The bell chime sound coming from my phone indicated I had an incoming text message. I took the phone from its charger on my nightstand and scrolled through sixteen missed calls, eight voice mails and twenty-something texts, all from Gabriel. They all said the same thing. He wanted me to call him to talk about “us”. The last text I received said he’d be dropping by later if it was okay with me.
“NO!” I replied.
My phone rang right after I pressed send. I let it go to voicemail. He called back again… and again… until it got on my nerves, so I answered it.
“What?”
“Doll, why you givin’ me the cold shoulder?” His voice was slurred, just as Bill had said. “I just wanna talk.”
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“Drunk? No, no. I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you on something, Gabriel?” He sounded awful.
“No, of course not. Hey, let me tell you about these new friends of mine… Isis, they say things to me that make total sense. Things about you and me. Things about the world. I think you should meet them. They’re so cool. They want us to be together, and I know how to do that now.”
“Gabriel, you’re not well. Tell me where you are, and I’ll call your parents to come get you, okay?”
“Nope. Nope. I’m perfect, baby. Per⎯fect. Thank you for caring about me so much. I know you love me. I love you, too.”
“Gabriel, tell me where you are.”
“My friends are here, so I have to go now. Can you hear them? They’re so loud and crazy. Oh, they say ‘hi’. They’ve been watching you for me. Anyway, I’ll call you later, babe.”
I sat with the phone in my hand, staring at it. I hadn’t heard anyone in the background as Gabriel spoke. Now I understood why Bill wanted me to issue a restraining order against him. Gabriel sounded insane.
I sat on my bed, still staring at the phone. I wondered if I should call him back. I had to fix this somehow. I had to help Gabriel. I had known him all my life. Should I call his parents? I was sure they had to have noticed there was something wrong with their son. Why weren’t they doing anything about it?
The sound of the door slamming signaled that Claire was home. I wanted to tell her about Gabriel, but then she might have the same opinion as everyone else and tell me to call the police. She worked for a judge, so I was sure they’d find some way to prosecute him—I didn’t want that. I decided that unless I wanted to see Gabe behind bars I should keep this issue to myself.
Claire stood at the door to my room. “Hey, kiddo.”
“Hey, Mom. How’s your head?”
“A lot better.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just tired from work.” She sighed. “It was a long day.”
“You want me to fix dinner tonight?” I offered, jumping off my bed.
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m going to go take a long bath. I really need it. You can hold off on dinner for a while. I’m not that hungry.”
Something was bothering Claire. She only took long baths or showers when she was worried, depressed, or thinking hard about something.
Claire was quiet during dinner. She didn’t cross-examine me about my day. It felt strange to sit and eat without talking. It was common for my mom to share some funny thing that happened at the office or how irritating it was to deal with difficult people.
***
At a few minutes past eleven o’clock, my phone rang. I wasn’t asleep yet, but a bout of nerves ran through me, thinking it might be Gabriel talking nonsense again. Relieved to see David’s name on the caller I.D., I answered.
“Hi,” I whispered. Claire was already asleep.
“Did I wake you?”
“No.”
“Can you open your window?”
“Okay…”
David was sitting on the porch rooftop right outside my window holding a guitar. His fingers were positioned on the strings and he began to strum.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh…” He hushed me as he started to sing:
“Amore, sei il mio amore,
Amore, il mio amore sei tuo…”
The notes were precise and his voice was angelic. I didn’t know Italian so I had no idea what he was saying, but it was romantic. I had never been serenaded and none of my friends had been either—that I knew of. I was starry eyed and wrapped up in the moment.
When the song ended, I heard soft clapping behind me. Claire was standing at the door with tears in her eyes and a big smile on her face. She was a hopeless romantic, too.
“If you feel the same way, you have to turn the light on in response,” she said and closed the door to leave us alone.
It didn’t take me long to decide what to do. Through the dark, I made my way to the wall and flipped the light switch on. Then I sat on the windowsill, a look of delight on my face.
“Thank you. That was the most…” I was at a loss for words.
“You’re welcome.” The shadow of his lashes fell over David’s cheekbones. His dark hair glistened in a blue-silver hue with the moonlight above.
“How did you get up here?” I asked.
“How do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
A light shimmer in the shadow of two silhouettes of wings spanned a small distance from his body. “I keep them discrete.”
“Invisible, you mean.”
“Right,” he said. “I need to go. I only came to say good night.”
He balanced my chin on his fingertips and leaned forward. He brushed his lips gently against mine. One arm rested on my back while the other held my face to his. He deepened the kiss and in it, I could feel the hunger he had mentioned before. I could’ve stayed this way—in his arms, devouring each other’s lips—forever.
But this wasn’t right. His laws forbade it. Breathing heavily, I pushed him away. David stared at me and kept silent for a moment.
“Good night,” he said, at last.
“Good night.”
I blinked and he was gone. I pulled down on the window trying to shut it but it was stuck. I pushed down with all my strength and it slammed shut. A bit harder and I might have shattered it. Claire knocked on my door a minute after the loud crash.
“I’m okay,” I said as I let her in. “I had trouble with the window.”
“That was romantic.” She hugged me, and then walked to the window and flipped the locks closed. “I’ve never been serenaded. You’re a lucky girl.” She pulled the curtains and sat on my bed. She gave me a look that made me uncomfortable.
“You know, honey, you’re almost eighteen years old, and I don’t have to remind you of the responsibilities that are associated with young adulthood.”
I threw a pillow over my head. “Not the ‘talk’ again, Mom!”
“It’s not a sex talk, Isis. It’s a reality-knocking-on-the-door talk. You know you have to be careful, right? You’d tell me if something… if you would need certain… things, before you did anything, wouldn’t you?”
“Mom,” I whined. “This is embarrassing. I’m not asking you for birth control because I don’t have the need for it. Please go back to bed. I’m begging you. I really don’t want to have this conversation.”
Claire laughed. “Fine. Just keep it in mind.”
***
It was early the following morning when Andy texted me to ask if I wanted a ride. The forecast for the day was cloudy and cool thanks to the northern winds, which had blown in sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I decided to enjoy the weather before it was over and told Andy I’d walk.
The playlist on my iPod was at the highest deafening volume possible. I enjoyed my favorite tunes as I walked and put Gabriel, Claire, and David in that hiding place in the back of my mind where I would store them until I felt the need to worry about them again.
The breeze got colder as I walked
past a small, family owned store several blocks north of the gasoline station. I loved cold fronts when they were just setting in. The air was just cold enough to give you a chill, but not so cold as to give you frostbite. Of course, being in south Texas, frostbite was an exaggeration.
At the entrance to the school, I found David sitting on a red brick bench, waiting for me.
“Morning,” I said, looking away for a second as I wiped the girlish grin from my face. I was remembering last night’s kiss.
“Good morning.”
He opened the glass doors for me, then took my hand and asked me to follow him to a semi-empty area across from the glass doors and windows. He gave me a gentle push and my back touched the wall. He leaned close and placed his finger on my lips. His touch sent tiny electrical shocks through every fiber of my body.
“I crave your lips. Give me but one taste and I’ll ask no more.”
I shook my head. Turned away. He turned my face back so that I was looking straight into his eyes.
“Why do you insist on this?” I asked.
“Why else would I crave your lips if I didn’t already know the sweet nectar that they possess?”
“No,” I said, shutting my eyes to keep from starring into his mesmerizing blue gaze. “It’s forbidden.”
“It’s as forbidden as the illicit fruit of Hades, but even he has eaten from it.”
“Excuse me.” A familiar voice interrupted.
David stepped back from me and turned, staring wide-eyed and with a clenched jaw at the person behind him. I slowly peeled myself off the white hallway wall. Oh no. I could see them hauling Gabriel away in the back of a police car already.
“I need to speak to Isis… alone,” Gabriel said.
“It’s okay,” I said, touching David’s arm. “I’ll be alright.”
David sized up Gabriel and then turned to look at me. Hesitantly, he walked to the glass windows across the way, watching Gabriel’s every move.
“So you’ve got a watch dog now?”
“What’s on your mind, Gabriel?”
“You are, doll. I came to see you.”
“What the hell were you on yesterday? You scared me. I was ready to call an ambulance.”
“You love me, don’t you?”
“No, for your information, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
Gabriel grabbed my face with both hands and forced a kiss on me. I gripped his hair and started pulling on it in an attempt to pull him off me. After a minute, he pulled away.
“That hurt.”
“You’re an ass.” I wiped my mouth.
I glanced in David’s direction. He gave me a spiteful glare and hit the paned glass window. He stalked toward the exit, then heaved the school door shut with such force that the glass cracked.
I pushed Gabriel aside and ran for the door, but the force that David had slammed it with was so great that it wouldn’t open.
“Dammit!” I hit the door with the palm of my hand. The crack on the glass raced a few inches further down. Just then, David’s car raced by.
Why did he leave without helping me? Didn’t he see that I was trying to pull Gabriel away? Then I realized how⎯from a distance⎯Gabriel’s forced kiss and me with my hands tousled in his hair must’ve looked like to David.
I turned to glare at Gabriel in disgust. I was enraged that he would do that to me after I was worried about him.
All of a sudden, there was an awful, bitter taste on my lips, like the taste of those sleeping pills I had taken, but worse.
“Are you high?” I stared into Gabriel’s red bloodshot eyes. He turned away from me.
“No.” He rubbed his eyes, and then pulled a bottle of eye drops from his pocket.
“Forget you… liar.” I looked out the glass doors in hopes of seeing David’s car drive back into the parking lot. No Maserati.
I left Gabriel and walked toward the front office where I was sure he wouldn’t follow.
“Wait!”
“Leave or I’ll get the office to call the campus police,” I said.
“Isis, c’mon, babe.”
“I’m not kidding.”
Gabriel gave up and tried to leave through the exit doors, but they were still stuck. He pushed and pulled until one of them opened. I watched him walk to his car and sit there. It looked like he was talking to himself, but it was such a long distance from the entryway that I couldn’t be sure.
From the relative safety of the school office, I tried to call David. He didn’t answer. Of course he wouldn’t answer. I wouldn’t have answered either. He thought I had just made out with my ex-boyfriend right in front of him after he had just expressed what he felt for me. I would have been humiliated and furious.
I dragged my feet on the way to the cafeteria. Everyone was there except David. I sat down next to Andy, my blood boiling.
“Hey, hey. Where’s your Romeo?” Andy asked.
“He left.”
“You had a fight?”
“Worse. Gabriel showed up…” I told her what had happened in the hallway with Gabriel and how David had raced out of the school.
“I can think of a few adjectives he’s used to describe me by now,” I said. “He probably thinks I’m the most horrible person on the face of the Earth. What should I do?”
“Call him.”
“I did. He won’t answer. I can’t believe Gabriel is such an idiot.” I started to cry out of anger. “I felt sorry for him, too. I was worried about him, especially after last night’s phone call.”
“Did he sound, you know… crazy?” Andy asked.
“Beyond crazy.”
“Where’s David?” Eryx asked from across the table.
“He left… upset.”
“Lover’s quarrel?”
“Gabriel showed up and kissed me.”
“He’s a jealous fool,” Eryx said. “He’ll be back. I doubt he can stay away for long.”
That eased my mind a little. Eryx knew his brother better than I did. That had to count for something.
***
The teacher’s literature lecture was a long one today. I kept my eyes on the door, hopeful that David would walk in at any moment and knowing that he would be upset. The door never opened.
***
Gabriel had a serious problem. I knew it was best for me to avoid him, but he kept showing up unannounced. I wondered what sort of drugs drove a person to behave this way. The thought of him with a gun gave me nervous shivers. He wouldn’t be dumb enough to bring it on school grounds again, would he?
***
During lunch, Andy tried to make conversation but I wasn’t in the mood to talk.
“Try calling him again,” she said.
“What’s the use? He’s not going to answer.”
“Ask one of his brothers, then. I’m sure they won’t mind.”
“No. I’ll just try again tonight.”
***
David didn’t show up for his afternoon classes, either. I walked home alone, despite Andy begging me not to. I wanted to clear my mind of everything.
Claire’s car was parked in the driveway when I got home. She was listening to classical music while lying on the couch with cucumber slices over her eyes. That meant only one thing—she had been crying.
“Mom?” I sat beside her on the couch. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, hon. I’m just relaxing for a while.”
“Why are you home from work early? Do you have a date?”
“No. What I have is an eternity’s worth of accumulated vacation time; I decided to take half a day today and the whole day tomorrow.”
I took the cucumber slices off her face. Her eyes were glossy and puffy. A sign she had indeed been crying.
“Why is it that you always want me to tell you my problems and you never tell me yours? I’m not a pigtailed little girl anymore. I know when there’s something bothering you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I jus
t need a little anti-stress time away from work.”
“Things going okay with you and The Judge?”
“More than okay. He’s a very nice man.”
“That’s it? He’s just nice?”
“He’s got some other good traits, I suppose.”
“That doesn’t sound like a promising future. You’re supposed to be giddy about it like you always are.”
“Well, today I feel tired of being myself. I just want a little quiet.”
“Whoa. Guess that’s my cue. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll cook dinner tonight, so don’t worry about it, okay?”
“Thanks, baby,” she said as I placed the cucumber slices over her eyes.
From my room, I dialed David’s number. The call went straight to voicemail. I wondered if he had blocked my number. Was he that upset?
I rummaged through my school bag and found the white box with the poem inside. I took the other pieces of paper David had written on and placed them inside the box, too. They were my treasures now… mine to keep forever, even if David never came back. At least I had that to hold on to.
***
While I cooked, I asked myself why things had to be so complicated between us. Why couldn’t David just be human without the pressure of those rules?
***
“Fettuccini Alfredo, madam.” I placed a plate in front of Claire.
“Yummy.”
“Salute!” We toasted in Italian with our cans of diet soda.
Claire giggled.
“You know, I heard nominations for Miss Spring are up and running. Why don’t you campaign?”
Claire was talking again. This was good.
“Yeah right,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I’m not pageant material. Besides, I wouldn’t be caught dead on a hay bale with petroleum jelly all over my teeth, waving to a crowd of people.”
“Oh, c’mon Isis. It’s not even a pageant. You’d make a beautiful Miss Spring.” She paused to take a sip of her drink. “I was Miss Spring, and so was Grandma Eva. It’s a family thing.”
“First of all, it’s called The Miss Spring Pageant, so don’t try to sell me on that one. Secondly, no.”
“You should be more involved in school events. I was. It’s something that you’ll love looking back on when you get old like me.”
“I’m too tied up with dual-enrollment to do anything else. You know how hard I’ve worked to keep my GPA. Not to mention that school is almost over. There’s nothing I can join in now, anyway. Soon I’ll be off to college and out in the real world where beauty pageants and popularity contests aren’t going to pay my bills.”