CHAPTER 10
Unlovable
Gabriela
Wednesday evening, I met up with the girls at Anna’s place. We were sitting in the living room with our laptops and an abundance of food surrounding us. Anna made p?es de queijo , I made cannoli, and Layla made her late Pakistani mother’s pulao recipe.
We ate and talked while doing our schoolwork.
Layla was researching peer-reviewed articles for her upcoming assignment.
I was finalizing some graphs on Excel. Anna had already completed her weekly readings and was now working on our bustiers.
And Michael—Anna’s five-year-old brother—was curled up next to Layla’s side on the sofa, his small arm thrown across her middle and his head tucked against her shoulder as he watched cartoons on the TV.
He had no homework and was only here for Layla, whom he kept shooting bashful glances at when he thought she wasn’t looking.
It was adorable. Michael had a crush on her.
Last year, when Layla and Josh became official, they’d come over for dinner and Michael had smacked Josh’s crown jewels with his Light Saber until the latter choked with pain.
Then Michael had bawled his little heart out because he couldn’t believe that he was losing Layla to Josh.
I might have filmed the entire thing on my phone. It was a core memory. One I might decide to play at Josh and Layla’s inevitable future wedding.
Once sleep started pulling at Michael’s eyelids, Anna carried him upstairs to bed after he gave us all hugs and helped him through his night routine. Minutes later, when she returned, I figured now was a good enough time to drop my bomb of a news.
“So, I saw Franco two days ago while I was leaving my Horror & Cult Classic Cinema class,” I casually announced while closing my laptop and diving for my bowl of pulao.
Layla’s head snapped away from her laptop screen in my direction, pure disgust flashing on her face. “Oh my God. What?”
“Ew,” Anna spat, a hard gleam in her hazel eyes as she paused her embroidery work, one hand gripping a thread and needle, the other one holding the bustier. “Why is that asshole back in the city?”
Franco moved to New York to live with his father shortly after our breakup when we were eighteen. As far as I was concerned, he’d dropped off the face of the Earth.
“I have no clue,” I said bitterly. “But he had the audacity to say ‘It’s good to see you, Gabby.’”
Like the fucker hadn’t left me with a handful of issues, anxiety, and so much trauma.
Layla shook her head angrily. “What a piece of shit.”
Anna punctured her needle with excessive force into the fabric. “He needs to stay away from you if he knows what’s good for him. Otherwise, he won’t like what Layla and I do to him.”
I loved my best friends and how they were always so ready to fight for me.
When Franco broke my heart all those years ago, Anna and Layla broke into his old Camry to dump fifty pounds of pink glitter everywhere.
Until it looked like a unicorn puked all over his car.
It was a funny form of revenge and even without witnessing Franco’s reaction, I just knew he had a bitch fit.
“I appreciate the unwavering love and loyalty,” I responded. “But Franco isn’t worth it.”
I wished I’d understood that when I was fifteen years old. Instead, it took me three years to figure out we were far from compatible. We had some good moments, but the bad ones completely overshadowed them.
An old memory struck me—one I tried my best to suppress over the years.
The fight that ended Franco’s and my relationship.
“Fuck, now I can’t even talk to other girls?
” Franco scoffed, pacing his room while I sat on his bed like a child getting scolded for doing something bad.
Which was ridiculous. I shouldn’t feel guilty for bringing up the fact that I saw him getting all cozy with Gertrude at yesterday’s party. “Ma dai! Gabby, you’re too much.”
“You weren’t talking to her,” I retorted, trying to rein in my temper. “You were flirting with her. There’s a difference, Franco. You were seconds away from kissing her and you probably would have if I hadn’t caught you!”
“You’re imagining it. It was a harmless conversation.”
Please don’t tell me this jackass is actually gaslighting me? “Don’t talk to me like that! I know what I saw! If you don’t want to be with me, just say so! But don’t fucking cheat!”
“Cheat?” He barked out a laugh, throwing his head back and staring at the ceiling as though he was trying to find patience to deal with me.
I seethed. “Yes, cheat.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” he blazed, getting in my face. “Talking to someone isn’t cheating!” His spit flew as he spoke and I had to rear back to prevent it from landing on me. “Did you see me with my tongue down her throat? With my dick dipping inside of her?”
Fuck him and that nasty-ass visual. I was so over him.
He’d done nothing but cause me heartache for the last year.
Franco and I might have had a sweet start, being childhood friends turned to lovers, but our ending was going to be sour.
And though I was an individual quick to accept my flaws, he was not.
He had a penchant for flirting with every other girl but his girlfriend now that he’d become the captain of the soccer team.
Well, count me out. I was done with this playboy behaviour.
I never signed up for it. Nor would I stick around for him to make a mockery of me.
“That’s it!” I hopped off his bed and tried to skirt around his tall frame.
He blocked my path. I hated when he threw his weight around and reminded me that I was small and defenceless compared to him.
I used my elbow to nudge him aside and it worked.
I quickly headed for his door while hollering, “We’re done.
Go to Gertrude. Put your tongue down her throat.
Your dick inside of her too. I no longer care, stronzo! ”
“Gabriela, get back here!”
On my way out of his room, I grabbed the paperweight action figurine I gave him for his sixteenth birthday and shot it against the hallway wall, smashing it to pieces. If I had more time, I’d have destroyed every gift I’d given him to celebrate our relationship.
But I was too focused on the tears stinging my eyes. I had to get out of here fast. I couldn’t let him see me cry.
“Gabriela!” Franco bellowed, his wrenching shout almost causing me to pause. “Don’t walk away from me!”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore!” I enunciated, stomping down the stairs. “Fuck you, Franco!”
His thundering footsteps followed mine. “Fuck you, Gabriela!” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me around forcefully, razing, “You don’t get to finish this!”
The vein in his temple was throbbing and I had this murderous urge to pop it with a pin and let him bleed to death.
“I can do whatever I want! I’ve had enough of you treating me horribly!
” I yelled back. “First, it was verbal abuse and now you’re emotionally cheating on me too?
I’m so over your shit. You wasted my time, Franco.
Three years of my life. Down the drain.” My face reddened as my voice cracked.
“If I could go back in the past, I’d never accept that first date or say yes to being yours. ”
It was the first time I vocalized these thoughts, mostly because it took me a really long time to realize that abuse wasn’t always physical.
It came in many forms, including the verbal one Franco doled out.
If he played a bad game, he took it out on me.
If he received a bad grade, he took it out on me.
If he had a bad day—he also took it out on me.
I was his metaphorical punching bag and somewhere along the way, after all these blows, I was deflated and empty.
Who could blame me for fighting back and finally putting my foot down?
Franco recoiled from my words like they were a physical lash. Like his disgusting behaviour never occurred to him. Even now, he stared at me as though I was a liar.
I supposed bad people never saw themselves as villains.
That was Franco’s issue.
He thought himself godly, untouchable, and infallible.
Proving him wrong and kicking him off his high horse would be my greatest retribution.
As he soaked in my words, it slowly transformed his expression into a furious scowl that told me he was readying himself to rip into me. I braced myself, leaning back on the balls of my feet.
“Now here’s a reality check for you: you’re an attention seeker and loving you is exhausting.
Do you hear that, Gabriela? Loving. You.
Is. A. Fucking. Chore. You want the world to revolve around you and God forbid I have a life outside of your desires.
Like shit, spending time with other people—talking to other girls—is not a crime.
Yet you constantly make me feel like an asshole for not being there for you twenty-four seven.
I used to be willing to deal with your tantrums, your mood swings, your goddamn neediness, but now I’m done.
You’re unlovable. You’re worthless. And you’re a bitch with only two redeeming qualities.
Your tight pussy and your blowjob skills,” he said frostily, every syllable driving into me like icy pin pricks.
“You were a waste of my fucking time too. I obviously wasn’t thinking straight all those years ago when I asked you out.
If I knew better, I’d never have bothered.
Girls like you are only good for one thing.
My bad for mistaking you one step above a whore. ”
The tears I tried to halt coursed down my face, a hot and angry waterfall blurring my vision until Franco was nothing but a faded silhouette.
If he’d driven a knife into my back, it would have hurt less than this.
Bitch. Unlovable. Worthless.
Two redeeming qualities. Tight pussy. Blowjob skills.
One step above a whore.