Summer Lovin'

Chapter Seven

(Gabriel's POV)
(June 2005)

I had been dreading this day since we had been invited months ago. I understood why my family was invited for Hailey's dad's wedding.

However, for me right now, it felt wrong to attend because I had completely destroyed our friendship .

There were a lot of stupid things that I had done in my short life but nothing I regretted as much as ruining the bond between me and Hailey.

At that time, I couldn't function because I liked her so much. I had needed some space so I didn't destroy our friendship. 

But now, our friendship was destroyed anyway. She hardly even looks at me and I find myself watching her from afar, like a love sick fool.

Throughout the last month, it had finally clicked how stupid I was. She started dating the captain of the soccer team, Colin. Now, it's him that gets to hold her hand. He gets to make her laugh. Kiss her. I don't think I realized how much I missed her until she stopped making any effort altogether and started avoiding me completely right around Christmas.

Her, Declan and Josie can still be found together all the time, and my Mom and Claire have become great friends. But, Hailey has somehow managed to figure out how to get away with seeing them all when I'm not around.

There are so many times that I've found out after the fact that she's been visiting my Mom or hanging out with Declan, but I'm never there.

It means I get to hear stories about Hailey but I never actually get to see her.

Which leads me to my dread of today. I know she's going to be all dressed up for this wedding, look absolutely stunning and it's going to add to my feelings of stupidity.

I'm also pretty sure that she's bringing Colin as her date and I'm going to have to watch him ogling her the whole time.

My mom always seemed to understand that I was never trying to hurt Hailey but lately she has no patience with me. Any time I ask anything about my old friend, she smirks and tells me that I should find out for myself.

I get it, I'm an idiot. Hailey's obviously over my jerkiness too.

A knock on my bedroom door had me looking up to see Declan smiling at me. "Stop dragging your feet man, we gotta go!"

He looked good. Where my dark hair blended in with my dark suit, his blonde hair contrasted and made his green eyes pop. I said as much, "You look great Dec! You okay?"

He had recently sat me and Lincoln down in order to tell us he was gay. It was interesting because it didn't shock me at all, it was like I had always known.

Josie's mom dying had hit him hard and he explained that he wanted to live as honest as possible.

The way he had expressed it, had made me feel super proud of my little brother. It also hammered something home, I was a coward for how I handled it all. I was in love with Hailey.

Lincoln and I had given him all our support but he still hadn't come out to our parents.

I knew it was weighing on him and I wasn't sure what was holding him back. They had raised us to be open and accepting and I didn't think they would be anything but the supportive parents they had always been. However it wasn't my secret to share and I just wanted to be there for whatever he needed.

He gave me a smile and said, "I'm fine but Mom is about to explode."

We walked down the stairs and I grinned at my mom, she was gushing about how good we looked. Mama Sawyer is excitable, it's definitely where I get my energy from and the wedding had her in fine form. She was going on about how we were going to have to get lots of pictures of the Sawyer family tonight.