The Brightest Stars ✨

Chapter 4

"Would you like to come inside for some tea?" Natalia asked Ty, sweetly as she stuck her head inside his open driver's side window. She was trying not to let her disdain for the situation colour her voice.

"I better not."

"I mean, whatever you're doing out here you can do from inside and you must be parched," she gave him another forced big grin. He blinked back at her with a neutral expression on his face.

"Look I have been remarkably calm about all the fuckeries that you've brought into my life, I think you owe me this."

Ty sighed and followed her inside. She wasn't expecting that she could intimidate the tall blond man into doing what she wanted him to do.

"Great, now tell me what the hell is going on."

"So no tea?"

Natalia gave him a withering look that answered his question.

"I think you need to have this conversation with Gabe."

"Do you see him here? Because I don't. Tell me who was following me."

"It was a private investigator, we don't know who hired him but I'm on it."

"Why did y'all need to go all special forces on him?"

"That's just how we're used to dealing with things. Is it heavy handed? Yes. But I guarantee you he won't come near you again."

Ty went back outside when it was apparent Natalia's offer of tea and refreshments was just a ruse to get him to answer her questions.

She tried to distract herself by catching up with planning lessons, researching resources she could bring into the classroom and as a last resort she started watching New Girl on Netflix, so she didn't keep replaying the detached look on Gabe's face as he held a gun to a man's head. It was an image that was going to haunt her.

Until then everything that he had told her about his time in the Marine Corps had been abstract and in the past. In those abstract visions of hers, Gabe was always the one doing things to survive, a victim of circumstance but now she was coming to terms with him being the perpetrator of violence and she didn't like it. It left her feeling unsettled.

"Where are you going?" Gabe asked puzzled.

She had wordlessly stalked out of the house without a word as soon as he had stepped inside. She threw her keys into a handbag but Gabe's question made her pause. She had no idea where she was going.

"I'm going grocery shopping," she decided, she needed some air and distance and perspective.

"Not without me."

She rolled her eyes but waited for him on the porch. Logically she couldn't go anywhere anyways since he had both sets of car keys. The realisation made her cross her arms and release a deep suffering sigh.

"How long are you going to keep to this up?"

"Until you apologise."

"Apologise for what, Natalia?"

"See, this is why we can't be in the same space right now. You're really vexing me."

"How am I the bad guy for protecting you. How does that make sense?"

"Are you hearing yourself? You were acting like you were still on the streets of Baghdad — not that I even agree or condone doing that in Baghdad either, by the way. What you did wasn't okay by any stretch of the imagination and if you did that under the guise of protecting me then that's not the type of protection that I want."

He gave her a look that she couldn't decipher and turned to watch the streets roll by out of the slightly open windows in the passenger seat.

"I told you I was vex and that I need space," she mumbled, more to assuage her own feelings of guilt at her outburst.

"I heard you loud and clear, Natalia.

They didn't speak until they were at the supermarket and he was following her around the different product aisles as she pushed a ladened trolley.

"Here," he said, rooting in his wallet at the checkout. 

"I've got it already," she said and flashed a credit card with his name already on it. "What? Just because we're fighting don't mean I'm paying. Get that third-wave white feminism shit away from me."

He helped her put the groceries in the boot of the car. "I think we should discuss things in therapy next appointment."

"So you can incriminate yourself? I'm mad as hell but I'm not a snitch, Gabe."

"It's covered by patient-doctor confidentiality."

"It must be nice being a white privileged man. I'd like to be one in my next life please, God if you're listening, I'm tired of the struggle."

"So how are we going to settle this?"

"I told you, just apologise. It's not hard."

"It's kind of hard to apologise for something I don't regret and I'd do again."

Natalia laughed, her voice taking on a high pitch hysterical note. "I can't with you."

"Mm, great. Let's avoid the issue, another classic from the Natalia Burton chronicles."

"If mi start a talk now, you'll call me mad. Let mi nuh talk."

Gabe had the good sense not to speak for the rest of the journey. At home they silently put the grocery purchases away in the kitchen. Gabe spent time in the living room watching game tape and Natalia worked upstairs in the office space.

At around ten in the evening, Natalia made her way to the kitchen for some water, she passed by the living room where she saw Gabe lying on the couch with a throw over him. His body was too tall for the length of the coach and she could imagine that it wasn't all that comfortable for his shoulder.

"Come to bed. Please," she requested standing over his lying figure.

"I wouldn't want to encroach on your space," he said without opening his eyes or moving an inch to fulfill her request.

"I'm sorry about that. I just wasn't expecting to see you go off like that this morning. It took me by surprise. I felt like I was seeing a completely new Gabriel."

"I don't know what to tell you, this is who I am, Natalia."

"You might think it's who you are because you did those things for a long time, but I know a different Gabriel."

"So in your perfect world, how was I meant to react?" he sat up, with the throw around his shoulders. His hair was flattened on the sides and the top stuck out at jaunty angles. Her hands itched to smooth the strands down and run her fingers through his scalp. It soothed her as much as it soothed him.

"There's this number that people call, I dunno 911? It's their job to sort things like this out."

"I'll remember that for the next time some madman is stalking you."

"Okay, this is not why I came down here. Come back to bed, please. This isn't us."

"No, you still don't get that I would do the exact same thing if I had a choice. Trust the police with the most important person in my life?" He laughed dryly. "That could never be me."

"I get it, okay? Thank you for taking care of me. I don't agree with your methods but I know why you did it. Can we dead this now?"

"You don't get to move the goalpost and decide when to placate me or when to punish me. I'm over that."

"What are you saying? What does that mean?"

She didn't want to end the conversation there, but her pride was dented from telling him the words she thought he wanted to hear and he was much too gone in his anger to be the usual voice of reason that reigned their arguments in from the brink.

"I think you better go to bed before we say things we'll regret, we're just going in circles."

"Okay, goodnight."