Personal Demons (14 page)

I pull my head off him and look up into his eyes, hating myself for crying. “I don’t believe you.”

He smoothes a tear away with his fingertips and gazes down into my eyes. He wraps his hand around the back of my neck, cradling my head, and brings me to his shoulder, burying his face in my hair. I let him hold me for a long time, feeding off his energy. I’ve never felt anything like it, but it makes me warm all over. If you asked me right now, I’d have to say I believe in love, ’cause that’s what this feels like: pure love.

Could I love him? Is it possible?

Finally, I pull myself out of his shirt and scrub the tears and snot off my face with my sleeve. When I look up into his eyes, they’re unsure. He starts to lean toward me, and I tip my face up to meet his, but then his eyes widen and he pulls away abruptly.

“I should probably go,” he says with a shake in his voice.

My heart pounding, I shake my head a little and try to focus, but I can’t stop the aching deep inside. My emotions are totally out of control ’cause, at this moment, I want nothing more than to forget everything and lose myself in him. I would give him anything.

On his way out, my parents gush all over him. Mom is beaming, hearing wedding bells, no doubt. “It was wonderful to have you over, Gabe. I hope you won’t be a stranger.”

“No chance of that, Mrs. Cavanaugh,” he says. His eyes flit to mine, deep and tender.

“Well, good,” Dad says. “So we’ll see you soon?”

Gabe smiles, blinding me with the glare. “Absolutely,” he says as he backs out the door onto the porch.

We meander down my front steps to his car. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for . . . everything.”

He smiles softly. “Anytime.” He links his fingers in mine, and I feel my heart skip a little at his touch.

When we get to his car, he glances back at the house, at my window, and cracks an amused smile. My heart takes off again when he wraps me in a hug and kisses the top of my head. The curve of his body, hard against mine, is almost more than I can
handle. My whole body’s buzzing and my breathing is a little ragged as I run my hands over his chest then snake them around his waist and pull him closer. I feel his body tense, but he doesn’t pull back. All of a sudden I’m wishing we were back upstairs in my room.

I press my face into him, and he holds me for a really long time then kisses the top of my head again. “Lock up after I leave,” he says into my hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He lets me go and an unexpected wave of despair washes over me, making me want to reach out for him again. But I don’t. “Yeah, okay.”

He climbs into his car and the engine hums to life. “I’m serious, Frannie. Lock up.”

“Whatever.” I walk up my front steps and wave over my shoulder. But each step is harder than the last, as if Gabe is the sun and I’m trying to escape his orbit. I fight the urge to run after him as he backs out of the driveway. I keep moving, without looking back, and just as I open the door, I hear rustling in the tree near the driveway. I look up. Nothing. Maybe just a cat.

I glance back at the driveway, and for a split second I’m sure I see a boy my age with blue eyes and sandy-blond curls standing there.

Matt?

I gasp and do a double take, but he’s gone . . . if he was ever really there. I tuck quickly inside, my heart hammering in my chest, and lock the door behind me. I run to my room and lock that door too. Once I catch my breath I walk to the window, lift the blind, and peer cautiously out at the driveway. No one there.
I back away toward the bed and reach under the mattress. When I pull Matt’s journal out, I notice my hand is trembling.

Get it together.

I feel the familiar tightening in my throat as I write.

So, Matt. I’m pretty sure I’m going crazy because I thought I saw you in the driveway just now. It had to be my imagination, I know. I’m not that far gone. But you looked just how I picture you in my head . . . how I think you’d look now.

I wish I could really talk to you. I have so many questions I need answers to. Gabe insists God is real. Part of me really wants to believe him. If you could just tell me where you are. . . . Is there a Heaven? God? I’m so confused.

Two tears, big and round, hit the paper like raindrops. I drop my pen and bury my face in my hands. I’m unraveling from the inside, going crazy little by little. I’m seeing things that aren’t there. And the guilt sits like a stone in the pit of my stomach.

’Cause it should have been me.

I tuck Matt’s journal under my mattress and curl up on my bed, staring at the wall and trying to make sense of everything—of
anything.
But the only thing that becomes sharper in my mind is my raging headache, so I put on some music and think of nothing.

The sight of Gabe, leaning against the building with his hands in his pockets, stops my heart.
God, he’s amazing.

Dad moves slowly with the line of cars and drops me at the curb in front of the school. Gabe pushes away from the wall and saunters over as I climb out of the car.

Dad looks past me at Gabe, beaming. “Good to see you.”

Gabe bends down and peers into the car, hands still in pockets. “You too, sir. Thanks again for dinner last night.”

“Our pleasure.” Dad waves and pulls away, still smiling, and Gabe wraps me in his arms.

“How are you?”

“All right.” Other than not being able to breathe, or eat, or think.

He links his fingers in mine and we walk in silence into the
building, where he stands, watching me root through my locker. When I glance up at him he smiles and knocks all the air out of me. He’s so beautiful. Like my own personal angel.

And I’m such a shit.

“You good?” he says, gesturing to the book in my hand.

No. “Yeah.”

He places a hand on my back to walk me across the hall, but instead, I turn and bury myself in his chest, pressing him back into the lockers. This is what I want.
Right?
To hell with Luc. But when I look up into Gabe’s eyes, what I see there terrifies me. He’s so open and trusting—and I don’t deserve anyone’s trust.

I ignore Angelique’s smirk as Gabe guides me across the hall to English. When he leaves I drop my head onto my desk, feeling the cold, hard surface press into my skin, grounding me.

Gabe and Luc. They couldn’t be more different. So how can I want them both? But I do, in completely different ways. And, after last night, Gabe scares me more than Luc. I don’t believe in love, but that’s what I felt. I felt it coming from him, and I felt it in me.

I pull my head off the desk and examine my shaking hands—and jump when Luc is there, sitting at his desk next to me. Where Gabe is peace and love, Luc is everything else: lust, passion, with this seductive energy that makes me want him in all the wrong ways. And I’m obviously not the only one he has that effect on. I look up to see Angelique hovering in the door, trying and failing to look all casual, like she’s just hanging out.

A sly smile slides across his face as he leans toward
me onto his elbows and, for a second, rage burns through me, making me want to wipe that smile off his face with my fist. He stares into my eyes. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you.”

But you
do
frighten me. Both of you. You scare the hell out of me.

“Just tired,” I say, and it’s true. I couldn’t sleep last night, ’cause every time I closed my eyes it was either Gabe or Luc on the back of my eyelids. And I didn’t want to see where those dreams would go. I rub my eyes so he won’t look into them anymore.

I spend the rest of English trying to ignore the building static electricity between us as we work on our outline. But I’m having a really hard time focusing. When the bell rings, Luc and I aren’t done. And it’s due tomorrow.

Luc leans back and laces his hands behind his head. “Do you want to get together after school or take the zero?”

“What do you think?” I say. My tone betrays my frustration. I slide stiffly out of my chair and make my way to the door.

“Okay, your house or mine?” he says, following me.

So the thing is, Mom and Dad love Gabe. They couldn’t stop talking about him this morning. They think he, like, walks on water. Luc, on the other hand, not so much. “Yours, I guess.”

“Great,” he says as we step out into the hall. He sounds pleased with himself. And makes me suddenly furious.

The lid explodes off my emotional black pit, and I feel my mouth start to move without fully connecting to my brain. I struggle to keep up as words come spilling out.

“Is there anyone in this school you’re not dating? Other than me, I mean?” I cringe as I realize what I just said. And apparently I said it loud, ’cause everyone in a ten-foot radius turns to look at us.

“Wow . . . well, I really wasn’t aware I was dating anyone at the moment.”

Liar. My blood pressure shoots up fifty points and, now that the lid is off the pit, I’m helpless to contain my emotions. “Really? Maybe you should tell that to Angelique, or Cassidy, or Taylor, or Riley.”

He leans into the doorjamb, all relaxed, and makes me even madder. “To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t been on a date with any of them. I went to the movies and for pizza with Riley and Taylor. As I recall, you were invited. The fact that you didn’t join us was unfortunate. And I’ve never been anywhere with Cassidy or Angelique. As a matter of fact, the only date I’ve been on would be with you.”

“We haven’t been on a date,” I spit. But then I cringe again, remembering coffee after Gallaghers’ party. I was the one who called that a “hot date.”

He answers as I work to pull myself together. “Oh, my mistake, then. I thought our coffee date counted.”

I look down at the chipping black nail polish on my big toenail and pry up a loose piece of gray linoleum with my flip-flop. I feel my rage slip away as quickly as it came, chagrin taking its place. “So, no beach house?”

His voice lowers to nearly a whisper, but I still hear him clearly over the din of the crowded hall. “No beach house.”

I look into his eyes and suddenly feel a little dizzy. My thoughts go cloudy, and I have the urge to dive right into those deep, black pools. I want to know what he’s thinking. I want to know everything about him. I realize I’m not breathing and look away, drawing a jagged breath.

“So, are we good?” he asks, his voice soft—almost tender.

I just nod, not really sure what just happened, but not trusting myself to open my mouth again.

I spend the rest the morning feeling like a total dork, and I can’t even look at Luc. But when we walk into lunch, and I see the expression on Taylor’s face—somewhere between embarrassed and excited—my heart sinks. I should have known something happened between her and Luc last night, ’cause she avoided me all morning. As we slide into our regular seats, I look at Riley, who shrugs. Luc and Gabe are glaring at each other. Nothing new there. So, it’s just Taylor that’s got something going on.

“Let’s get lunch,” I say, kicking her under the table.

She looks from me to Luc and back and says, “Okay.” But she doesn’t look like she has much of an appetite. Her skin is pale with a sort of greenish tinge, clashing with her pink hair.

I drag her by the arm up to the lunch line, with Riley following on her other side, and I notice Riley steal a blushing glance at Trevor, sitting with his crew at a table near the vending machines. Jackson Harris does the eyebrow wiggle at me and crosses his arms over his chest, flexing his biceps in some Neanderthal mating gesture. I roll my eyes. Taylor’s too distracted to notice any of it.

“So, what the hell is going on, Tay?”

“I don’t know. It’s all a little fuzzy.”

“What’s fuzzy?” I say louder, glancing back to watch the estrogen parade making its way past Luc and Gabe at our table.

“I think I made a move on Luc, but I don’t really remember for sure.”

“How can you not remember if you made a move?”

“Well, I remember the move . . . I think I’m just blocking the whole thing out.” In a very un-Taylor-like gesture, she tips her head down, placing her index finger and thumb on her forehead and hiding her face behind her hand. “It was too embarrassing.”