Erich - Nine

Erich

 

            After what happened during the raid, I felt even more uncomfortable around Gabe than usual. We had walked back to the bar without saying anything. I could tell he wanted to talk, and it took all my energy to look scary enough to keep him quiet. By midnight we had caught up with Hersch, but by the time we found Jim it was almost two. In the back of my mind, though I would never have admitted it, I was glad they were all right.

When the whole thing was over, I would eventually realize that I was lucky it had been Gabe that found me. If it would have been Hersch or Jim they would have never let me live it down. But for the first time, it was dawning on me that Gabe wasn’t like them.  I should have appreciated that, since it was the reason he hadn’t been a total a*s about the whole thing. But right then, it made me want to smack him until he acted normal.

Gabe, however, seemed incredibly comfortable. He followed me around like a dog that didn’t care if I kicked him as long as he got some attention. I don’t know what he was expecting out of me. And apology? A thank you? He wasn’t that stupid. He probably thought that the incident had somehow made me like him more, which couldn’t have been further from the truth.

            But I couldn’t complain, because for whatever reason, he had agreed not to tell anyone. And I couldn’t risk him changing his mind about that.

At least I hadn’t been stupid enough to tell him everything. He still didn’t know about Brigitte or my family. He still didn’t know what I had done. And I had already pushed it all back, where it couldn’t get to me. I couldn’t let what happened that night happen again.

I thought about all this while we searched for the bus station. No one said anything, for once. None of us really wanted to talk about what had happened. We didn’t even know if the buses were still running, so we ended up passing out on the bench, leaving Hersch (who was too tense to sleep) to stand watch. By some miracle, it showed up, right on time, and we groggily got on.

I wasn’t tired anymore, but I didn’t want to talk to Hersch, who was still the only one awake and had started scribbling furiously in a book. So I pretended to sleep until his pencil scratching stopped.

I felt like dying. My head was pounding and there was still a disgusting, sour taste in my mouth. I reached for a cigarette to fix that and realized that my pack had fallen out of my sleeve. So I reached into Jims bag, found one, hidden under some dame’s red scarf (God knows where he found that), and lit it.

I didn’t want to think about Gabe anymore, but my mind wouldn’t focus on anything else. Of course, I was sitting by him, since I couldn’t shake him off if my life depended on it. Plus Jim and Hersch looked like they were becoming actual friends, which didn’t help me at all.

As I stared out the window, I wondered why Gabe had agreed to keep my secret, why he had followed me in the first place. I wondered why the hell the one guy who didn’t act like a guy was also the only one who ever stood up to me.

I would have to try and stay away from him. If I kept him at a distance, I knew I could keep him from finding out anything more about me, and I could keep myself from bonding with him or hurting him; I didn’t know which one I was more afraid of. I didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

Then I felt his head fall on my shoulder.

I didn’t know what to do. I blew smoke in his face, but he just coughed and resettled. It would be awkward to wake him up, but I had to do something. If any of the other guys woke up I would look like the fairy for letting him be there. But I didn’t know how to get him off. I wanted him to wake up, look embarrassedly down, and move as far away from me as possible, like a normal guy would have. But he didn’t, and I was trapped with his breath on my neck. I felt like wrapping my hands around his throat and tossing him out the window just to get him away from me.

But what I really did was even worse, at least to me. It was something I thought I could never do. I let him be.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

Some secrets are needed in a life. People have weaknesses and strengths. I like the logic and the thoughts in this chapter. Thank you for the excellent chapter.
Coyote