Jason
Everything is weird. I’m sitting in the trailer with Linda—neither one of us knows what to say, so we just drink beer in silence.
Gabe’s been in his room for over an hour—an excruciatingly long hour. I knocked once, and Gabe asked for a little more time.
So, I’m just…here. Thinking about what Doug said.
My breath hitches when the bedroom door opens, and Gabe walks out.
Linda and I both stand, and she asks, “Can I get you something, baby? You need food?”
Gabe shakes his head and looks at me. “Will you walk with me?” he asks.
His eyes are red and vacant, and he looks paler than normal.
I nod, my pulse accelerating as I look into his eyes.
Gabe leads me to the back door, but then his Mom says, “Gabe.” He looks at her.
They say nothing. She stares at him with sympathy, and Gabe looks…shattered.
He leaves, holding the door open for me, and we walk into the woods. The air smells earthy and slightly sweet. I want to hold Gabe’s hand, but I don’t know if he wants me to.
He leads us to the spot.
Our fort.
Well, where the fort used to be.
Gabe takes a seat on a log, and I sit beside him.
We sit in silence, Gabe looking off with a wistful expression. “It’s never been easy, has it?” he finally says. “There’s never really been a moment when it was just…okay.”
I look down at the ground, locking eyes with a withered leaf. “I guess not.”
“Except out here,” he adds. “It felt okay out here,” he looks at me, “with you.”
My heart pounds, and I reach to hold his hand, but he pulls away. “What is it?” I ask.
He looks off with that vacant expression again. “You were right about me,” he states with a defeated tone. “I’m a fucking liar.”
I don’t speak. I can’t.
Gabe’s throat bobs, and he closes his eyes.
“When you came back, I was so upset. Not because we were fighting, but because you knew me before I was broken. You were the one connection I had to a me I didn’t hate, and I knew I’d latch onto it—get addicted to it.
” Gabe looks at me, and the tears fall. “I knew I’d get addicted to the feeling I get when you look at me like that.
” He turns away, his face crumbling. “But you won’t look at me like that anymore once I tell you. ”
I can barely get the words out, but I finally whisper, “Try me.”
He looks at me, a sliver of hope in his eyes, but it vanishes as quickly as it came.
“I…I did it.” His voice is so small. “I killed him.” He can barely get it out, each word catching on the lump in his throat.
“And she…she took the bla—” Gabe falls apart before he can say the last word, and I wrap my arms around him and press him to my chest.
I don’t know what to say, so I just whisper his name over and over again.
“I hate myself so much,” he gasps.
“No. No, don’t say that—”
“I can’t do it. I can’t live with the memories anymore—”
“Don’t say that, Gabe!”
He’s cracked open now, and it all comes pouring out of him. “He beat her after he found out about Doug and—” I can see the whole thing in my mind, and my heart breaks for him. “I lost it.”
“You were protecting your mother,” I say, hoping it’ll calm him down.
“I stabbed my fucking dad to death, Jason. I’m a piece of shit.”
“No! You were protecting her from a piece of shit. You protected your mom.”
I squeeze him in my arms, hoping he can feel how much I love—
How much I love…
Gabe bawls into my chest, muttering terrible things. “It’s okay if you want to leave—”
A cold chill rushes down my back. “Never.”
“You don’t have to stay—”
“I’m staying,” I state with conviction.
He shakes his head. “You’re just saying that because—”
“Gabe, I’m in love with you.”
He gasps. I squeeze him tighter, and Gabe stops crying.
“What?” he finally asks, still wrapped in my embrace.
I run my fingers through his wavy, dark hair as I let my words settle over me.
They do.
And it feels so right.
“I’m in love with you, Gabe,” I say with zero hesitation. “I love you so much. You’re everything to me. I will never leave you again. Ever.”
Gabe looks up at me, the tears still falling down his cheeks. “Please don’t say that if you’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“It’s the truth.”
Gabe’s eyes narrow, studying my face like he’s trying to find a lie, but he won’t.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
Then it appears. The thing I’ve wanted to see since we walked into the forest together.
He smiles.
“I love you, too,” he says.
“Yeah?”
Gabe falls apart again as he says, “So much. I love you so much, Jason.”
The sob rips out of my throat before I can stop it, and I squeak out the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. “Same, dude.”
Gabe barks out a laugh while bawling his eyes out, and so do I.
We both sit there, on a damn log, laughing through the tears, which feels so typical for us. We’re still laughing as we lean in and kiss, but then it shifts.
Because the kiss?
I don’t know why, but it feels like we’re kissing for the first time.
It feels so big—overwhelming. A lifetime of pain in my heart crumbles, and in its place is a love so big and strong that I feel like I might burst.
We kiss, feeling connected in a way we hadn’t before. Or maybe we did, but we lost it in the bullshit.
And now that it's back, it feels so good.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For telling me—letting me in. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. You were all alone, and I’m so mad at myself for doing that to you.”
Gabe shushes me, then cups my cheek. “I’m not alone anymore.”
Hearing him say that makes me feel hope. “No, you’re not.”
“Neither are you,” he adds.
“I love you, Gabe.”
“I love you too, Jason.”