Born Different (16 page)

“Why would you
want to talk to me? We aren’t friends. You have lots of friends
Grace, why don’t you talk to them? There are loads of other people
you can talk to.”

“Well we used
to be friends Gabe, didn’t we? And I don’t know but I just think
back to the past a lot now and I think I’d like to be friends with
you again. Those days were good you know Gabe. The best days of my
life and I just want a little bit of that back. I think. I don’t
know Gabe.”

Gabe still
didn’t really understand what she was going on about but he was
torn. Of course he
wanted
to be friends with her. That is
what he had wanted, dreamt and bloody yearned for, for so long,
since like...forever. It just seemed a little bit too good, too
bizarre, to be true.

Gabe would just
let her talk and see where it went. He didn’t have much to lose and
he would keep his guard up. Perhaps it was the all black thing, the
clothes, the hair, the eye liner? Maybe she was telling the truth?
They kept walking. Neither of them said anything more and it
started to get colder and darker and it started to rain.

The only
shelter was under the bridge so they ran there to wait for the down
pour to abate. As soon as they were safe under the metal structure,
the heavens opened and the rain came down in tonnes, it was almost
biblical. They retreated deeper into the dark heart of the metal
bridge, as far as they could go, until they were where the metal
started to grow out from the solid ground and they sat down huddled
together in a high corner to try and avoid getting wet from the
back splashes of the encroaching puddles and rising river.

Gabe got the
vodka bottle out of his pocket and offered Grace a swig and they
sat hunched with their knees under their chins and their heads
almost touching the underside of bridge as the water from the skies
crashed all around them. Everything made louder still by the heavy
down pour beating down on the bridge. It was like being surrounded
by an out of control orchestra of a million kettle drums, it was
deafening. With the thunder and lightning now directly over head,
it was frightening and exciting.

They both had a
few more slugs of the vodka as they waited for the rain to stop,
which it didn’t. Gabe couldn’t think of anything to say and it was
taking all of his strength just trying to get used to the fact that
he was sitting so close next to Grace. He could smell her, he could
breathe her.

The storm
passed over but the rain remained and with the realisation that
they might be here for a while, Grace began to make small talk and
it didn’t take long before they started finding some common ground.
Gabe listened mostly and he found Grace captivating. There was
always the worry that if he ever got to talk to her that she would
be just awful. But she wasn’t, she was just an older, wiser, more
intelligent and more beautiful version of the little girl he had
liked so much. It actually broke his heart a bit that she was
actually really nice, really quite funny and quick humoured and she
laughed a lot at what Gabe did manage to say. And she was shy, not
confident like Gabe had always presumed, she twirled her hair a lot
around her finger and she had a slight stutter that Gabe didn’t
remember her having from when they were kids. If anything, Grace
put herself down quite a bit. And she was tactile, always gesturing
with her hands and touching him to express a point or share a
laugh. Gabe kept sipping from the vodka bottle like it was a prop,
something to do to detract from the fact that he was nervous as
hell. But Gabe had to ask something, ask something before he
started falling deeper in love with her.

“And Alastair?
He’s your boyfriend, right?” Gabe spoke the words out loud that he
needed to say although he didn’t really want to hear the
answer.

“Alistair?”
Grace almost choked on her drink. “You are joking aren’t you?
You’re not. Oh dear Gabe, what are you like. Do you and your
friends actually not talk to each other?”

So she does
know
, thought Gabe,
she bloody knows!

The look on
Gabe’s face prompted Grace to elaborate.

“Alistair is
actually seeing someone you know but not me. Definitely not me! I
thought that you would know.”

“I don’t know
anyone that Alistair knows Grace, far from it.” Gabe was taken
aback and would have stood up if it had been a choice.

“Really? Well
perhaps it is a secret and I shouldn’t really say anything. Can you
keep a secret Gabe?” and Grace looked him in the eye to see if he
could.

Gabe laughed,
as he had to be the best person at keeping secrets that there ever
was.

“Alistair is
seeing Frank! Your friend Frank!”

And Gabe was
hit with it like a slap in the face. This was what Frank had wanted
to tell him. Lots of things, lots of little things that had
happened, that had seemed a bit strange to Gabe at the time did, as
the penny dropped, suddenly now make perfect sense.

“Ah…I see. No,
I didn’t know…not about Alistair. I...I...I‘ve been a bit busy
recently.”

“Doing
what?”

So this was the
trap, the bait had been laid and now he was supposed to confide
about the crime and lead them to Johnny, to the stash! And really,
would it be so bad if he did? If anyone needed a kick up the arse,
as Johnny himself had put it, it was Johnny.

“Oh you know,
The Exhibition and…my dad. I’ve never met him but I got a local
address yesterday. I’ve been thinking about finding him.”

Grace offered
to help find his dad and she sounded genuine but was this all a
trap? Get done to the father, he’d never met, the same as what had
just happened to Johnny’s dad? What was in that box? It had to be
something valuable and precious to warrant such a reaction. Or
maybe Alastair was just evil but then if Alistair was evil, then
weren’t his friends as bad if not worse? And if his friends were,
then what did that make Gabe?

They had
finished the vodka and the rain stopped as suddenly as it had
started. Gabe and Grace made their way out into the wet air from
their dry lair and it was like they had come out from the centre of
the earth to a different land. The rain had cleared the static and
everything though wet, was now fresh and clean.

They walked
back along the river in the moon light. The wind was bitter cold
and Gabe was too scared to touch Grace or say anything else. He
gave her his new jacket to wear, to keep her warm. He figured it
was dark enough for her not to see he wasn’t bandaged up that great
and it would have just been too awful to hear and see her chatter
and shake with chill and not offer up his warm jacket. As they
walked, Gabe really wanted to reach out and hold her hand, he
wanted to reach out and take her hand like it was the most natural
thing in the world to do. But he couldn’t, he just couldn’t.

They walked the
long way back even though they knew they would be soaked through by
the time they got home as the wet ground soaked up the legs of
their jeans. They walked further up the river, stopping to admire
the nightscape of the city in the reflection of the water. They
walked across the now deserted nice park by the river which was
where The Middles and their dog could usually be found in the day
and the reason why no one much went down to the park where Gabe
usually hung out.

This park was
totally different to The Outcasts park where The Damned spent their
days. In this park the lawns were manicured and there were a
thousand different colourful exotic looking flowers planted every
year. People that knew that they were welcome at parks came and
felt very welcome here. Gabe didn’t usually frequent this park but
tonight he thought that it was quite lovely in here really. It
almost seemed other worldly as they walked home, just the two of
them, not passing or seeing a single other soul. It felt like the
rain had washed everything away and that they were now the only two
people left alive.

At the wrought
iron gates at the park exit, Grace took Gabe’s hand.
The next
bit of the walk is quite a steep hill
, thought Gabe
. That is
why she wants to hold my hand.
That made sense. So Gabe led her
up the hill that took them all the way up to Millionaires Row,
right to the top of that hill, back to Graces house.

“Here we are
then,” he said “I guess this is good night.”

Grace took
Gabe’s other hand in hers so that she now held both his hands and
Gabe presumed that she must have just had a bit too much to
drink.

Gabe could hear
someone shouting from behind the front door of Graces house.
Shit, what was that?
Gabe thought he might be in some sort
of trouble, well probably. They were out late and drunk and she
probably might not even be eighteen yet...or allowed to drink. All
these worries were going around his head.

“I better
go.”

“Yeah, me too.
Thanks Gabe.”

Gabe couldn’t
quite figure out what he should do next but she let go of his hands
and gave him a quick kiss, right on the lips. She slipped off his
jacket and gave it back to him, although Gabe had thought he would
be happy if she kept it on. He wouldn’t have minded if she kept it
for a while, if she wanted to. She tapped in the secret code to
open the security gates and as they started to open, Grace slipped
in past them as soon as they are wide enough for her to fit
through. To Gabe she seemed to drift down the long path with its
sunken lighting, like an angel or an apparition, down the glowing
garden path to her front door. Gabe felt like he was drifting too,
suspended, until he saw her shut the door behind herself.
Home...safe and sound. Even though he could hardly feel his feet on
the ground anymore, Gabe turned and ran. Without the jacket on,
Gabe could feel the wind and air through his clothes and on his
wings. The ground was wet and Gabe didn’t even notice. Gabe ran so
fast he felt like he was flying.

What was all
that about?
Gabe was conscious of a bolt of electric current
running around his body and a joy that had not been there before
was now present, alive and flowing through his veins. It was
exhilaration. It felt a lot like bliss.

Gabe let
himself into his studio. He knew he had had too much to drink and
he wanted to avoid his mum. He took his wet clothes off and put
them by the electric heater and as Gabe warmed back up after coming
in from the cold, the full effect of the alcohol he had drunk began
to take hold again.

Gabe started to
think of the reality of it all as despondency set in. How could he
possibly ever be with someone like Grace? How could he ever give
her what she wanted? She would want intimacy, affection. Sex. She
would want things, need things that he could not buy. They were too
young. It would never work. She had just been down and drunk and
for all he knew it could all still be a big joke. Gabe sat down
opposite his covered sculpture and put his face in his hands.
I
bloody hate myself
, he thought
. I hate myself and these damn
bloody growths. I hate my wings and I hate that I am so fucking
poor and useless. I’m so ashamed of myself and I hate the fact that
I am just not good enough.

Why am I not
normal? Why was I born like this and not born different. Why was I
not born as something better, easier, more lovable? No one will
ever love me. I am nothing, nothing more than a fucking freak
.
Gabe began to cry again, tears he didn’t know he was capable of
shedding. He let the sadness consume him and he cried with deep
self pity, great big sobs that shook the bulk of his body. He let
himself think of his friends and losing them, how close they had
been, the adventures and personal things that they had shared, how
they had been there for each other and how now he didn’t know them
anymore. He hadn’t even known his best mate was cutting himself up
and now he had to walk away to purely save his own skin.

Gabe thought of
the father that did not love or want him. He thought of his poor
mum working all those hours and refusing payment or undercharging
most of her clients half the time and the way she had always been
there for him, with love and comfort and it seemed that her
unconditional love and kindness was still not even enough to be
able to save Gabe. This broke his own heart almost as much as it
broke hers. But mostly he thought of Grace, of how much he loved
her and how impossible it was for her to love him back and this
felt like the worst thing in the world, the unique agony of
unrequited love.

Gabe felt
hollow, spent. He wept into his hands and the tears collected in
his palms and started running down his wrists, to his elbows where
they collected and dripped off, one by one, onto the floor, leaving
a trail of watery, black kohl down his forearms.

There was
something about this sight, seeing the dark trails of black make up
on his arms that made Gabe suddenly have the need to laugh. Gabe’s
last sob turned into a half choke half snort, even the sound of it
made Gabe want to laugh even more as he croaked back his tears in
gulps and wiped the copious amount of snot, phlegm, tears and gunk
from his face.

Gabe realised
that here he was, a grown man, wearing eyeliner and dressed all in
black in some vain attempt to be suave and adult and artistic,
crying for the worst possible reasons. Pathetic, self-defeating
reasons.

The great
fallen dark angel was crying. Trying to be all new and mysterious,
mature and independent and here he was sobbing for himself. At this
thought, Gabe laughed louder, through his tear and make-up stained
face, at how pathetic he was, how piteous and pitiful. All his
wretched and vain efforts.
Pull yourself together Gabe
, he
told himself.
Stop being so negative all the time. You’re doing
your own head in.
It had been a good night. It had actually
been an evening like the ones he had fantasised about. Better. One
of the wildest dreams he had ever dreamed of happening had just
happened. Something he had prayed for, wished and willed for, for
half of his life had actually materialised.
Can you not even be
happy with tha
t!
Not even pleased with a miracle, with a
dream that actually came true! What the hell is wrong with you,
what are you turning in to? What on earth is happening to you
man?
Gabe felt he was getting as weak as his wings, as damaged
and as cumbersome.