Learning to be Beautiful

Learning to be Beautiful ~29~

Gavin and I didn't talk about what had happened after I had finished crying. In fact, as soon as I had stopped sobbing into his shirt, Gavin got up, walked into the kitchen, and made himself a sandwich. If it were any other day, he probably would have begged me to make it for him, but under the circumstances, I think he figured that it would be better if he were to make it himself.

While he was in the kitchen, I dawdled around his apartment, picking up random objects and looking at the pictures he had hanging on his walls. He had several of his family, and a few of my family. There were two or three pictures of me and him together, laughing at some unknown thing. It made me happy to see the two of us there on his walls, smiling brightly and just being glad to be with each other.

Gavin came out of the kitchen and saw me standing there looking at the photos. "My mom put those up."

I turned to face him and saw that his sandwich was already a quarter of the way gone. "I figured. Guys generally don't seem to decorate their apartments."

The brunette chuckled a little bit and chomped on his sandwich. He chewed a few times, before looking at me in the eyes and saying, with his mouth full, "Want some?"

I laughed a little bit. "No, I'm good."

He swallowed, and shrugged before tearing another bite out of his sandwich. "So, what do you want to do?"

I shrugged, then looked at the watch on my left arm before sighing. "It's actually getting late. I should probably get back home."

Gavin frowned and set his sandwich down. "But you basically just got here," he pouted. "It's no fun if you just show up and leave. At least play a quick game of Uno with me."

I stole a glance out of the window, and, seeing that it was dark, shook my head sadly. "No, I really do need to get home."

I turned on my heel and started towards the door. I was halfway over the threshold when I had to turn back to Gavin. "Could I get a ride home?"

Laughing, my best friend grabbed his car keys and walked out the door with me. "Let's go, Ais."

~*~

Gavin didn't come in with me, but merely dropped me off at my driveway and, as soon I was inside, sped away. I couldn't really blame him for that--what would you have done if the person you had... feelings for hadn't responded favorably to your declaration of said feelings?

My mother was rather surprised that I was home as early as I was. "That was a pretty short dinner."

I paused where I was, my foot on the first stair step. "We, uh, we actually didn't go to dinner."

"Oh?" She came out of the kitchen where she had been washing dishes. "Then what did you guys do?"

"We didn't actually do anything." Sighing I moved down form the steps. "I more or less ran away from him."

Mom's mouth twisted downward in a disbelieving frown. "You ran away?"

"Yeah... see..." I started into the whole, long story of what had happened with Linc. How he had shown up drunk, how he wouldn't let me out of the car... how he had hit me. The whole while, Mom listened quietly.

When I had finished, she ran her fingers through her curly, blond hair and spoke. "I think... I think you should forgive him."

"I should what?!" I had sat down on the stairs as I told her the story, but at her words I had jumped to my feet in disbelief. "You think I should forgive him? Mom, he freaking hit me. He drove drunk, and he wouldn't let me out of the car when I asked him to. And now you're telling me to forgive him?"