Black Wing [Watty Awards 2012]

Chapter 19

Dedication: I have dedicated this chapter to SoulMated, because I think her stories are amazing! I can't get enough of them :)

Me and Gabriel lay there for another hour or so, not saying anything, just holding eachother. I was really curious about what happened between him and Isaac, but there was something else playing on my mind. Gabriel and Casey were a couple before I came to Harlan, I didn’t have a problem with Gabriel moving on, but the thought of them being together in that way made me feel sick. It’s not that I was jealous that she got that that close to Gabriel, because I am not a jealous person. Finally curiosity overtook me, and I couldn’t help but ask the question that was playing on my mind.

“Gabriel?” I asked, the nerves obviously showing in my voice.

“Yes, Angel?” he responded, as he started to rub his hand up and down my back.

“I was just wandering, erm-” The nerves overtook me, and I realised how stupid I seemed “It doesn’t matter” I said, wanting to forget the whole thing.

“No, come on, you have to tell me now” Gabriel said, he was curious about what I was going to ask, but I was nervous about the answer he was going to give. He would probably think I was ridiculous for even asking, or maybe even rude. I desperately wanted the answer to be ‘No I never did anything like that with her’. But what Casey wants, Casey gets, I could tell that from the moment I saw here all over Gabriel.

“Well, I was just wandering, were you ever physical with Casey?” I said, keeping my head down so I could see the look on his face. I didn’t want to see the disgust on his face from what I just asked; my heart thudded in my chest, and my hands started sweating. To my surprise, Gabriel chuckled. “Is that a yes?” I asked, not surprised at all. Disappointment clouded over me, I immediately began to picture them together.

“What?! No!” he said, clearly shocked that I had even asked the question and made the assumption that they had been together.   I removed my face from his chest and looked up at him, Gabriel’s eyebrows had melded together in what I am guessing is confusion and hurt. His eyes looked at me in a way I cannot describe; I had just accused him of being with the most evil girl in the entire world.

“Amelia, are you seriously asking this question?” he said, a smile growing on his mouth, the tension suddenly lifted off of me, and I smiled back.

“Well, I was just thinking about it” I said, at first I began to wander whether he ever thought about being with me in that way, but there was no way I was asking that. That was a bit too far for my liking.

“I wasn’t with Casey in that way, I couldn’t” he said, looking away from me. Well I wasn’t expecting that, he couldn’t? What was that supposed to mean?

“What do you mean by ‘you couldn’t’?” I asked, trying not to push him incase he didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe he had some sort of problem. Well, that would be awkward.

“Well, erm, I couldn’t do that with her because I couldn’t stop thinking about you” he said, looking me straight in the eye.

“But I wasn’t here for a long time” I said “I expected you to just forget about me and move on” Even though I never did that, I expected him to, that was what I wanted. Although I didn’t want him to forget about me all together, I just wanted him to move on with his life. I didn’t expect him to commit suicide, I mean, that’s just crazy, how did he know I wasn’t coming back?

“Even though you were gone a long time, I never stopped thinking about you; I never stopped talking about you. It was like I couldn’t live a single day without you” Gabriel said, stroking my cheek softly. My eyes started stinging and I had to look down, I did exactly the same thing. Although I didn’t visit Gabriel when I returned to Harlan to visit my father, I never stopped thinking about him. I had no excuse about not visiting him, although the same thing could be said about him, he didn’t visit me either.