Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Gavin: Where the fuck are you?
Ebony stared at the text for four full seconds before swiping away the notification. She didn’t bother opening it. Let him wonder.
Leaning back in the lawn chair, Ebony closed her eyes. Today she decided to ditch class and come see her friend Beryl who worked at Andy's Garage. Ebony was currently sitting in one of two lawn chairs in the empty car bay waiting for Beryl to get off the phone with a customer.
For a few weeks now her life had been turned upside down because of Gavin.
The house no longer felt like a home, just an empty shell.
Gavin had perfected the art of avoiding her at home, driving the stake of loneliness further and further into her chest. School was no better.
Actually, it was worse. Since the news broke all over social media about Gavin and Sienna everyone's eyes had turned to Ebony.
Looks of pity and curiosity honed in on her, burning holes into her flesh.
She could practically feel their whispers behind corners, feel the frantic texts of gossip zipping back and forth through the air making the hairs on her skin stand up.
For god's sake, she was not her brother's keeper. She wanted to walk into the admin office and announce it over the intercom that she didn’t care who he dated.
But she couldn't. She couldn't glare back at the students who stared or at the girls who snickered behind her back.
She couldn't do anything but hold her head up and smile serenely as if nothing was wrong.
When in reality everything was wrong. All because of Gavin. Was this new and very out of the blue girlfriend why he changed? Because he wanted to hard launch Sienna-fucking-Chase as his girlfriend?
There had been plenty of girls he fooled with in the past few years but never any he made official.
Was that why? Was that why for weeks he treated her as if he she didn't exist?
It was as if he had flipped a switch and all his smiles, his constant presence at her side, every feeling he had for her—gone.
The hole that had opened in her chest, the one he created, still throbbed with every breath.
It hurt to breathe. It hurt to pass him in the school hallways or smell the warm amber trail of his cologne in a room he just vacated.
It hurt to think over and over again, combing over every moment down to the second to pinpoint where his feelings for her just suddenly vanished.
But now the pain wasn't alone. Coiling around it like a snake was a deep dark hollowness.
A void spreading out from the wound leaving her with a numbness she preferred much more.
It certainly helped in moments like these when he did deign to talk to her. Ebony opened her eyes at the vibration of her phone and looked down again. More texts from Gavin, a few from Taylor also wondering why she wasn’t in class, and one from Cameron.
Cameron: Are you okay? You're not in Mr. Rollin's class. I can't survive this shit without you.
"Okay, finally." Carrying two sodas in one hand and two bags of chips in the other, Beryl came out from the office and plopped down in the empty chair beside Ebony. "I thought the guy was never going to shut up."
Ebony smiled and took the offered snacks. Beryl had texted her this morning when Ebony was on her way to second period, drowning in a sea of stares, and asked her to hang out. Ebony didn’t think twice about skipping.
Silently they munched on chips and watched cars go by.
The thing was, Ebony knew she knew what was going on.
Beryl was just like everyone else and stayed up to date on the town gossip, probably even more so since she had to small talk customers who liked to linger nearby as she worked on their cars.
But there was a key difference about her friend versus anyone else in town—Beryl despised Gavin.
Neither one could stand the other. Like fire and ice, the two did not mesh at all.
If for some reason they had to see each other even if across a street they would find a way to argue.
If they weren't around each other and heard about the other, they complained about each other.
To put it bluntly, Beryl was on her side.
Ebony's phone vibrated again. She sighed.
Beryl, with her half shaved head and purple and brown hair threw her a smirk. "Is that Gavin?"
"Yes. And I have no idea why.” She squinted at the glare on her phone trying to silent it.
“First, he doesn’t want to speak to me. Then he gets with the most obnoxious girl in the school, one I was sure he hated as much as me, by the way," Beryl gave her a look that said be serious.
Ebony rolled her eyes. "Okay, maybe not as much as me.
But whatever. And now all of a sudden, he wants to start actually talking to me again.
And I just refuse, dammit. So now we're in this weird back and forth anger that's nothing but pure tension,” she said, waving a hand in frustration.
“It's so bad poor Duke can't stand to be around us and just goes out to chase rabbits all day. "
A worried look passed over Beryl’s face. "God, that sounds awkward."
"It so is. I just…don't understand what brought this all on."
A slow, unreadable smile lifted the corners of Beryl's mouth. "Who knows, maybe it's late-stage puberty. Maybe it's that bitch Sienna filling his head with things. You know she lives and breathes just to be your number one hater."
"But I've never done anything to the dumb broad," Ebony argued. Actually, she had tried to be friendly with her in her junior year but that got her absolutely nowhere with the self-absorbed idiot.
Beryl continued, ignoring her. "Or maybe he’s staring down the barrel of his final years of playing house with you all school year and realizes the real world is approaching and he's made not an ounce of progress."
Ebony couldn’t help but defend Gavin despite the pain he caused her. "He's made progress. I told you he interns for dad's company every summer."
A bemused expression passed over Beryl's face. "You know what…I can almost understand the boy's pain."
Before Ebony could say anything, a beat-up Dodge Stratus pulled into the parking lot next to them.
Sitting up in her chair, Beryl drained the last of her soda and stood up. "Let me deal with this real fast. When I come back, I want you to tell me more about what the hell is going on with your brat of a brother."
Ebony gave her a reluctant nod just as her phone vibrated. Looking at the screen she paused.
Unknown Number: You’re breaking. I can see it. Don’t worry. I know how to put you back together.
An unsettling awareness swept over Ebony like ice water. Looking up, she scanned the area around her. The garage had a few people working in the other bays, the sound of people talking and the occasional clanking of metal but no one looking at her and no one on their phone.
Her phone vibrated again, this time a call from Gavin. For a brief second, she just stared at the smiling picture of them both she had set as his contact icon. The sight of it was like a knife slash to her soul.
She swiped to answer but Gavin didn’t give her a chance to say anything.
"Where are you?" His question came out like a gunshot.
Ebony ignored that question. "Did you just send me a weird text?"
"What? No. What the fuck are you talking about? Where are you?" he demanded. She could clearly hear the confusion and anger in his voice, it wasn’t him.
"I'm fine and goodbye,” she said crisply.
She could hear his angry voice still as she pulled the phone away from her ear. "Wait! What weird text?” he yelled. “And answer my fucking-"
Ebony ended the call.
When Beryl returned Ebony did her best to push the odd text from her head. Sensing what she needed was a distraction, Beryl didn’t go back to the topic of Gavin and instead filled her in on local gossip. She stayed with Beryl for the rest of the day and well after three when school let out.
It was late in the day when she drove back to school to pick up her school tablet.
Its empty parking lots and deserted hallways echoed with silence.
There were a few academic clubs and sports groups still active giving some life to the vacated building but not much.
Walking down the long hall, Ebony glanced up at the lights as they flickered on in her presence.
It was a power saving setting for the evening, she knew that, but it was creepy nonetheless.
The hall ahead and behind her was draped in shadows while she stood in an island of light.
Guess it's better than the dark, she thought.
Eventually, Ebony reached her locker, the click of the lock seeming extra loud in the stillness of the hall.
The door swung open, and a folded note drifted out like a leaf from a tree.
She stared at it with a frown for a beat too long before crouching, fingers closing around the paper just as a shift in the air prickled down her spine.
Warmth brushed her back. Not imagined. Not faint. Close. Very close.
Ebony twisted around, breath caught halfway in her throat and her heart slamming against her chest. Nothing.
There was nothing there. Just rows of metal doors and the sharp hum of fluorescent lights.
No footsteps. No shadow. No one. But the spike to her pulse and the charge to her skin said otherwise.
It buzzed like something unseen had pressed against it.
Whoever it was, they’d been standing right there.
With held breath she read the note.
"No one sees you the way that I do."
It took her an hour to get home when it should've only taken a few minutes.
For the longest time, she had just sat in her car staring off at nothing.
Thinking. The note sounded a lot like the two texts she had gotten.
It had to be the same person, right? Who was it and what did they want?
There was nothing romantic or cute about any of it.
The tone in each communication sounded—possessive.
By the time she got back home the afternoon sun was fading into its evening light.
Closing the door to the garage, she walked down the long hall and turned to pass the kitchen only to stop in her tracks.
Standing in the hallway that led to the stairs, Gavin stood with his arms crossed over his chest while his wintery gaze fell heavily onto her, and any lingering worry she had about the weird texts or the odd presence behind her back at school disappeared.
His eyes were like ice. Fury crackled beneath their depths sending a warning chill down her spine.
"You hung up on me," he said tightly.
Ebony took in a breath and steeled herself. She reminded herself of the cruel silence he subjected her to and allowed herself to smile evilly back at him. "I did."
She had to admit, she enjoyed the spark of anger her cavalier attitude caused.
Gavin took a step forward, filling the space with his presence. "I texted and you ignored me."
Ebony inhaled, hating the way his familiar cologne filled her senses. Even the scent felt like a betrayal now. She forced herself to keep her tone light. "Also correct."
"You skipped school," he continued.
"You're on a roll today."
Gavin's eyes narrowed and his expression darkened. "Ebony, don’t force my hand."
Beyond annoyed with him, she lifted her hands up in annoyance and tried to step around him but Gavin shifted to the side. He had no intention of letting her pass. Frustrated, she pressed her lips into a thin line using all her strength not to yell at him.
"It's called free will, Gavin," her tone teetering on the edge of patience. "And just like you, who decided to wake up one day and completely change, I'm also deciding to do whatever the hell I want."
For the briefest moment a gleam of vulnerability shone in his eyes, but it was quickly extinguished. He ran a hand down over his face and closed his eyes before leveling her a hard look.
“There’s no change,” he said evenly.
Ebony jerked back and stared at him. “So, us barely talking? This weird silence between us? That’s nothing?” she pressed. Dared him to deny it.
Gavin's jaw tensed and his bright eyes flashed with irritation, which was actually fun to see. “You’re right," he said. "It’s me. I’ve been focused on…Sienna.”
The brief moment of joy was shattered at the sound of the other girl's name. A vague ache pulsed in her chest, widening the wound he already caused.
Ebony looked away. “So that’s it?" she asked, her voice lower than she intended but it was taking all her strength to keep the emotions inside from spilling out at once like a tidal wave. "You get a girlfriend and suddenly forget who you are?”
Gavin shrugged, his own expression cruelly blank. “Maybe. Maybe I just needed a distraction.”
A pain lanced at her and she couldn’t keep the vulnerability from slipping out. "What does that even mean?"
A muscle twitched in his jaw and she could practically feel his frustration crackling the air around them.
"You're...You're so fucking dense. The whole fucking world gets it but you," he seethed.
Ebony reeled back, shocked by the raw feeling in his tone. It felt as if he had just slapped her. Never did he talk to her like this. She stared at him warily, betrayed by the stranger standing in front of her.
She ignored the instant regret in his eyes and spoke before he did.
"You know what. I'm done. I don't know why I care so much, you clearly don't,” she said, her throat painfully tight with the need to cry.
“One day you were the most loving, wonderful person in the entire world and suddenly I'm nothing at all to you. Just some random girl."
Gavin gave her a tortured smile that matched the dark fire in his eyes. "God, I fucking wish."
Ebony turned away, biting her lip to replace the hurt his words caused. Somehow, she made it up the stairs to her room before the tears came down.