THREE MONTH BEFORE HE LEFT RAVENSWOOD:
“You promised me you would stop seeing her.”
I lost the grip on my house keys as they tumbled to the floor.
I hadn’t noticed Gabe leaning against the door when I got out of Alison’s car. All I could think about was how Leslie Douglas managed to have a nasty fall that I had let Alison orchestrate for the first time. She’s was standing one moment and in the next, she was on the floor crying out for help. Of course, I went to help her straight away. I had to eliminate me as a suspect as soon as possible and Alison had eliminated herself just by being at the other side of the room.
She was becoming fantastic.
So I guess that’s why I wasn’t prepared to see him just standing there. A silent fury running across his face and down his body. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alison flick an annoyed glance at him and then drove off.
“No, hello Alice, How’s your day?” I said, as I picked up my keys in one big sweep. Then I moved my way towards the front porch but I knew it wasn’t the end of it. He wouldn’t let me just walk away. It was Gabriel after all. You could see the amount of discomfort he was in just by the outline of his arm muscles, which stretched his t shirt.
A part of me wanted to reach out and touch him. To touch his hair and his cheeks and his mouth with my mouth. But instead, I moved next to him where the wooden porch chair was situated and made myself comfortable in it.
“You’re mad at me,” I said, once I had settled in. It was a statement. The tension was radiating off him.
He was always the silent fighter. He wouldn’t throw a tantrum and take the whole world with him whenever he got angry. He would stay put and just wait. That was eerie but it was why I cared for him.
We weren’t the type of people to fight. Normal couples had their ongoing quarrels and we had none of that. We were just what we were and it was liberating. But in his silences, it felt like I had been thrown against a wall.
Like now.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched him slowly move his head towards me. “I heard about Leslie Douglas.”
Did it suddenly get cold? I wrapped my arms around me and tucked my legs underneath me.
I sighed, “I don’t know why you blame her, you know, Alison. It was my idea.”
His voice was hard, “That’s not hard to guess Alice. I’ve known you too long to understand you. But I’ve also known you long enough to know that she’s changing you.”
Changing me? Why was it that everyone in my entire life criticised me about changing? I have always ever been who I was. Always.
I guess that’s why the mood started to get darker. I stood up abruptly and spoke, “What difference does that make from you trying to change me?”
And in the first time in forever, his tone adopted an accusatory edge of disbelief. “Is that what you think? That I’m trying to change you?”
I turned to face him, outraged, “IS that not what your doing? I can’t change who I am Gabriel.”
He stepped forward, completely bewildered at my response,
“I don’t know where you ever got that Idea but I would never ever want to change you. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I took your identity away from you. That is what has me worried Alice. Alison is taking away your identity.”
“Your obsessed with her.”
I said it in the way blood runs called and I will forever hate myself for that.
Outrage.
“Ha ME?” he said, looking like it was all like an insult. “I don’t understand you at all! You talk about her. You look for her. And I can I tell that every time you lose focus your mind goes wondering to her. She’s your everything,” he drawled. “Your obsessed with wanting to challenge her. To defeat her. She’s already won, Alice.”
“Your so supportive,” my voice oozed. I was become venomous.
“Why can’t you just see what I see?” He sighed, letting his hands comb through his hair. His back muscles contracted beneath the type slip of a t shirt.
I had damaged him. I could see the hurt in his eyes from everything I said.
For some reason I just couldn’t stop.
“Because I don’t want to see from a blind mans point of view.”
I could feel the words burn at the back of my skull. He turned around to face me like he didn’t even know who I was. Like all he could see through the filter of his eyes were sadness.
Then he whispered, “She’s going to kill you one day.”
I pushed myself away from the chair and faced him hard on. “No, I’m going to kill myself one day. Because it’s always been me that is the problem and never her. “
“Why do you so easily defend her! Can’t you hear yourself talking? I don’t know what to do with you.”
He was yelling now.
I’ve never heard him yell.
It’s terrifying.
I spoke.
“Your unhappy,”
Silence.
“You shouldn’t be unhappy,” I whispered.
He was facing me when his throat just broke out of fury, “Your right,” Then all of a sudden he was up and going towards the truck. I jumped up straight after him. Trying to run to keep up but in a second he had swung into the drivers seat of the truck his father drove.
My heart was dying.
Beat after beat after beat..
I got to the passenger side window just when the engine roared. Gabriel hands were on the steering wheel.
“Gabriel, what are you doing?!” I yelled. It was all in alarming and my voice was breaking with panic.
He pulled at the throttle as I banged on the drivers side window.
He briefly turned to me with eyes of agony and said, “Doing what needs to be done, Alice.”
He was going to Alison.
No! This can’t be happening! My heart was exploding and all I could hear was just the hammering of it.
I banged on the window harder, “ Gabe, don’t do this. Let me in now. Just let this go.”
“Please,” I was getting hysterical. I banged on the window harder and harder and harder and water was streaming down my face but all I know is that I was just yelling and screaming and yelling and crying
please, please don’t do this Gabe
He’s out of the car.
I know it because he is trying to grab at me and hold me. Grab at the girl who has lost her mind because I keep on screaming and banging the window because he is going to get hurt and he’ll take her away from me
And he looks so so scared.
***
:O I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS CHAPTER! I REALLY REALLY LOVED WRITING IT! I just felt like you guys needed a bit more background into Holbrook's and Alice's life in Ravenswood before they got to talk (which they will soon). You get to see a lot darker side of him and Alice here before he left and i really wanted to show that. Also, i really want to show how awesome Gabriel was when they first met! So Look out for it!
Thank you so much for each one of your commenting and drawing pictures ( winks to a certain someone) and just being so so supportive! I love you all!
XOX
Evilynice