A Horrible Way to Say Goodbye
I hadn’t thought the state of things could get worse…
until they did. Until I woke up this afternoon to the sound of rolling thunder and hazy green skies.
Having stayed up late into the night waiting for Dad to get home from his midnight shift, meeting him at the door with every argument and excuse for Gideon in the book.
It was the first time I had screamed at my dad.
Ever. I had screamed so loud that Mom dragged herself into the living room, haggard and still half-drunk, to separate us.
Dad nailed my windows shut.
Whatever relationship had existed between the Fishers and the Bells died and withered that day in the graveyard.
Even Mom showing up long enough the day after the funeral to stand beside Dad and forbid me from seeing Gideon again.
That was three days ago. Three days since my fist slammed my father's chest, his brawny arms wrapped around my waist, holding me back as I tried to dash for the door.
Gideon hadn’t come that night.
He hadn’t come to the door when I’d screamed from across the road for him.
Gideon hadn’t come.
My eyes are swollen, my lips puffy, throat raw, and head pounding, but still I manage to drag myself from my tear and snot-soaked sheets.
Even with the storm raging outside, I squint as I make it to the window, uncaring of the lecture I’ll get later tonight when Dad gets home and realizes I skipped school.
I pause, my whole body freezing at the sight of a large, boxy moving truck pulled into the circular drive of Bell Funeral Home.
My mind blanks as Gideon steps outside his house despite the storm, loading it with already packed boxes.
The numbness lasts mere seconds before it’s overridden by pure panic.
I barrel down the hall, slipping on the hallway runner, my knee smashing painfully into the hardwood before I’m on my feet again.
No.
No. No. No. No.
I don’t bother shutting the front door as I burst from it into the thunderstorm.
Rain pelts me as the gravel digs into my bare feet.
I’m not fast enough because my best friend is back inside, the door shut behind him.
I don’t care. When I reach the back of the moving truck, its ramp slick with rain, my chest caves in, the last bit of hope I held withering with it.
It's nearly full.
It’s Gideon's lamp from his bedroom, boxes, and bags of clothes. An open tote of framed pictures of the family.
A panicked sob leaves my chest as I run toward the house, my white pajamas already soaked as I knock on the door.
Once, twice.
I reach out, trying the handle, to find it locked. The doors are never locked. Just like the lights in the foyer are never off. But they are now. Something awful builds, and it feels like the death of something monumental, like an ending that’s brutal and final.
“Gideon, I know you’re in there!” I yell. “Why is there a moving truck? What are you doing?!”
I don’t want to knock again, don’t want to bang on the door, but before I know it, I am. Thunder sounds across the sky, echoing off the hills and through the woods, and I peek into the window, banging on that too. “Gideon Lewis Bell, you promised me! You promised me you’d never leave!”
I kick the door, a frustrated scream leaving my throat as I back up, down the steps, staring at the upstairs window just in time to see the curtain move.
That festering, horrible feeling… perhaps years of them detonate like a bomb inside my chest. I scream again, this time it’s his name.
One of my nails bends painfully as I dig my hands into the gravel, grabbing fistfuls of rocks.
Another scream, another unanswered plea to the stupid, horrible boy inside as I lob them at the house.
“Gideon! You’re a liar! You’re a liar, and if you leave, I swear I will hate you for the rest of my life, Gideon Bell!
I will hate you so much, and I will never ever love you again! ”
I sob, picking up more rocks. “Why won’t you talk to me!? I said I’m sorry! I’m sorry I saw your mom! I’m sorry I’m not worth saying goodbye to you—" I cough, choking on the lump in my throat. “You horrible fucking person! You’re a freak! You’re a freak and you're weird and I never ever liked you!”
This time, when I let loose another volley of gravel, the front doors swing open. The gravel pelts my best friend, and the sky seems determined to cry harder than I am. Gideon is haggard, enraged; hell froze over as he barely flinches.
I say it again, quieter this time, but he hears me over the rolling thunder. I know he hears me. “I hate you.”
What starts as a fast walk devolves into a sprint as I pick up another handful of rocks. I barely get my arm above my head when he reaches me. His hands are hot against my rain-soaked flesh as he jerks me up so quickly my stomach drops to my feet like going over the crest of a huge rollercoaster.
I don’t have a second to react before my back meets the moving truck so hard it knocks the air from my lungs. My head hitting the side, making me wince. Gideon slams his forehead into mine, his face red and streaked with something…
Tears?
No, Gideon doesn’t cry.
It’s the rain.
It's got to be the rain.
“You fucking hate me, huh?” he all but roars, his lips inches from my face. “You fucking hate me, Audrey!?”
I let out a miserable little sound. “No.” I sob. “Why are you leaving? You’re going to leave and not say goodbye? You’re eighteen, Gideon. You can do whatever you want. Why would you go?”
“Because I fucking have to! Do you have any idea what I almost did to you?! Do you have any fucking idea? Do you even care, Audrey, or are you too fucking stupid and self-centered to see what’s happening in front of you, huh?”
I sob as he slams me against the truck again, my hands flying out to grip his arms. His skin is hot, veins bulging underneath my palms. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Gideon. Please don’t—"
My words cut off as his hand bands around my throat, squeezing. My eyes flying wide open as his lips skim over mine, fireworks pop across my flesh. “Stop saying you’re sorry, Audrey! You’re making this worse,” he begs.
Gideon begs, his voice made of gravel.
“Why, why do you have to go?” I choke out, my neck aching.
My body is on fire as he presses into me so close in a way he’s never dared before.
Nobody has ever touched me like Gideon is touching me now, and I innately feel every inch of him.
His body is so close, melding against mine, and my head is light.
He doesn’t answer me. What he does do is both infinitely better and horrifically worse.
Gideon’s lips slam into mine as he releases my throat.
The ragged gasp I let loose is swallowed by his mouth.
My own lips are frozen as he commands them, devours them, not coaxing me but demanding I return his musings, but neither of us has done this before.
I can hear his ragged breathing and my pulse whooshing in my ears as Gideon kisses me.
The agonizing beat of my heart is softened, if only for a moment, by the desperate way he grips me, and I grip him back.
Clinging, clawing, desperate to pull me closer.
His hand grips my jaw, a choked sound leaving him as he suddenly wrenches it to the side, ripping our lips apart by force as if he couldn’t have done it on his own.
My mind is reeling, barely a second to steady myself before I’m shoved harshly to the gravel. Crying out as the rocks stab and scrape. I don’t sob, don’t beg or scream; I’m silent as Gideon towers above me. Soaked and glaring. “Go home, Audrey.”
He never answered my question.
It was a horrible way to say goodbye.