Part of him wanted nothing more than to make his presence known, confront them both and demand an explanation of their relationship. But that very primitive part of him, the part that wanted to act irrationally, did not dictate his actions. Though such an act would have undoubtedly been gratifying momentarily, he knew it would have repercussions. He knew nothing good would come from acting impulsively. Ultimately, he did not want to embarrass or hurt Melissa, though he was hurting.
Gabriel felt heartbroken. It was a foreign feeling for him. He had never been hurt by one he loved. Melissa was the only person he’d ever loved. He did not know what to do. He felt hot and cold, confused and enlightened, angry and sad. All of his emotions seemed to conflict as he experienced them simultaneously. He felt dizzy and nauseated and struggled to catch his breath.
Without warning, the surface he knelt on seemed to give way beneath him. He didn’t realize he’d relaxed the muscles that held him upright in his unsafe position. Shock caught him off guard, diminished his natural defense instantaneously. He began to fall.
Melissa’s bedroom window, illuminated with soft, golden light, rushed away from him. The lower half of his body raced toward the driveway below. Gabriel’s body scraped along asphalt shingles until his feet caught in the seaming of the gutter.
Yoshi called out from the ground below.
“Gabriel, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Gabriel lied then slid his feet gingerly along the drainage trench until he reached the edge of the roof. He reached for an outstretched branch and quickly navigated the entanglement of leaves and boughs until he reached the lowest one.
When his feet landed upon sturdier ground, his chest began to tighten. His eyes continued to burn. He dared not speak, didn’t trust that his voice would project without faltering. He did not look at Yoshi who walked alongside him down Blackstone Drive. He kept his head turned from his friend and looked to the skyline.
Clouds assembled, swiftly strengthening their ranks and readying for rain. The air felt weighted with moisture, a preemptive maneuver before the complete strike began.
They moved swiftly down the hill and arrived at Gabriel’s vehicle. Once inside, Gabriel turned his key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. He allowed the Jeep to idle for several seconds as he collected his thoughts. His brain struggled to comply with what he demanded of it.
Frustrated, he pounded the steering wheel with his fist. Smarting and angry, Gabriel fought to focus on the original reason for their return. Instead, his rational thought process was muddled, blindsided by unforeseen events and unimaginable pain.
He rubbed his eyes with both hands, determined to purge the image of Melissa hugging Eric Sala from them. But the more he rubbed, the more intense the sensation of sand wedged beneath his eyelids became. So he gave up, stared straight ahead and shifted the Jeep into gear.
He drove to the end of Blackstone Drive and stopped at the stop sign. Rain drops began to fall.
“We’ll get a room for the night. I need to shower and sleep,” Gabriel said wearily.
“Do you want to talk about what just happened?” Yoshi asked.
“I can’t.”
“Then what’s the plan?”
“We’ll find a motel and get a room for the night. In the morning, we’ll head over to Harbingers High School and I’ll find Melissa and try to see what’s going on. At least I know she won’t be on a date there. After we talk, we’ll have to figure things out from there.”
“If you aren’t with Melissa anymore and it’s you this Terzini is after, then she won’t be in any danger, right?”
“Wrong,” Gabriel began. “She’s still in danger because of all she knows, everything I showed her the night I told her about me.”
Gabriel’s chest began to ache more penetratingly. He felt as if his heart were being drilled against with a jackhammer. He remembered, in vivid detail, the night he’d told her of his origins. He remembered what she wore, how she smelled, what she ate. He remembered how she delighted in the efforts he made to make the evening perfect and how she glowed when he told her he loved her.
He also remembered the stricken look on her face when he shared with her his darkest secret, the expression of horror when they went to Terzini’s underground lab and unearthed a partially formed person in the development tank.
He started to think that perhaps he would have been better off just letting her go then. If he had embraced the anger and hurt, merged them together perfectly enough, he would have been capable of killing Terzini when he’d had the chance.
Gabriel grew tired of entertaining what ifs; they were a futile waste of energy. The fact of the matter remained that he loved Melissa. Melissa appeared to have moved on, but was still in danger. He would not allow harm to come her way, harm he was responsible for, simply because she no longer possessed feelings for him. He had left her. The materialization of his biggest fear was his own fault.
He avowed silently as he drove along the darkened and winding roads of Harbingers Falls to right the wrongs he had initiated, right them and then leave for good.