Project Smile

Seven

"Wait, wait, that's not right. We need to turn back," Gabriel mutters, hitting himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. "Idiot!" Then he looks at me. "Sorry, I was talking to myself."

   For the past twenty minutes, Gabriel has been trying (and failing) to give me the correct directions to his house. We've had to turn around several times, pull out in front of a few cars, and veer away from ditches, potholes, roadwork, and mailboxes. I'm pretty sure that I even made an illegal U-turn once.

   "Are you sure that you know how to get here?" I ask softly. I really hope that he knows where his own house is.

   "I do," he replies sheepishly, looking out of the window. "I just get messed up with verbal directions. I'm trying to get us there, I promise."

   "It's okay," I say, instantly feeling a bit bad for saying anything. I hope he doesn't take it to heart. I know that he's trying, and I know that it's hard to give directions at a moment's notice. "I understand. I do it a lot, too."

   "Really?" asks Gabriel, seemingly surprised.

   "Yeah," I laugh. "One time, we were driving through the middle of Nashville to get Pete's braces off. I was elected to be in charge of reading it, since I was in the passenger seat. I accidentally read the directions off the wrong way, and Pete joined in purposely. He was afraid that it would hurt to get them off, so he didn't want to go. We barely made it to that appointment on time. Zach got so mad at us, but we all found it funny in the end." At the mention of Zach's name, I smile a little, though I can feel the backs of my eyes starting to sting.

   After a few more turns, Gabriel and I manage to make it to his house. I park my vehicle in the long driveway, looking up at the house. It's a beautiful two-story brick house, set off to the side of the street. The yard is neatly mowed, the grass still green. A tire swing hangs from a large oak tree in front of it. I can imagine a young version of Gabriel just barely pushing himself on it, spinning around and thinking. The thought brings a small smile to my lips.

   Gabriel opens the car door and the front door for me, and I step inside of the house. It opens into a dark hallway, then leads into a bright yellow room that is a kitchen and a living room combined. The kitchen table is a dark oak color, matching chairs surrounding it and flower arrangements in the middle. The bar next to it is made with a marble countertop, the cabinets surrounding it all painted white. Past this is the living room, with two brown recliners and a leather sofa setting there, arranged in front of a fifty-inch television. Near the television is a fireplace, wood already in it and waiting to be burned. Photographs line all of the walls, all of them featuring a man and woman. The man is tall, with curly brown hair and blue eyes, as well as chiseled features. The woman is shorter, with straight dirty blonde hair and dark eyes. The photos also feature either Gabriel or a younger girl that I presume is his sister. There are a few of all of them together. I study the first one that I see, one of the parents and Gabriel when he was about eleven years old. He's dressed in a nice suit, looking straight into the camera with a solemn expression. His mother and father are smiling, looking like they've given up on trying to get him to do the same.

   "My parents are into a lot of family time," explains Gabriel quietly when he notices me looking. A flicker of something passes through his eyes when he looks at the photographs, but it's gone when I look at him again. He shakes his head slightly. "My room is this way." He leads me up a flight of stairs and down another hallway, turning to the left and opening a door.

   I step into a gray-blue room, one that's surprisingly well-kept. There's a black and gray bedspread that's partially tossed back, and a few shirts lying around, but it's neat besides that. A black bookshelf sets against his wall, filled with books and journals. There's a medium-sized desk in the corner, a pencil on it that's waiting to be used. His closet door hangs slightly ajar. "Sorry about the mess," he says. "I kind of forgot about it until now."