Unspeakable Things(11)
I knew that because of Gabriel.
Gabriel Wellstone.
I’d begun planning a future with him last December.
I’d already known who Gabriel was, of course. He was a year older than me and cover-of-TV-Guide handsome. Ricky Schroder handsome. His dad was a dentist and his mom a receptionist at his dad’s clinic. He rode my bus and was the only town kid who never mocked my hand-sewn blue jeans with no brand, no brand at all, not even Lee. (Mom had embroidered a smiling golden sun on the butt pocket, so no pretending.) I would have crushed on him simply for that human decency, but then came the December day when I was riding the school bus without Sephie because she was home with the vomit flu. That left an empty spot, which Gabriel slid right into.
Sitting next to me for the first time ever.
My heartbeat had picked up. I’d been studying the lacy frost pattern on the inside of the bus window, thinking Rorschach could have saved a buttload on ink if only he’d moved to Minnesota. Those thoughts crashed to the ground, splat on their backs, as soon as Gabriel’s thigh touched mine, though. There were plenty other seats he could have taken. This was a Life Event. He was so close that I could smell the chemical-sweet dryer sheets his mom used. It smashed my heart to be this near to him. Were people staring at us? Was he going to ask me out? Did he have a true-love confession to share?
Nope.
“Hey, here’s some mittens.” He stared straight ahead as he thrust them toward me. His voice was glossy and too fast.
A forest fire of shame torched my cheeks. My hands fell from my armpits, where they’d been tucked for the entire bus ride, and every bus ride since the temperature had dropped below Eskimo. Pretty sure I’d seen penguins in parkas huddled around a burning barrel on the way out of town. The air was so cold you could see it, a bluish-gray fog, and if you breathed in too fast, your nostrils would freeze closed. I owned mittens, of course I did, but I preferred Popsicle fingers to wearing the homemade argyle atrocities that Mom had repurposed from hand-me-down sweaters. (Really, where would the madness end?)
Gabriel was sporting his own pair of gloves, leather, a curve of the warm-looking fleece interior peeking out at his wrists. The ones he was offering me were the same style, but worn. They looked so toasty, like heated hand pillows, and the bus was so glacial that I was sure someone had left a door in hell open. But I couldn’t take them, obviously. I yanked my scrubby used-sweater mittens out of my pocket. “I have gloves.”
His brow buckled. “That’s what I told my mom.”
My blush grew so nuclear that it was a wonder the whole orange pill of a bus didn’t explode in flames before rocketing us to the moon, powered entirely by my mortification. Gabriel and his mom had talked about me. I’m sure they’d discussed how poor we were, how my winter jacket had a glued-up rip in the back that shot out white feathers like a popcorn fart if I sat down too quickly, how me and Sephie had displayed identical hairdos—long with bangs—since I was three and she was five because it’s the only way Mom knew how to cut hair. Crap on a cracker, I bet he had a pair of gloves in his pocket for Sephie, too. Jeezus. Could people die of embarrassment? Because if so, sign me up.
Gabriel continued talking, staring straight ahead, and that’s when I noticed he was no Ricky Schroder. He was cuter. Dang it, he was Rick Springfield handsome up close. “But Mom said you’d be doing me a huge favor by taking these. That if you didn’t accept them, I’d have to lug them to the Salvation Army because we don’t have room for them in our house and that I’d have to bike there myself. In the cold.”
I could tell he was lying to help me save face. God. He was just thirteen. How could he be so sophisticated? Clearly, my only option was to pull this Band-Aid off quick. “Thanks.” I snatched the gloves and jammed them into my jacket pocket. It was tough with my hands swollen from the cold, but I couldn’t slide into the mitten comfort, not then. I needed to wait at least a day for my blushroom cloud to recede.
Once the gloves were out of sight and I wanted to dissolve into the Naugahyde seat (because what’s the small-talk protocol after your life has ended?), Gabriel slam-dunked the impossible. He slid me a secret “parents are the worst but we’re cool” smile. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but that smile made me feel good for letting him do me a favor.
Messed up.
That’s when he tugged at his coat collar, Rodney Dangerfield–style, and I first spotted the necklace that would change my life.
I pointed at it. “Is that new?”
He smiled, looping his thumb under the chain so he could hold out the charm. It was a tiny golden paper airplane. “Yeah. My mom got it for me for Christmas. I’m going to be a pilot.”
“It’s so pretty,” I sighed. My hand went to my neck. I massaged the familiar ropy warmth of my scar. I was wondering if the necklace would cover my disfigurement, but I swear it was just a fleeting notion. I never would have given it a second thought if not for what happened next.
“It would look nice on you,” Gabriel said.
And that’s when I first legitimately imagined him as my boyfriend.
Believe me, I get it. Hand-me-down Pete (guess how I earned that nickname) me, dating the most popular boy in Lilydale? It was a long shot, such a ridiculous, impossibly fat chance that I’d walk naked across the tundra before I’d confess it to anyone, even Aunt Jin. But there was something in his kindness that zapped straight into my heart, and wasn’t that love? It would be a Cinderella story, except instead of my prince bringing me a shoe, Gabriel would offer me a necklace that would perfectly cover my scar. When he went off to school to be a pilot, I’d go with him. We’d be old enough. We’d make a whole new life together, a normal one.