by Edith DuBois
A worried look came over the girl’s angled features.
“Gabby, are you okay? Did someone hurt you?”
The worried expression grew more acute.
“What happened?”
Sherri’s question jolted Gabby out of whatever thought she’d been engrossed in, and when her eyes met Sherri’s, her facial expression hardened once again.
So close, they’d been so close. Sherri didn’t want to give up. She had to keep pushing. “I don’t want to frighten you, but if someone has hurt you in any way, if you’ve been…if…you can tell me. There are steps, you know, and measures we can take, but you have to tell me first.”
“What steps?” Gabby asked, her eyes flaring. “What measures? You don’t know anything. Don’t be promising things you don’t know anything about, lady.”
“‘Lady’? So I’m ‘lady’ now?”
Gabby ignored her question.
“Look, I know there’s all kinds of crap festered up inside you and that it’s hard to make heads or tails of any of it.” Gabby cut her eyes over to Sherri and then flicked them quickly away again. “But if you don’t tell anyone, it’s just gonna get more crappy and more festery. That kind of thing tends to build up until it explodes. Once that happens, it covers everyone around it in icky, uncomfortable slime.
“Now I may not be the best person for you to talk to. I don’t know you that well. You don’t know me that well. Your mom’s not here. In fact, nobody besides the Stephenses, who are my closest friends I might add, is here, and you did something pretty shitty to them tonight. Despite all that, I have my butt in this chair, and I have ears. Right now my ears belong only to you.”
When Gabby stared at her looking unimpressed Sherri said, “Vent! Just let it all out and vent.”
“I don’t have anything to vent.”
“Oh, please. I was a teenage girl at one point, and I know malarkey when I hear it. Just say one thing. Tell me one small thing that’s been bothering you.”
Gabby looked at her with narrowed eyes until she finally nodded and said, “Okay.” If Sherri wasn’t mistaken, it looked like the tiniest of smiles curled the corners of her lips. “Your little flower thing is on the side. I’ve been staring at it all night.”
“What do you mean it’s on the side?”
“It’s on the side of your head.”
Sherri reached up and touched the flower brooch. “I put it like that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I like asymmetrical things, as a rule.”
“It looks silly.”
“Oh? And what would you recommend?”
“I would never put it on that hat, first of all. But if I did, I’d put it on the front, maybe a little off-center, but not above my ear. That doesn’t even make sense.”
Sherri held back a giggle. “Okay, well, you fix it for me then.”
Without hesitating, Gabby reached across the table, undid the clasp, and then refastened the brooch in the desired position.
“How do I look?”
“Here.” Gabby snatched Sherri’s iPhone from the table. With deft fingers, she punched in Sherri’s code to unlock the screen.
“How’d you know that?” she asked, surprised and a little alarmed.
“You’ve unlocked your screen like fifty times tonight. Like, right in front of me.”
“When? You’ve been in this room the whole time.”
“In the truck on the way over here.”
Sherri narrowed her eyes.
“What?”
“You could have looked away.”
Gabby merely scoffed and opened up the camera app on Sherri’s phone. “Smile,” she commanded.
Sherri did and Gabby snapped a photo. When she held the screen up for Sherri to inspect, she had to admit that it did look better where Gabby had placed it. “Okay, you were right,” she admitted freely.
Gabby sat back in her chair, a smug smile across her lips. Sherri knew she only had a small window of opportunity. For the moment, Gabby seemed willing enough to interact and engage in conversation, but Sherri knew that attitude could easily snap back to churlishness and mutinous silence at the slightest prevarication.
“I want to play a game.”
Gabby lifted one condescending brow.
“I’ll start us off, but the way that you play is I’ll tell you three things. Two of them will be true and one will be a lie, and you have to guess which one is the lie. Sound good?”
After frowning for a moment, Gabby offered one tiny nod.
“All right. So…” She thought for a moment, wondering what bits of information would help Gabby to feel safe talking to her. “Okay, I’ve got my three things. First, I have a cat named Scrumdiddlyumptious. Second, I hate Valentine’s Day. And third, I used to have purple hair.”
With her eyes narrowed, Gabby studied her for a moment.
“Which one do you think is a lie?”
“Do you really hate Valentine’s Day?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“I think that one is your lie.”
Sherri grinned. “Nope. I’m allergic to cats, so no kitty named Scrumdiddlyumptious.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. I hate it. I absolutely loathe and abhor it. I hate that people need an excuse to tell each other ‘I love you.’ I also hate it that it pressures men into buying expensive, and most of the time meaningless, gifts for their significant other. First of all, it’s pure crap that the men have to buy a gift for the woman but not the other way around. It’s also crap that people are conditioned to believe that the more expensive or grandiose a gift is, the more that person loves you. Valentine’s Day is bullshit. Also, why does it only mean romantic love? There are a thousand and one ways to love people, and romantic love is such a slender fragile, piece of the love pie. It makes me sick!”
“Okay, okay,” Gabby said, interrupting Sherri’s tirade. She could have definitely gone on for a good while longer. “I believe you. Sheesh.”
“Now it’s your turn.”
Gabby rolled her eyes. “This is kind of dumb.”
“That’s okay. It’s still your turn.”
Biting her bottom lip, Gabby furrowed her brow and thought for a moment. “I hate brussels sprouts. I watched an episode of Saved by the Bell after school today. I wear a size six shoe.”
“Oh, now that’s a tough one.” She thought about her three options, narrowed it down, and decided. “But if I had to guess, I’d say…the brussels sprouts one.”
Gabby’s eyes raised in surprise. “How’d you know?”
“Well, that one seemed the most likely to be true, so I figured it was actually the one that was least true.”
“Hmm.”
“You really wear a size six? That’s tiny. I’m a nine and a half. Practically clodhoppers.”
Gabby let out a small laugh. “You’re really weird.”
“Thank you,” Sherri said. “That means a lot to me. Truly. You have no idea.”
“It’s your turn again,” Gabby reminded her.
Sherri held back her grin of excitement. Gabby was getting into it, starting to forget why they were talking. Hopefully she was also starting to forget that Sherri was the enemy.
This time she had to up the ante, though.
“Okay,” she said, meeting Gabby’s dark eyes. “You ready for this round? It’s a doozy.”
Gabby nodded.
“Two years ago I was pregnant with a little girl. Two years ago, my little girl died before she was born. Two years ago, the doctor told me I would never have children again.”
Gabby locked eyes with her for a long moment. Sherri could see a thousand thoughts flying through her mind and all the compassion and sadness and discomfort Sherri had come to expect when she shared this information with people. It was never easy, not for her and not for her listener, but she wanted Gabby to know that shitty things happened to everyone.
What Sherri had realized more fully
tonight was that she couldn’t keep all the shitty sadness and shitty grief locked inside up inside herself. She couldn’t do that and expect to feel good or healthy. And maybe she’d needed to go through that with Benji and Ethan earlier so that she could help Gabby come to the same realization right now.
At last Gabby said, very softly, “I don’t know. I can’t guess which one isn’t true.”
“Oops.” Sherri let out a strange laugh. “I forgot to tell a lie.” She met Gabby’s eyes, letting her know it was now her turn.
Gabby sucked in a deep breath. “Today my girlfriend broke up with me. Today my girlfriend told me she was in love with someone else. Today my girlfriend told me she was in love with Travis Way.”
Sherri’s eyebrows popped up. “I’m guessing Travis is a dude?”
Gabby nodded stiffly.
“Sweetie, I’m so sorry.” Sherri squeezed Gabby’s hand for a moment. Gabby shrugged, trying to make it seem like no big deal. “How long have you been dating your girlfriend? And what’s her name?”
“Shelly. We’ve been dating for eight months.”
“Did anyone else know you were dating?”
Gabby shook her head.
“Does anyone else know you like girls?”
Gabby shrugged again. “A couple of my friends.”
“And does anyone else know Shelly likes girls?”
Gabby waited a moment and then shook her head. “No. Nobody knows. She’s a cheerleader. Travis is on the football team. You know the story.”
When Gabby said that, she sounded so much older than she was. It was strange to see her, so young and fresh-looking and fragile, speak in such a jaded way. It broke Sherri’s heart. No sixteen-year-old should be that disillusioned.
“Does your mom know what happened? Did you talk to her about it?” She didn’t know if it was time to bring this up again, but she wanted to try. She wondered if maybe this was at the heart of everything. In her experience as a psychiatrist, usually the parents were the biggest part of what was wrong with a child.
Gabby shook her head in answer to Sherri’s question. “I haven’t seen her today.”
This was good. At least she wasn’t completely shutting down at the mention of her mother. “What do you think she’d say? If she knew?”
“My mom doesn’t approve of the people I like.”
“So she does know that you like girls?”
Gabby nodded.
“What do you think she’d say about the graffiti?”
“She wouldn’t say anything.”
“How do you mean?”
“She’d either tell me I was a worthless cunt and lock me out of the house. Or she’d get her drugged-up boyfriend to do it.” Gabby said it evenly, the way she’d relate items on a grocery list or the way she’d discuss the weather. Sherri knew it was a self-preservation technique, but she could also hear the tiny tremor in Gabby’s throat. She knew how much pain the girl was in.
“This has happened before?” Sherri asked.
Gabby nodded.
“Do you know where your mother is tonight?” Suddenly Sherri remembered all the calls they’d made to her mother. How could they send her home to that? What the hell were they going to do? Gabby couldn’t be thrown into that sort of mayhem after everything she’d gone through.
Gabby shrugged. “I’m sure she’s drunk off her ass somewhere.” Her whole body started to shake. “She’s going to kill me,” Gabby whispered, looking at the table.
Sherri stood up and grabbed her chair. She walked to the other side of the table, dragging the chair with her. Protocol be damned. This girl needed a hug. She needed a lot of hugs. She positioned her chair next to Gabby’s, sat down, and wrapped her arms around the girl’s thin, bony shoulders.
Gabby sat there stiffly for a moment. Finally she said, “Umm…what are you doing?”
“It’s called a hug. And if you’ll just relax, you’ll see that it’s actually very nice and comforting.”
Gabby remained stiff.
“Put your arms around me. That can help.”
A tentative hand reached up and patted Sherri’s arm awkwardly.
When Gabby let her hand fall away, Sherri said, “That’s a step in the right direction, at least. Next time we’ll go for the side hug. Baby steps.”
Sherri kept her arm around Gabby’s back. “I’m so sorry that your girlfriend broke up with you today of all days. And I’m so sorry that she’s chosen not to admit to her friends and family the truth about herself. I’m sure you know how hard that can be, and we’ll just hope that one day she gets brave enough.” She gave Gabby’s shoulders a squeeze. “But even though I’m sorry all that crap happened to you, it’s still not an excuse for what you did. You understand that, right? You understand there are healthier and more productive ways to deal with these feelings?”
“Of course I do,” Gabby scoffed. “I’m not a ten-year-old.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
Another apathetic, teen-girl shrug was offered. “I felt like crap. I knew I had to babysit for Emilie and her husbands, and all of a sudden it just really pissed me off how perfect their lives are. And yours. And the Abramses. Practically everyone in this neighborhood. And it made me want to do something big, something nobody was expecting.”
“You think we all have perfect lives?”
“It seems like it sometimes.” A glower came over her features. “And that’s what pisses me off the most. You just told me how messed up everything was two years ago, yet you still act like everything’s perfect. Everyone lies. Everyone.”
“Gabby, my life may not be perfect, but I’m still happy. And I still love my husbands very much. And even though I never got to hold my little girl, and I’ll never see her grow up, I still love her. I feel unbelievably grateful that I had the chance to know such a love. It’s one of the most precious feelings I’ve ever had the privilege to experience.”
“That’s what I mean. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That’s the thing people lie the most about—love. There is so much bullshit that people say about it. That it’s stronger than money, stronger than drugs, stronger than everything. But it’s not. It’s weak and fragile and it gets broken again and again and again. It doesn’t hold anyone or anything together. It’s worthless. It doesn’t mean a damn thing.” Gabby’s face crumpled as she met Sherri’s eyes. “What’s the point of pretending otherwise?”
“Sweetie,” Sherri whispered, running her hand over Gabby’s dark silky strands. “Don’t say that. I know you don’t believe it.”
“I do believe it. I have to.” Tears fell down her cheeks. “She’s my mom. She’s supposed to be the one person who loves me no matter what, and she just doesn’t. What else am I supposed to believe?”
Sherri pulled Gabby into her chest and held her sobbing form. It broke her heart. It absolutely broke her heart. Gabby was a sweet, intelligent, beautiful girl, and her mother wasted her affection on asshole boyfriends and alcohol. It was selfish and contemptible, but it would do no good for Sherri to sit there and bash Gabby’s mother. She wished there was some sort of magic formula she could give Gabby to make her feel better, but she knew that the only thing that would help Gabby through this was herself. She had to find her own strength and resiliency. That wasn’t something Sherri could just give her.
After a while, she said, “I wish there was an easy answer to that question.” Continuing to stroke Gabby’s hair, she thought about how to phrase what she was thinking. “As far as I can see it, Gabby,” she said, “there are really only two choices for you.”
The girl sniffled and sat up. Her attention had been caught.
“You can either keep feeling the way you do, believing love is worthless and a lie. You can believe it’s fragile and easily broken. In essence, you can believe the words that you’ve spray-painted over half a dozen houses, that love is hell.
“Or, despite all of this—despite knowing your dad isn’t around, your mom is a verbally abusive drunk,
and your first love was a coward and a liar—you can still choose to believe in magic. You can still believe that there is value and power in the love you have for others. And you’re the only one who gets to make that choice. It’s not an easy one, and it’s something every person on this earth has to choose every single day of their lives.
“You can keep holding on to your anger and your fear. You can keep vandalizing property and lashing out against anyone and everyone who hurts you. Or you can reach down and find something sturdier in yourself, something stronger and more durable, something that can stand up to any shit storm that comes your way. You get to choose. Simple as that. You. It’s your choice.”
As she spoke, Sherri realized how much she needed to listen to her own advice. For the past few months, she’d trusted the fear and the hurt and the anger. She’d been leaning so heavily on those emotions for so long that she’d forgotten what it felt like to trust in her own strength. She’d known all along that one day, she would have to stand up and move forward, always fearing the moment she’d leave her baby girl, her darling Jessica, behind.
Now she realized how wrong she’d been. She wasn’t moving away from the grief and the pain. She wasn’t forgetting her daughter or abandoning the power of her grief or what it spoke of her love. It only meant she carried that pain in a small, sacred place in her heart. It was forever a part of her, a part of her broken and put back together, a part of her weakness and a part of her strength. She was who she was because of it. She’d been forged into a stronger version of herself because of it, and now it was time to move forward in love.
Thinking over what Ethan had brought up in the car, adopting, she suddenly realized she’d been afraid of exactly that. She was afraid of what another child would mean. She feared what a new baby would do to the memory of the baby she’d already lost. She’d been so focused on the fear that she hadn’t even contemplated the love. But now that she thought about it, she wondered what it would be like to hold a little writhing bundle of soft bones and pink warmth in her arms.