Renascence Ch. 05

—

Out of all the required classes, I always hated P.E. the most. Coach Andrews didn't seem to know what to do with me. He was that really typical high school coach that barked around like a rabid dog, scaring students and joking with the jocks like he'd been a social reject back in his day, and now he was finally getting to hang out with the cool kids. P.E. teachers in the past had given me essays to write, or had me record miles on clipboards and time students, but Coach Andrews had decided that it was easier to just mark me present on the attendance sheet and do altogether nothing else.

I sat my ass on the bleachers like I did everyday, pulling out a book on Nietzsche philosophies that Emma had given me almost a year ago for my eighteenth birthday. She had told me that reading the book might help me find myself. Emma had known that I'd been her shadow, matching her every step, as if I could follow her through life without ever having to put myself out there. She'd tried to push me to be my own person, but until now I'd never understood why it had mattered so much. Now that she was not here, I no longer knew who to be.

I texted Gabe to clear my head, finding some comfort in knowing that no matter what I said, he'd care. I wanted him to know that I would be okay on my own, that I knew life was worth living fully. Even though it was a lie, I hoped that he wanted to hear it badly enough to believe it.

Gabe responded with a single word: No.

Me: You're just going to have to get over it. I'm graduating early whether you like it or not. I'm just giving you a heads up.

Gabe: Come to my class next period. We're going to talk about this.

I checked my watch. Next period was the lunch hour. It was in forty minutes. It wasn't enough time to put together an argument. I hadn't mastered the art of beating Gabe with words yet, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be using my body again.

Me: Can't. I'm busy.

Gabe: I wasn't asking. I'll see you at lunch.

This was why teachers shouldn't get involved with their students. I was in a unique position where I could disobey him and there wouldn't be a damn thing he'd be able to do about it. I had the power to destroy his entire career if he crossed me. It wasn't something I'd ever do, but how could he know for sure that I wouldn't? He was trusting me, pushing me and fighting me even though he knew it was pissing me off. The fact that he cared enough to risk everything was an overwhelming thought. I guess it was enough that I knew I owed him that one conversation, if only to give him some closure.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

If ever a time was bad for reading Nietzsche, now was it. I ate the text up almost hungrily, reading to immerse myself while pretending that I wasn't Grace Craft, the singular twin, left behind, drowning deep into the abyss. I looked into the darkness until I became the darkness, until I was the monster. Everything I'd done to Emma, everything I'd taken from her, it all just hit me like a ton of bricks—I'd been a monster for the entirety of my existence. Even from the womb, even then, I'd stolen from her.

I texted Gabe again, grasping for something, needing desperately to be grounded again. I tried to act as if I was just bored, talking about what I was reading as casually as I could, but deep down I was hoping he'd read between the lines and figure out how badly I needed someone to tell me that I wasn't a monster. I knew it was asking for a lot without asking for anything at all, but when have I ever spoken anything that makes sense? He just kind of knew how to figure me out.

Gabe: "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering."

I Googled it and it turned out to be another quote of Nietzsche's. I thought about it for a few minutes, reading the line over and over again, trying to find some way to practice it, to live, to survive. It was almost overwhelming how Gabe always seemed to know exactly what to say. I'd turned to him seeking solace, and without judgment he'd given it to me.

Gabe: You'll be okay. I'm with you.

And with those words, he reeled me out of the abyss.

—

The bell rung in my ears with an echo, the sound like a warning alarm blaring loud, telling me that I was walking into a danger zone. I made my way through the halls, a lost soul amongst all the others, drifting through the empty spaces between them. I was shorter than almost everybody, like a pathetic kid even though I was probably older than most of them. People bumped into me like I wasn't even there, some looking down at me like they were annoyed that I even existed.

"Get out of my way, freak."

I was so used to it that I didn't even flinch. It wasn't Miranda, but it may as well have been. Another tall mouth-breather on the cheer squad with powerful thighs and one of the meanest faces I'd ever seen in my life. I'd never learned her name, and she sure as hell didn't know mine. Not that it mattered. 'Freak' had such a nice ring to it. I almost didn't mind.

"Fuck off," I said, shouldering past her. I probably shouldn't have provoked her, but I still had some leftover energy that was keeping me on edge.

"What did just you say?"

I could have made a run for it, but instead I turned around and repeated myself.

"Fuck off, you deaf fucking bitch. Leave me alone."

I was slammed so hard against the lockers that I should have cried out, but I gritted my teeth through it and curled my fingers into a fist. Fuck graduating. Fuck everything.

I saw her reach for me again, the blinding rage taking over her, coming at me like I'd personally ruined her life—and for a split second I saw Emma. Time slowed, crowding my brain suddenly with that image of my sister's face in the car, the look in her eyes, the way she'd known that something terrible was about to happen. Had her life flashed before her eyes? Had she had enough time to think about that? My carelessness, just one stupid decision, and she was gone, dead on impact.

Remorse. I could taste it like it was on my tongue, like it had seeped into my bloodstream and poisoned me. I know that I'll never stop blaming myself, that I'll always be stuck with these venomous thoughts, always rethinking that day, always wondering if I had just looked, if I'd just stopped at the light, if I'd just let her drive like she'd offered, if I'd just been more careful...

My fingers uncurled, giving up the fight. I looked at my bully, and all I saw was relief. She was giving me the one thing I'd been wanting more than anything: my punishment. I prepared myself to be beat within an inch of my life, craving it like a fucking lunatic, but she never made it to me. Someone grabbed her by the back of her head, fisting her hair in a grip that made her scream before slamming her face into the lockers so hard that she left a streak of blood as she slid to the ground.

The hallways went eerily quiet.

It was Miranda.

"Go," she said to me. "Get out of here."

Her friend was moaning at her feet, covering her nose, bleeding all over the floor. People were whispering now, probably wondering why the fuck Miranda had defended me, the 'Hollywood' freak. I could see the crowd begin to part for curious teachers that had come to investigate the source of the commotion. It was going to be a real shit show.

"Did you fucking hear me?" Miranda hissed. "Get out of here!"

I was still stunned when she grabbed me by the arm and pushed me down the hall. Gabe had been right about her. Miranda Cox was not one-dimensional; she was on so many goddamn dimensions that I didn't even know what dimension that girl was on. I glanced back at her as I walked, my ears ringing again, like the bell had gone off again, only this time it was all in my head. She looked fierce with her wild eyes, her long black hair obscuring half her face as she looked down and wiped blood off of her shoe.

I left one danger zone to walk into another, slipping into Gabe's classroom, closing the door behind me to lean back against it, my heart hammering in my chest from the adrenaline, throwing my mind back into the chaos I'd been trying to escape. I blinked back tears, looking up at the ceiling, my hands finding my ribs, counting, breathing in, breathing out. I'd wanted someone to hurt me, to take all my pain and make it physical, to beat the numbness out of me. 

And I was fucking disappointed. It was agonizing how disappointed I was.

"Grace?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. The words just weren't there.

A chair screeched back, seconds passed like minutes, and then warm hands were closing around my elbows to steady me, an action so unexpected that I couldn't prevent the strangled gasp that left my lips. My eyes snapped up to meet the darkened hazel, causing a familiar tightening in my chest. I held my despair like it was a physical thing, clutching it just to feel anything but the numbness, but looking back at me was my lifeline; looking back at me was the man who refused to let me drown.

In silence, he pried my arms away from my ribs, saying nothing with his mouth that he couldn't with his eyes. He'd figured out that this was my safety net, that this was what I turned to when the walls caved in around me. He didn't let me count my ribs, didn't let me shove my feelings down to avoid them, didn't let me withdraw so deep that I was no longer part of the world.

I couldn't speak, couldn't find the words, couldn't even string together the thoughts to make sense of anything. All I knew was that I was dangerously close to drifting away, to getting pulled into that void—except Gabe was here. Gabe with his warm, scarred hands, tethering me with his firm grip, searching my eyes for my secrets, and looking so completely fucking lost that it made my heart ache. I wanted to hold him so fucking bad—and that thought was what made me finally see sense.

"It's okay. I'm alright," I said, finding my voice and tugging my arms out of his grasp. He didn't fight it, letting me go instantly and taking a step back. His face had changed, like he'd been abruptly reminded that I was his student, that this, the touching, the closeness, the intimacy—all of it was wrong according to society's standards. The established boundaries were invisible barriers that reappeared between us, wedging this weight between us, a heaviness that we both had to carry. It was the burden of desperately wanting something you couldn't have—at least for me, that was what it was. Wanting. Yearning. Needing.

"Did something happen?" He asked, slipping his hands into his pockets. It was a smart move, one that took temptation by the horns and banished it back to the hell from where it had reared its ugly head.

"There was a fight. I'm not hurt or anything so don't worry," I said, shrugging for something to do. I wanted to play this whole thing off like it was a minor inconvenience. No big deal. It's cool. Not like I'm reaching new levels of insanity, practically begging bullies to beat the shit out of me. And wanting you; that's craziest of it all.

Gabe frowned, not buying it. He looked me over, searching for injuries. It started out innocent enough, just a quick sweep over, no different than how he looked when he was grading papers, but the intensity of his stare was enough to make my stomach drop, and I did the single most damning thing a teenage girl could do to a man: I bit my lip.

Gabe didn't miss it, tensing immediately, his jaw clenching. He looked away, drawing in a deep breath through his nose, nostrils flaring. He looked deeply disturbed, but I couldn't have told you if it was because of me, or himself. Maybe a bit of both.

"Miranda—she defended me," I said. "I wasn't expecting that."

"Yeah?" The tone of his voice sounded strained, like a bowstring that was being pulled so tight that it was in danger of snapping. Uneasiness seemed to be rolling off him in waves, etched all over his face even as I could see that he was struggling to contain it.

"You were kind of right about Miranda," I continued. "She's... I don't know what she is, actually. She isn't as shitty as I thought she was, though. It makes me kind of, I don't know, uncomfortable? How am I supposed to face her now? Actually, don't answer that. Rhetorical." I was blabbering. I knew I was blabbering. It was like I was filling his silence, like I could smother his unease with drivel, like every second that I kept talking was another second put between us and that awful, careless way I'd just teased him. I hadn't meant to do it, and I was sure he hadn't meant to react to it. I guess we were always meant to be fuck-ups. That's what made this whole thing so dangerous.

"What exactly happened?" He asked. I watched as he took a hand out of his pocket and ran his fingers through his hair. Ah, his nervous tell. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't get some sick sort of satisfaction from having that kind of effect on him. Aaaaand of course that made me feel like shit again.

"Some cheerleader slammed me against a locker."

Gabe physically stiffened. His eyes blazed as he practically snarled a "What?"

"I swear, I think I offend people here just by existing. I got in her way in the hallway and she called me a 'freak' so I told her to fu—"

"You provoked this?"

"She shouldn't have fucking tested me," I said defensively. "I'm not allowed to stand up for myself?"

"No. You're not," he said, his voice quiet and dark. "You wanted someone to hurt you." It wasn't a question.

"That's not true," I said too quickly.

"You have no sense of self-preservation," Gabe said, shaking his head. "You went looking for trouble. Why the fuck would you do that, Grace?"

"I don't go looking for trouble."

"But it always finds you," he said. His eyes had darkened like they had after we'd first kissed, passionate and wild, but this time it wasn't out of lust—it was anger. It should have scared me, the way he could look into me like that, scalding my soul, scorching it, making me feel like I was being dragged under the first layer of hell, just below the surface, close enough to crawl out... but why would I? The burn was what made it feel closer to heaven. I wasn't scared at all. I was achingly curious, the fascination settling in my brain like a disease, corrupting me, making me want to explore how far I could push him, to see if the passion could translate, if I could find a way to remind him that passion was still passion, and one way or another, I ignited that fire within him.

Fucking hell. These teenage hormones of mine were going to be the death of us. Gabe was such a good fucking person. He didn't deserve this. He had a whole life to live. Teaching was his passion, and I wasn't going to fucking take that away from him. He made me feel alive, made the numbness fizzle away, but it wasn't worth killing his career, his livelihood, all the opportunities he had to change countless other young lives.

"Yes. It always does," I said with as even a tone as I could manage. "Which is why I can't stay. I'm going to graduate early, Gabe. I'm done taking chances with your career. You won't have to do this anymore."

"Wait, that's what this is about?" Gabe turned away, gripped his hair with both hands and groaned. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me, Grace. You won't let me help you because you're worried that I'll lose my job?" He whipped around to face me and let out a pained laugh. "Fuck the job. I already told you I don't care. I'm not going to just stand around and watch you destroy yourself."

"Well I guess we're at an impasse then because I'm not letting you destroy your fucking life either." I said the words through trembling lips, glaring back at him even though what I really wanted to do was scream because it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that he was right there, right in front of me, all six feet five inches of him, towering over me, casting me in the shadow of thoughts that hovered in the morally gray. It wasn't right to want him; it wasn't right not to.

"You know what destroys me, Grace?" He asked, his voice suddenly quiet. "You. Just looking at you destroys me. It's like I'm seeing all those days I struggled with getting out of bed in the morning, like all the times I tortured myself over the years, replaying everything, wishing I'd been a better person, a better brother... like all the years I've been punishing myself for something that was just a split-second mistake I made as a fucking teenager. Christ, I see you and all I can see is myself. When I see your pain, Grace, I see mine too. I know how much it hurts, and it's fucking destroying me that I can't protect you from it somehow. If I could take all your pain from you and bear it in your place, I would. In a heartbeat."

The dam fucking broke. Tears blurred my vision, streaking down my face so fast that I tasted them almost immediately. Nobody—nobody—had ever cared about me like this. He wanted to take my pain from me and bear it in my place. Who the fuck does that?

Gabe does. Self-assured, softhearted Gabe with those big scarred hands and brilliant smile, this Gabe.

"Such a drama queen," he said softly. He gave me one of those half-smiles, the kind that's rooted from sadness. I wanted to smile back, but my heart wouldn't let me. I kept thinking about him as a teenager, back to when he was just like me. His sadness matched mine, like our demons could have had playdates together, like the grave I laid in now once belong to him. My emotions were once his, recycled from tragedy, from losing a sibling, from losing that entire life we could have had with them.

My heart was shattered. How fucking bad had Gabe had it for him to be willing to risk everything to save me from the same fate? I wanted to go back in time and take him in my arms and tell him that he'd be okay, that one day he'd become the thunder, that one day he'd be a force of nature. I wanted to tell him that I understood, that I wouldn't have let anything hurt him if I'd only known.

And that's how I figured out why Gabe was so persistent. If I was in his place, if I had to look at a suffering young Gabe with empty eyes and empty dreams, I'd risk everything too.

"I won't graduate early."

A moment later my stomach dropped as Gabe crossed the divide, walked past the invisible barriers between us and grabbed me by the arm to yank me into his arms. I melted into his body heat, so warm and so right that I could almost feel it in my bones, right down to the marrow. I wrapped my arms around him, just as I'd imagined myself doing a hundred times, just the way I'd been dreaming, just the way I remembered; it was the way his arms felt around me, the fabric of his shirt pressed up against my cheek, the gentle rise and fall of his chest from his breathing—all of it was familiar, all relived like an old memory, cherished in the deepest part of my mind.

"Thank you, Grace," he murmured into my hair. "I know you're doing not doing it for yourself like you should be, but I'll take it. Thank you for doing it for me."

His words sprung a thrill in my veins, electrifying, the sparks fizzling as I flexed my fingers, trying my hardest not to pull back and take his beautiful face in my hands and kiss him like I so badly wanted to. Instead I concentrated on being the selfless person I'd promised myself that I would become, the girl who didn't take advantage of the kindest guy she'd ever met. I owed Gabe that security.

"Can we stay like this for a moment?" I asked. Just a little bit more, just enough so I could memorize the contours of his wide, hard chest and the faint scent of his aftershave; just long enough so I could pretend that we weren't in a classroom in the middle of nowhere, a teacher and a student who could only ever have this, nothing more.