Until Them...

Chapter Eight

GABRIEL

I called Avery and asked her to meet me for a drink. I needed to get out of that apartment as everything in there reminds me of Norah, and it's too hard seeing how empty it is without her there. A week ago we were planning on her moving in and now she's avoiding me like her life depends on it. I've hardly seen any of my friends since the fallout, but I know if anyone will tell me what's happening with her, it'll be Avery. Every day I'm getting more anxious, because I need to know where she's been staying and if she's all right. Seeing her yesterday, how hurt and angry she was, it's made me ever more worried about her.
"You look like shit" Avery says as she brings me a beer.
"Thanks" I roll my eyes at her.
"Have you slept?" she asks looking at the dark circles that's formed around my eyes.
"A little" Not at all, I think I've gotten about five hours in the last week. And I don't want to be rude, but I can't take this small talk any longer. So I push, "Avery please tell me where she is? I need to know that she's safe that's all"
"She's fine. She's back at the dorms now"
And I can tell by the change of expression on her face that she didn't mean to tell me that, "Back? What do you mean back?"
"Gabriel you're putting me in the middle of this" she says getting frustrated. I know this' hard on her, because she's both of our friends. She doesn't want to betray Norah's trust, but she knows how desperate I am.
"Please Avery, just tell me. She won't know it came from you. But I need to know where she was staying" I beg her.
She looks at me with sad eyes, "She was at Xavier's"
And I suddenly I wished I didn't ask her about this. "She what?"
"For two days" Two days she slept at his apartment, and my mind starts to travel to dark thoughts. Did she share a bed with him? Has he seen her naked? Did he try to touch her? Did she let him?
"Who told you this?"
"She did" So she's spoken to Norah? I don't know why this upsets me. I should be glad that Norah isn't avoiding her friends, but I'm not.
"You've seen her then?"
"Yeah I met up with her last weekend... and Xavier" For fuck sake, what the hell is she doing? Staying at his place and then spending all of her time with me. How long has this been going on then?
"So she's shacking up with him" I say bitterly. I can't breath as I imagine her lying in bed next to him, as he holds her while she sleeps. If she's fucked him then were over. I'll never forgive her for it.
"No, it's not like that. She knew you'd come to the dorms and needed some time away from you to come to terms with all this. There's nothing going on with them, he's just trying to get her out of her room that's all. She's hardly come out or seen anyone" And I only feel a little relieved, because at least it means she still cares. I thought after yesterday any feelings she had for me was gone, but she wouldn't be this upset if she didn't still love me as much as she did.
"But him of all people" Everybody knows how I feel about her hanging around Xavier. He was supposed to be my friend, but ever since he tried to get with my girl that's when our friendship was done. If he thinks I'm going to step aside and let him have her, then he has another thing coming.
"Gabriel I don't think you understand what you've done. I've never seen her like this. Even after everything with her family and you breaking up with her, but this is so much worse then either of those. She's not doing great and constantly trying to force her to see you isn't helping. Of course she went running to Xavier, because she knew you wouldn't be able to find her there. You really need to give her some space, or your going to end up pushing her further away"
"I don't know what to do. How to make this right" I confide in Avery.
"You can't. What you did was inexcusable and if I'm being honest I'm not sure if she should speak to you again. You promised me you'd tell her, instead you let them embarrass her in front of all of our friends"
"How was I supposed to know that Lena would show up like that?"
"Not the point...It should never have gotten too that point. You had sex with her for fuck sake...while you still had a girlfriend. What were you thinking?" Avery says with such disappointment. She knows how much that meant to Norah. I know they've talked about it, that she confided in Avery about it all.
"I wasn't. I wanted to be with her, to show her how much I love her" I try to make it right, to explain my way out of this mess.
"You should have shown her that by being honest with her" she snaps at me.
"I know. I screwed up. I made the biggest mistake of my life, and must as I want to I can't change it"
"You're my friend and I care about you. But you need to face the fact that she may never forgive you" I know that she hates me right now, but I don't care about me. I care about her, and I'm worried for her. Is she lonely? Scared? She usually likes to control everything, but this is beyond her control. I'd give anything to hold her again and listen to her breaths against my chest. To hear her call my name while she sleeps and to watch her eyebrows bunch together while she concentrated on her sketching, biting down on her pencils. But now that I know she's been staying with Xavier and spending time with him. Any hope of seeing and having that again is gone, and she's slipping so far from me.
"Avery" Emilia familiar voice calls out to us, and with her is Lena. I've not seen her since that night, and for good reason.
"Hey" Avery gives a cold greeting and glares at the girl who hurt her friend. I haven't got the energy to say something snarky like I usually would.
"Where's your girlfriend Gabriel?" Emilia grins at me. She's a vile person.
"Emilia don't" Lena says surprisingly, and she turns to me and asks, "Can I talk to you please?"
"I don't have anything to say to you" I snap, not looking at her.
"Please Gabriel?" She asks again. I huff and walk off from the table because I don't really feel like listening to Emilia's snarky comments while I hear her out.
"What do you want?" I bark at her as we get some space from the table, and I try keeping my distance from her because I think I might lose it.
"I owe you an apology" she says. Is she serious? She thinks that apologising will make all of this better?
"Save it" I snap.
"Please Gabriel. I really am sorry. I never meant for it to go that far or to say some of those things I said"
"So why did you do it?" I bark at her and I realise people are staring at us. I storm out of the bar, and she follows me outside.
"Because I was angry with you. I'm still angry with you"
"That's not a good enough reason for destroying my life" I explain to her. I knew this was revenge, but I didn't think she'd do something like this to me. And to someone who's never hurt her, not intentionally.
"You have to see it from my point of view. We were together for three years, and suddenly you break up with me. Right before Christmas, and completely out of the blue. How do you think that made me feel? I loved you and you just tossed me aside for someone else" I know what I did was wrong, but so was what she did to me.
"You know I never meant to hurt you" I explain.
"I know you didn't. But that doesn't mean it hurt any less. I knew things between us had changed when we went to college and we both agreed we could sleep with other people. I thought that's all it was, that you were just sleeping with the girls. Because that's what I'd been doing. I never imagined you'd go off and fall in love with someone"
"Neither did I" It just happened, I couldn't help it anymore then she could.
"Emilia started telling me everything that had been going on between you and her. Like how you'd left me at Christmas so you could spend it with her. And that she was moving in with you. I didn't realise how serious it was with her. Then I wanted to hurt you the way you'd hurt me. I wanted to ruin your life. To make you pay for what you'd done" she says.
"Congratulations you got what you wished for" I start to walk off.
"Please Gabriel" I stop, "It was wrong of me to do that to you, and to do that to Norah. I shouldn't have done it and I feel unbelievably terrible about it. I was an idiot for thinking that it would somehow make up for everything you did. But instead it made it worse. I realised that things between us had been over long before you'd met her. But neither of us wanted to admit it. It was easier to stay together then it was to have that awkward break up. But we hadn't been together in a ling time, not properly. But I didn't understand it, not until I came here and saw you"
"Why did you do that to her Lena? Norah did nothing to you...she didn't even know you existed" I ask, wanting to know why she's evil enough to destroy someone she's never met.
"I didn't come here with the intention of telling her. But when I saw the way you looked at her, I got so angry. You never looked at me the way you look at her, not once"
"I'm sorry Lena" I feel guilty. It's not that I didn't love Lena, because I did. But it's nothing like the love I have for Norah. Nowhere near close.
"I know you loved me. But you've never been in love with me have you?" she asks me. I'm aware that the truth will upset her, but I need to stop lying to people.
"No, not the way I am with her" I confess.
I see the tears form in her eyes, "I could see that. I could see how much you loved her. I was angry at you, not because you broke up with me but because I felt like I was losing my best friend. We've known each other since we were kids, and I didn't understand how all of this happened"
She can't be serious, "Just because we'd broken up, it didn't mean that I was completely out of your life"
"Do you think you'll ever be able to forgive me" she asks, catching a tear before it falls and ruins her makeup. She's always so absorbed in how she looks. That's one of the things I love about Norah, she's not as self obsessed with her looks like the other girls are.
"I don't know Lena, you've really fucked things up for me"
"I know I have and if there's anything I can do to make things right I'll do it" What could she possibly do to help fix this? If Norah knew I was talking to her right now she's be so angry with me. But she won't be in town for long, so I might as well be civil with her before she leaves.
"Well, you can get your little lap dog to back off" I say to her, mentioning Emilia.
"I'll try but you know what she's like"
"I'm still really fucking pissed at you. She won't even talk to me because of you" I tell her, so she knows she still not forgiven.
"I don't want things to be awkward between us. We're going to see more of each other now that I'm moving back" Whats?
"What do you mean your moving back?" I asks, she better not mean to the city.
"I finally got into the fashion institute, that's why I came back here. I'm moving back in with Emilia" she tells me, bringing more bad news.
"I hope you didn't do that to be with me?" I say to her, if she did she's wasting her time. I'm never getting back together with her, never.
"Course not. You know I've always wanted to go there, and they finally had a space open up so I got it"
"Jesus Lena, you're really not making my life any easier you know" I moan at her. She laughs at me, trying to make light of everything. This is going to kill Norah, knowing that she's going to have to see Lena over and over again. That she's going to have to become part of her life, not because of me, but because of our friends. Unless she's planning on never seeing any of us again. I don't know if I can handle only seeing her in class and at work, and everything being so formal and polite.
"I know, I really am sorry. Please just think about it will you. I know you can't forgive me right now, but maybe one day?" I can't tell if she's being genuine or not. It's hard to tell with Lena sometimes. We've gone through a lot together but she's never been that way with me. She's always messed around and hurt other people, but never those she cares about and wants to keep around.
"Let's just go back inside" I moan. This is all too much. Lena being back in the city, Norah not talking to me, her hanging out with Xavier. Part of me hoped that Lena would go back to LA and we could forget about everything, and start again. But were going to have a walking reminder everywhere we go now. Lena and I have a history, long before we ever became a couple. And that's hard to let go of, no matter what she's done.