attention was focused, once again, on Debby. The poor girl was hiding her chubby face in her hands; I could see the tips of her ears peeking out from her stringy hair. They were red.
"Hey," I said, quietly, as she was sitting on the bench next to mine. She peeked out from the side of her hand at me. I worked a smile onto my lips, once again pushing everyone else, their conversations, their voices, their faces, out of my mind. I only allowed myself to focus on her. "I think you're pretty, too."
She let out a laugh that was anything but humorous, the same thing I did when Evan tried to convince me of something I knew wasn't true. I'd never known how sad that sound could be until I caused it from someone else.
"You don't have to lie to me to make me feel better about myself," she said. "It's bad enough I'm a fat loser who likes a gay guy that's way out of my league. I don't need his sympathy to top it all off."
I frowned. "You shouldn't talk about yourself like that. And you shouldn't just assume things, either."
She scrutinized me closely. "You're not gay?"
I fumbled for my words, my face red. "N-no, I am." Her hopeful gaze fell. "Sorry," I added unsurely. She just shook her head, mumbling an 'all the good guys are gay.' "What I meant was," I continued, "I'm not being sympathetic. I'm being empathetic, if anything. A couple months ago, nobody even knew my name. But then I started going out with Evan, things got a little easier, knowing that I wasn't a total waste of worthlessness and all."
She frowned. "I can't imagine you thinking of yourself as worthless."
I smiled. "I can't imagine you thinking of yourself as worthless, either. You've got friends who would do anything for you, and you're seriously talented when it comes to art. I saw your sketches hanging up in the art room the other day; they're really good."
She blushed again, smiling a little bit as she casted her gaze downwards. "Ms. Richardson is always showing your paintings to our class. They inspired me, I guess. You're really good at art, too. Ever think of joining the art club?"
I shook my head. "No, not really. I don't want to stay at school longer than I have to."
She nodded her head a little. "Yeah, I get that. Me too. But it's where I met those three losers, and I found a place where I sort of belonged."
"I don't know where I belong," I told her honestly. Six feet under, a cold part of my mind suggested. I internally glared at it.
"I know where you belong," the skinny girl said, Denice, I learned, turning her attention to Debby and me all of a sudden. "At the popular table. Why aren't you sitting there?"
I fiddled with the paper from a forgotten straw wrapper. I didn't feel like explaining anything to them, so I just shrugged and told them half of the truth. "First of all, I don't consider myself popular. And I just wanted to sit somewhere else for a change, I guess."
Denice nodded her head. "Completely understandable. You know, I wouldn't exactly categorize you as popular, anyways. You're so much nicer than those stuck up bitches."
I smiled unsurely and rubbed the back of my neck as the others murmured in agreement. "They're not all that bad," I said, surprising myself for coming to defense of the kings and queens of Clydesdale High. "Alana and Evan are really nice."
Janice bursted into giggles. "You can only name two of them," she cackled, "out of, like, a hundred."
I shrugged, rubbing my wrists awkwardly against the fabric of my jeans. "What can I say? The world's running low on loving and caring people. They're becoming harder to find, sure, but they're still out there. And you don't always have to go looking for them; sometimes, you just have to change yourself, and others will follow in suit."
They were quiet for a moment, thinking my words over, before Tim looked up with a wide smile on his lips. "I think the world could use more Gabriels, don't you guys?"
Debby nodded her head in agreement, along with Janice and Denice. "I think we could use one as well. Do you wanna be friends with us?"
Definitely not one of the most shocking questions a person could ask, but her words had barely registered in my mind. Friends? People who I basically just met wanted to be my friends? I didn't know how to respond at first; I hadn't made any actual friends in years. Evan, Alana and the others just kind of . . . appeared, became a part of my world. And now, I had the chance to allow even more people into my reality, and they didn't even know me. I didn't even know them. But we could learn to adjust to each other; wasn't that what friendships were all about?
"Of course," I said, and despite the hole in my heart, the rest of my day went pretty okay.
*
*
Lunch was even worse on Thursday. None of the others were here; Tim had to meet with the school's theater club, Debby had to decorate the gym for the biggest volleyball game of the year, and Janice and Denice were helping. Debby had invited me to join them during third period, but I'd said no because without Evan by my side, without a single glimpse of him even passing me by in the hallway, I was tripping back into my old unsociable habits. And with my thoughts totally stuck on his well-being, I'd probably end up stapling a flyer to my hand or something. Plus, I doubted I would be much help to them in general, anyways.
So, of course, I had to sit by myself, and it was awful. It was like freshman, sophomore and the beginning of junior year all over again. And after getting so used to having people voluntarily wanting to interact with you, you started to forget about what it was like to be alone. But then, one day, you get thrown right back into a creepy déjà vu mirage of what your life used to be, and you're forced to accept the fact that you have no friends, you have no one to talk to, you have nothing because you are nothing.
I am nothing.
"Hey, Little Bo Peep!"
I furrowed my eyebrows. Little Bo Peep? Who was that? I knew of a Little Boy Freak, but I knew nothing of a sheep herder who'd lost her sheep that was attending my school.
"Gabriel, hey!"
Gabriel? That was me! I looked up from the sauce covered tabletop and turned towards the prominent, high-pitched female voice from behind me. It was Jurnee, followed by Alana, Axel and Donovan. I pursed my lips in confusion; why were they carrying their lunch trays? Yeah, we were in the lunch room, but they were walking towards me with their food, as if they were going to sit with me or something.
Jurnee looked my table over and eyeballed the pasta stains with a look of displeasure "Why've you been sitting here?" she asked.
I fumbled for something to say without seeming like a loser, but it was like without Evan by my side to remind me that I was 'worth more than the marigolds,' I lost all confidence and ended up looking like a dork anyways.
"I--I thought you guys only let me sit you 'c-cause Evan made you," I admitted, scratching at my wrists. Donovan laughed.
"Man, now I see why Evan's so head over heels for you," he said with the kind of smile that shocked me. It was friendly, welcoming, harmless; I'd never imagined getting one of those from him, of all people.
"We thought you were mad at us the past two days," Jurnee explained as Alana wiped down the rest of the table. "But, Gabriel, we consider you a part of our group. You're our friend. Right, guys?" The others nodded in agreement as they began placing their lunch trays on the now clean tabletop.
"Evan or not, you're always welcomed to sit with us, to talk to us in the hallways and stuff, you know?" Axel said, sitting across from his crush as Alana took a seat to my right. Jurnee and Donovan sat at the table, too, and I was shocked (for obvious reasons), to say the least.
"Really?" I asked, examining their eyes as I searched for the spark of deceit, but I found nothing.
"Yes, really," Alana confirmed. "Don't always assume the worst."
"Speaking of 'the worst,'" Jurnee said as she opened her water bottle. "Where's Evan been?"
"How does 'the worst' have anything to do with Evan?" Donovan asked.
"It doesn't. I just wanted to change the conversation to him."
"Then you don't say 'speaking of,'" he said, squinting his eyes at her. She puffed her cheeks out.
She hesitated for a moment, looking at all of us for help, but the rest of us were grinning. "Shut up, I'm talking to Gabriel," was all she could huff at him, shoving his arm, causing him to spill his milk on his pants. He let out a noise of complaint, but she waved her fingers at me to continue. Popular kids and unpopular kids weren't that different, I noticed.
Not totally comfortable being in their presences without Evan by my side just quite yet, I had to mentally latch myself onto Alana instead. She was sitting close to me, watching me curiously, evaluating me, probably. She was one of the few people I could allow myself to trust.
"I'm not really sure," I told them. "He'd texted me a couple times Tuesday saying that he was sick, but he was acting like a wisecrack about it. Yesterday he'd only texted me once, and it was just random letters. I didn't get anything from him today. I think he's getting worse."
"He has to be if his mom's finally making him stay home," Alana pointed it.
"That's exactly what I'd thought," I concurred. "I know he's finally going to see a doctor in less than two weeks, so at least there's that."
"At least there's that," Axel repeated halfheartedly. There was a brief period of uncomfortable silence. "In the three days he's been absent," Axel began, "my C in Spanish rose up to a B 'cause I'm not goofing around with him during the lectures anymore."
Donovan grinned. "Me too, man. Except it's in English. Did you guys know that Juliet wasn't actually dead at first, but Romeo was an idiot by not checking her pulse and killed himself anyways?"
"We literally read Romeo and Juliet back in freshman year, how are you just now figuring that out?" Alana giggled.
"You realize more things without the distraction of Evan mocking Ms. Gerrman's lisp behind you."
The table broke out into laughter. I was the only one who sat idle, watching them while purrowing. When they noticed I wasn't laughing with the rest of them, their chuckles faded.
"What?" Jurnee said, as if I was the criminal. I hesitated for several moments; I should've just laughed with them, even if I was faking it. But I couldn't force the laughter out; nothing was funny, in my eyes. Everything was wrong. There was no time for laughter during a situation like this.
"I just . . . are you guys saying that it's better without him here?"
They frowned. "Of course not," Alana said. "We're just trying to lighten the mood, Gabriel. Evan wouldn't want us to dwell on the bad. He's probably home, whining and trying to get out of bed."
"His mom probably took his phone away," Donovan suggested, "so that he can get his rest and all."
"It might just be pneumonia, or something. He'll be fine," Axel tried to comfort, but I shook my head at them, my expression disbelief. How could they think any of those lies? There was something seriously wrong with Evan; I'd been around him more than them, so I knew about his condition more than any of them. I told them that, and their expressions darkened, except for Alana's, who only looked away.
"Just because you're dating him, it doesn't mean we're not just as close to him. He's our friend, too. You don't have to be a jerk about it," Axel said, piqued. I just shook my head and started gathering my stuff up.
"Christ, you two are always so irritable without the other by their side," Jurnee caviled, but I was already walking away, doing something I hadn't done since the beginning of the year.
I went to the locker room, sat on one of the benches, and cried my frustrations away, like the nugatory pansy I was.
*
*
It was Friday. I was alone during lunch. Again. The others decided to sit back at their own table, and said nothing to me throughout the entire of the day. I didn't care. I didn't want them, didn't need them. Evan hadn't texted or called me today, either, so I decided that after school I would visit him, and that was the only thought that kept me from going homicidal the entire rest of the day.
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Note
Sorry for the lack of updates; I've been extremely busy with school & life lately. Not like you guys care, haha, because most of you see it as Wattpad is my entire life. Luckily, I have less than a month of school left until summer break, so hang tight to your patience. Soon my stories will be the only things that have my full attention, so please stop demanding me for updates. I'm trying, I really am. I know you want them updated; I want them finished, too.
Thank you guys for your wonderful love and support, I really appreciate it! Please drop a vote and, if you already haven't, fan me so you can keep updated about the next installments for the story. Leave a comment as well; let me know what you guys think's going to happen! I love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you to the handful of you who're being patient, kind and wonderful, and I'll see you guys (hopefully) soon! :) xx
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