Racing Down Sunset Boulevard

Chapter 21

Nate's POV

It took me two tries before I got used to the recoil, and two more before I found out how to hold the gun in order to minimize it. However, it took me a week before I could land a decent shot on the target. I could see my phone's screen light up with a new text. A week ago, I had picked up the gun for the very first time in the two years since I had bought it, its weight foreign in my palm and the belt of jeans. Now, it felt almost like second nature to place it back in the waist of jeans (safety on, of course) before picking the phone to answer the waiting text as I reined in the urge to sigh.

This time she had found the courage to ask me to be present at the school year opening on Monday. I was quite close to simply casually proposing it myself since she'd been not so subtly mentioning it for the past 4 days.

Five days ago, I had taken it upon myself to ask her on a proper date after skirting around the subject for 48 hours too long, and well, she's been texting me four to five times a day, every single day. Whether it was a simple "What are you up to?" or a "Are you up yet? You didn't text me good morning" it was constant, like a misshapen fly buzzing incessantly by your ear on a summer morning while you're still trying to catch a couple of moments of rest.

I had developed quite a bit of a routine. Texting her in the mornings and every 3 to 4 hours after that, making up whatever scenario seemed to fit my whims at that particular moment. I have a very busy schedule. On Thursday I visited my mom in the morning, had lunch with my long lost best friend who happened to be in town for a music festival, and proceeded to have dinner two towns over with my soon to be co-workers because law firms just randomly take on aspiring barristers for week-long internships.

In truth, dating her wasn't as awful as I had anticipated. Not to be inferred that I find it enjoyable. I simply understand the appeal for an overbearing girlfriend for someone like Gage.

I tightened my grip on my pistol, pulled it out, and shot the last bullet in the barrel. In my sudden flash of rage, I forgot to take proper aim, and the bullet ended barely hitting the paper, punching a hole in the very margin of the standard vaguely human black target. The only other person in the shooting range gave me an odd look, and all I could do was stare back. It wasn't even a quarter later that he hurriedly picked up his stuff, and shuffled out quickly, sparing me a dozen glances as he did so.

I don't blame him, because I can imagine what he'd seen in my stare. Blankness, which only stemmed from the mention of one person. I tightened my grip on my pistol momentarily, then released it, letting it thud on the tiled floor. It's not enough.

I huffed out a laugh, a manic little giggle, a sound only a lunatic could give off. And maybe I was a lunatic, and that's what the pills were meant to suppress. I wouldn't know, because, by the time I was old enough to understand it, I couldn't bring myself to care anymore.

And just like that, I was seething, because where I had been content, even satisfied, now I was restless and full of a feeling I'd come to know much too well. I was full of resentment because he just accepted it. Because he simply didn't care I took her away. I tried my best to compose myself, and walked slowly back to my car, thudding on the plush seat with a sigh. I closed my eyes, and could almost see Gage riding shotgun, a ball of anxiety and anticipation as I drove to school the first day of junior high. He looked over at me and smiled, albeit nervously. He was just as eager to see if he'd made the football team this year as he was to crawl under his bed and never emerge again. I saw myself pat his shoulder. "If you don't make the team, the selection process is seriously rigged in favor of the bourgeoisie,"

A huff of breath from Gage, supposedly a laugh was followed by "And that's why I love you, Nate. Never change buddy, never change".

How would you define love?