Disclaimer:
This is fan fiction. Though the characters involve real people,
this does not recount real events. The
rating on this story is NC-17/Hard R. If you are not a least
18 years of age, please do not read!
G A B E : S I L E N C E I S N
E V E R G O L D E N
P a r t O n e
© Radiantbaby, 2001
* * *
"In the end
there was silence."
It sounded like some
wretched plot from a film, but it was not, it was my life.
Had I fallen in love
with him? Had I let myself walk that path that I worked so hard to guard myself
from? Should I even be angry that I did and that he left me?
"I warned
you."
Warnings are
nothing, when you let your emotions take the lead.
My stuff arrived
today, packed with annoying shredded paper whose fine dust made me wheeze and
got on anything and everything in its vicinity. It was like those
Christmas tree icicles one finds still clinging about months after the holidays
have passed. Perhaps it is all a metaphor anyway; perhaps little pieces
of him will always cling to my world. A small part of me hoped so.
I don’t know if I
was more nauseated from the fiber dust or the fact that the package, though
intact with everything I’d left at his place, was packed
so…*impersonally*. Of course in these matters the very fact that he had
opted to just mail my stuff to me and shirk all my attempts at reaching him and
getting it all for myself was the most impersonal. Was I *that* terrible
to face?
My friends and I
simply stood around the box, quietly looking down at it in wonder and
disappointment as if it were an open casket at a funeral. The worst thing
was that was closer to the truth than anything else. It was symbolic of
the final death of “us” and like many deaths, I never even got to say goodbye.
Goodbye.
*
* *
Drinking.
It has never been a
favorite past time of mine, with a proclivity towards alcoholism and nausea
knotted deep within my stomach already eating away at me, it was probably not
the best idea.
At this point,
though, there was plenty of space for mistakes. Things had broken into
the wide open, lending me many different roads that I could take.
Tonight. Tonight was to be the road of self-destruction.
Humming.
It was light and
almost hollow with a desolate quality. It brought me from deep within my
thoughts to acknowledge the stranger next to me at the bar.
His almost
shoulder-length black hair curled towards his neck, softly caressing it, and
his hands lay splayed before him on the bar. I could tell he was
certainly one who worked with his hands by the calluses carefully placed on
them.
His eyes were the
most striking though. In those eyes he was a million miles away,
seemingly unaware that he was even humming to the music being played.
Underneath them were dark circles and a bit of red puffiness. Had he been
crying?
His eyes then seemed
to glimmer and a small smile crossed his lips. He raised an eyebrow and
glanced in my direction.
Oh God, had I been
staring?
I smiled nervously
back and the looked down into my drink. I focused on the swirls of vodka
curling in the orange juice. How many drinks had I had? I’d lost
count. Even more, when did they ever look so fascinating?
“Hello,” I heard to
my right.
It was *him*, I
could just feel it.
I slowly lifted my
gaze to meet his, trying to hush the butterflies that were beginning to rise
within me.
He was looking at me
was a strange mix of wonder and arrogance. I found myself almost startled
upon getting a better look at him. His skin was excessively pale and
pulled tight against his high cheekbones. He would have almost looked
dead had it not been for his eyes, now glinting jovially, and his almost
twitching smile that set me at ease,
“Hello,” I replied
back.
“A little girl like
you should probably slow down a bit with those screwdrivers. You are
liable to do yourself in,” he quipped, arms now across his chest as he leaned
back a bit to regard me.
I straightened up in
my stool, nearly falling off in the process, mind you. I then held up my
finger to reply.
“First…first of
all,” I stammered, “I am *not* a little girl, I am almost thirty. And
second…well, second, I can certainly hold my…hold my liquor”
He looked at me
amused, “I can see that.”
I groaned, knowing
that I was sounding like a complete idiot and that I should probably quit while
I was ahead.
He seemed to read my
mind. “No, really, I mean it,” he said, moving my glass away from me,
“You are just trying
to take my drink for yourself,” I teased.
He smiled more
widely. “No, I’ve enough for myself actually,” he responded, holding up his
glass and rattling the ice within it.
“What do *you* care
then?”
It came out much
more harshly than I had intended and in the exaggerated actions of some one
with too much alcohol sloshing around their brain, I cupped my hand over my
mouth to quiet myself.
He cleared his
throat, briefly covering his mouth with his fist, and then straightened up on
his stool.
He looked me square
in the eye and said, “Well, my dear, let’s just say that I would hate for you
to turn out like me. You have had about two drinks to my one and *I* have
had a lot. Let’s just say…I’m nice.”
“Nice?”
He chuckled
slightly, in a self-deprecating fashion, breaking the intense gaze he’d held me
in. “Well, my ex would probably disagree, but in the long run…”
He trailed off, his
eyes clouding over for a moment as if he’d evoked her very essence just by
speaking of her. Then just as quickly, he seemed to snap back. “Oh
never mind. You just seem like a good kid…*woman*”
“Good is relative,”
I said.
“So is *nice*,” he
quipped.
*
* *
"Gabe, you'll see a side of me.
That's like the other men.
I'm just restless, caught up in the mood of
my times Trying to reach right through the fog
Walking forward into I know not what But
then that's true for everyone"
-- John Taylor, "Gabe"
* *
*
We settled into a
booth at the corner of the bar, ordering some bar food before the kitchen
closed for the evening. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten and
the loud growling of my stomach proved embarrassing to our conversation.
John confessed that
it had been many hours since his last meal as well. Oh yes, his name was John.
Last name?
“Just call me John.”
“It’s the heartbreak
diet,” he offered, as I sipped my drink, now just a soda.
“Hmm?”
“I am not trying to
sound presumptuous, you just show all the tale tell signs.” He said, almost
shyly.
I snorted a bit,
somewhat annoyed that it was all so obvious to him and that cool veneer I was
attempting to use was failing miserably.
“Well, you would
presume correct,” I said a bit defensively.
“Look, Gabrielle,”
he said his tone low and reassuring now, “I am not sitting in judgment. I
only recognize it because I know it in myself.”
* * *
Why was I sitting
here in John’s hotel room at 3AM? His charm had certainly not been lost
on me and, frankly, the conversation had been good for most of the evening at
the bar. It had been last call and I suppose it all just seemed
inevitable. Still, I couldn’t have predicted ending up here.
He was in the
shower. He’d asked so casually if I didn’t mind that it almost felt as if
we shared the sweet comfort of knowing one another for a lot longer than we
did. Admittedly though, my heart sank a bit when he neglected to ask me
to join him.
He was certainly
attractive, his eyes pulling me in the more he spoke, and his charm fluctuating
between confident and shy almost imperceivably. There was something about
him too, like I knew him from somewhere else. I couldn’t quite place it
and figured I wouldn’t ask. Anyway I could put it would probably sound
like a bad line. “Don’t I know you from somewhere…?”
Either way, the most
important thing was to attempt not to focus on the fact that he was in the next
room naked, with hot rivulets of water caressing his body. No, I couldn’t focus
on that.
I turned on the
television with the remote and settled in to fully take in my
surroundings.
The accommodations
were very nice, a bit posh even. John had said that he was here on
business, but when I tried to pry for more details, he would switch the subject
to me. He didn’t seem particularly wealthy at first glance. He was
wearing some black jeans, a cotton black pullover, and some simply black
boots. Upon exiting the bar, he had slipped on a black Greek fisherman’s
cap, resting it low over his eyes.
He seemed almost
paranoid, his eyes darting about as we talked on the way to his hotel.
There was definitely a mysterious intrigue about him and when we slipped into
the hotel through a back entrance, I should have thought more of it at the time
than I did.
“Anything exciting
on?” he asked, coming out of the bathroom with a robe on, drying his hair with
a towel.
“Oh,” I looked at
the television and then back at him, “I wasn’t really paying attention.”
He sat down next to
me on the bed, balling the towel in his lap. He smiled sweetly at me and
for a moment I was lost in his eyes again.
“A lot on your mind,
hmm?” he asked quietly.
I sighed, “Yes, I
suppose so.”
“Well, let me take
your mind off of things then,” he offered, leaning in and pressing his soft
lips against mine.
N A V I G A T I O N :
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