Gabriella Ch. 09

"Your interview today?"

She nodded.

"Well, good luck. I'm sure you'll get it."

"I'm not so optimistic, but thank you."

He moved close, so close she could make out the blue from the gray in his eyes. He sat his cup down to the left of her, keeping his eyes trained on hers. Then they fell to her lips and back up again.

"What would you say if I called in sick and spent the day with you?" he whispered, his warm breath washing over her, teasing with the light scent of minty toothpaste and rich hazelnut coffee. Her lips itched to touch his. Taste his. Her body begged to forget about his job, her unemployment...Myra's words. Everything.

Tired of thinking, she leaned in to submit to what they both wanted when her cell phone rang. The long shrill echoed through the kitchen, widening the space that had shrunken to just the two of them.

Patricia stepped around him and answered it, breathing deeply to calm herself.

"Hello, Mrs. Graham?"

"Yes?"

"I'm calling to confirm your ten-thirty appointment with Mr. Thompson."

"Yes, I'll be there. Thank you." She quickly hung up and turned around.

Simon remained by the counter facing away as if she hadn't moved. His back and arms were tense, as though he were pushing against the granite countertops.

"I should probably get dressed."

"What do you think about what I said? I could wait for you after your interview." His voice was cool and low, making her consider her words carefully.

"I think that sounds really nice, but I have a lot of things that I need to do around here as well, so..."

He turned and stared at her. Into her. As if trying to decipher the true meaning of her words. She released a gasp when he broke the dead calm and pushed away from the counter.

"Okay." He grabbed his briefcase and keys and made his way to the door, each step crushing her heart.

It was never supposed to be this way. It had always been easy for them. Before the blowup, they rarely argued and never went without talking to each other. And because of the peaceful marriage they had grown accustomed to, she wasn't prepared for the stormier times.

"Simon?"

He turned, the look in his eyes hopeful. "Yes?"

She hesitated while her mind raced to catch up to her mouth. "I...was...thinking...would you like spaghetti for dinner? Or I could make something else if you're not feeling that."

He gave a small smile that didn't reflect in his eyes. "Spaghetti sounds great."

She exhaled. "Okay, good."

"Have a good day."

"You too," she said too enthusiastically.

She held her smile as he walked out. The loud revving of his motorcycle vibrated the floor before the sound lowered, signaling he was gone. Soon the quiet seeped back in and her smile slowly slipped from her face. It was during these alone times that she was painfully aware just how much life had changed.

Normally Simon and Ella would have headed out together, at least during times when they were on good terms or at a ceasefire, and on days when their truce had disintegrated, Ella would find another ride. It wasn't perfect, but it was home. And a broken heaven was better than hell any day of the week.

She poured their half full cups of coffee down the drain and made her way to the bathroom to prepare for her interview.

***

Patricia bit her bottom lip while Clark Thompson scanned her resume. He didn't appear to have the friendliest demeanor, but Viscott Group was a reputable marketing firm that now needed an office manager. And since she'd endured several years with Clemmon's resident tyrant, Sam Banesfield, she was more than confident she could handle anything he threw her way.

His thin lips twisted as though he tasted something sour. "You don't list your last employer as a reference."

"Um, no, but as you can see I have others." She shuffled through her bag. "I have letters—"

"Hmm..." He tossed her resume and references onto a stack of papers. "We'll call you."

Her insides deflated while she held her smile. "Thank you."

On the drive home, her mind drifted to conversations she and Ella never had. Bits of random wisdom gained here and there that she tucked away for days when deadlines weren't looming, grocery lists were blank and dinner was already made. Days when everything had fallen into place and time was set aside for them to talk. Really talk.

But those days never came and those conversations were never had.

And now the time had passed and the life lessons she had filed remained hidden away like so many things in her relationship with Ella.

When she re-focused, she found herself on an unexpected detour and sitting in the parking lot of Walton's Cineplex.

After a futile search for Ella through the large tinted windows, she turned the car around and made her way to the nearest grocery store to pick up spaghetti sauce for a dinner neither of them would probably touch.

**********

Gabriella

"Come on." Ella's hands trembled as the lighter clicked several times showing no mercy. The only fire being produced at the moment was burning through her veins.

The slight stale stench of the nearby dumpster turned her stomach while the dull yellow flickering of the street lamp above shone down on the almost empty frost covered employee parking lot behind the theater.

"Shit." She pulled the unlit cigarette from her mouth and closed her eyes.

She had less than five minutes to calm her nerves, go back inside and pretend that the sight of Nolan, Bryan, Rebecca and the brunette on Nolan's arm hadn't just shook her to the core. That the knife in her back courtesy of Nolan left her still standing when inside she was crumbling piece by piece.

She had frozen like a deer in headlights as the quartet stared back at her.

Finally Rebecca broke the trance and turned on her heels, pulling the confused brunette with her as the girl mumbled something about popcorn. Bryan glanced at Nolan before he followed Rebecca into the theater.

Ella turned away from Nolan's stare, knocking over the candy display and rushed to the backroom, grabbing her cigarettes from her purse on the way out.

There was always the chance that she would run into them, but she never expected it to be at the same time. She never expected Nolan and Bryan to be friends again. Not after what she told him. Not after everything that had happened.

She opened her eyes and stared at the numerous bumper stickers on the back of her co-worker, Fritz's car. I brake for animals; I break assholes. She had been too speechless to give him a heads up that she was taking a much needed smoke break.

"Ella?"

She glanced to the side to find Nolan peeking from the broken emergency door. His eyes were unsure when he stepped through and let it close behind him.

She looked away from him and placed the cigarette between her lips again. She steadied her hand long enough to light it and inhaled deeply in the hopes that it would soothe her throbbing head and halt her stomach somersaults.

He moved closer, until he was a foot from her. "Can we talk?"

"I'm busy." She blew smoke out and stared at the bumper stickers again. Assholes.

"In there...it's not what it looks like."

"Really?" Ella scoffed and turned to him. "Then what is it exactly? Because just a minute ago it looked like you were here with that fucker Bryan or did I miss something?"

When he didn't answer, she turned back to the parking lot.

He shuffled his feet, a trait she use to find endearing, but now only irritated her.

"When did you start working here?"

She rolled her eyes, tossed the cigarette down and moved to enter the building when Nolan grabbed her arm.

"Wait a second—"

"Let go of me," she snapped.

"Ella, I—"

"You're still friends with him?" The tiny shred of cool she had left waned as she jerked her arm away. "After everything I told you!"

He shook his head. "It's more complicated than—"

"He raped me, Nolan! You were my boyfriend! It's not that fucking complicated!"

"Yes it is! Second grade, Ella. That's how long he and I have been best friends. He's telling me one thing and you're telling me another. I was in the middle and didn't know who to believe. What did you want me to do?!"

"Believe me! I wanted you to believe me. I could have..." She felt hysterical. Her voice sounded strange, like it didn't belong to her, "...could have handled it. Everything people were saying, I would have been okay had you just believed me!"

"Ella I..." He stuck his hands in his pockets and gave a defeated sigh. "He said you both were wasted and it just happened."

"How convenient for him. And yet you remain his friend and toss me aside."

"It wasn't like that. I—"

They turned toward the emergency door as it flung open and slammed violently against the brick wall. A shiver traveled up her spine when Bryan stepped through and looked in their direction.

"Nolan, what the—" His eyes shifted to her. "Oh."

Fury vibrated her body the closer Bryan got, his dark eyes darting back and forth between them before they settled on Nolan.

"What's going on? I thought this was kind of a done deal," he said with a nod in Ella's direction.

"Just give me a moment, will ya?" Nolan said, irritation laced through his voice.

"Why? So this bitch can make up more lies?"

"The only lying bitch out here is you," Ella slung back at him.

Bryan's eyes narrowed. "Shut up, slut."

Common sense of striking someone who outweighed her by sixty pounds and hovered a foot taller escaped Ella as her fists balled. She connected months of pent up frustration to the side of Bryan's face in a half punch/half slap combination. He stumbled back with a thin red line slowly trickling from his nose. He wiped at it, dazed, before he scowled at her.

The cold had done nothing to soften the blow and her fingers felt broken, but she held her ground. If he beat the shit out of her, so be it, but she refused to back down and be helpless again like she was that night.

She braced herself when Bryan's hands snaked out to grab her.

"Don't even think about it!" Nolan shouted as he caught Bryan's hands and pushed him back.

Bryan shoved Nolan aside and took a step toward her, towering over her again, before Nolan wrapped his arms around him from behind and swung him around, slamming him against the brick wall.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Nolan yelled.

Bryan pushed him off. "She hit me!"

"So? You can't take a hit from a girl?"

"See, this is the shit I'm talking about Nolan! Letting that little bitch come between us."

Ella wanted to kill him—no, make that all of them. She had never felt this much rage in her life. She reached for Bryan, but Nolan held her back.

"Lying motherfucker! If you didn't want me to come between you, then you shouldn't have raped me, you fucking asshole!" she screamed, no longer caring who witnessed the fight or her accusation. If she got fired for the spectacle, it was worth it.

Bryan leaned over Nolan's shoulder and glared down at her. "I didn't rape you, you fucking whore! Like that's even possible with a cum-dumping slut like you."

She reached for him again, but Nolan beat her to it as he turned and slammed his fist into Bryan's stomach.

"Fuuuck..." Bryan wheezed out before he stumbled to the sidewalk.

Nolan bent over him with a raised fist. "Go ahead, call her another name, asshole!"

Ella turned to walk away when Nolan grabbed her arm. "Hold on."

"We're done," Bryan panted out. He sat up and held his abdomen. "Y-you pick her over me? I would ne-never do that shit to you."

"And what you did to me...I would never do to you," Nolan spat back.

Ella pulled her arm from him and walked back into the theater. The door opened behind her, but she sped up. At this point there was nothing left to say.

"Wait a second. I need to talk to you." Nolan grabbed her hand again before she could make it back out to the lobby. "Ella, wait. We need to talk. You owe me that much."

She snatched her hand away. "I don't owe you shit."

"You think you were the only one that was hurt? That you're the only one that suffered?"

She slowed to a stop, but kept her eyes focused on the bright lights of the lobby.

"I was in two fights in less than a week and the butt of every joke in the locker room all because of how I felt about you, Ella. You didn't even hear half the things I heard."

Ella remembered his eyes, the angry, sad, shocked revelation reflected in them before his coach pulled him back to the bus that day. For the most part, Nolan was a laidback easy going guy who was friendly to everyone. But to see him lose it like that in front of his coaches and friends, he was pushed to the brink with whatever Bryan had revealed.

"I really want to talk to you."

She slowly turned around. "What's there left to say?"

"There's plenty," he said, moving closer.

"Isn't your date waiting on you?"

"She can wait. Can I call you later?"

Ella sighed. "Let's just let this go. I mean, it's not like you and I had some great love affair."

He shook his head. "From the beginning, I knew I was in this more than you."

"In the beginning, you were just trying to get laid, remember?"

"Yeah, well don't forget it was you that just wanted to have fun and not be tied down. You were the one seeing some other dude on the side while you were with me."

"Not after we started dating."

"Even still, the rumors started and what was I supposed to think, huh?"

"Apparently that I'd screw all your friends."

He gave a dry chuckle. "I don't even know why I bothered. Have a good life."

Her head hurt as she watched him retreat. She took several deep breaths before walking into the break room to replace her cigarettes.

Her heart leapt when she saw she had a message on her phone, but like a cruel joke, it dropped a second later when she realized it wasn't from Simon. They never were.

Instead Terrence's message stared back at her. Hey sexy. Cum c me tonite.

That was his nightly offer ever since they'd hooked up. Though they had yet to have an emotional connection, there was no reason why their casual relationship couldn't be deeper.

B there in 1hr.

She clicked her phone shut and headed into the lobby.

***

Ella closed her eyes to block out the constant vibration of the phone against the desk to the right of her and the thumping bass beat through the wall to the left.

"You like that?"

She reluctantly pried her eyes open to see Terrence's reflection as he grunted behind her. A light sheen of sweat covered the tattoos strewn across his chest, most of which blended into his dark skin. A cross, the initials LMB and other symbols she could never quite decipher, but they still weren't enough to distract her from the dry friction growing more painful between her legs with each of his hurried thrusts.

"Yeah," Ella lied over the sounds of flesh slapping against flesh as he hammered into her from behind. "You feel so good."

He watched himself in the full length mirror hooked onto the back of the closet while she remained on all fours. The stagnant heat made his fingers slick as they slid up and down her sides, yanking her ass back against him with each plunge.

She winced with each thrust as he drove her further into the thin mattress, her sore elbows and knees forced to bear the brunt of the battle between the worn down padding and the rigid metal slates beneath.

"You like that dick, huh? Tell me how deep you feel—"

She rammed back harder against him matching him thrust for thrust as she moaned louder to block out his annoying chants. She rolled her hips up, down and in circles in the hopes to feel something. Anything.

"Oh fuck..." In the reflection, Terrence gritted his teeth and did a succession of short hard strokes. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..."

He dropped down on top of her, forcing her flat onto the hard bed as he continued to plow into her in fast hard pumps. She arched her back and lifted her ass, wanting him to fill her deeper. To purge any thoughts of Simon she harbored.

"Fuck!"

He held a long, noisy grunt before dropping all of his weight on top of her. His heartbeat pounded into her back as his sticky body crushed her. She turned her head to the side, and through a curtain of damp dark hair, she stared at the TV that was on mute. A sports analyst sat behind a desk with a row of graphics to his left, each a different topic to discuss while the sounds of laughter floated through the thin door as people passed by.

"Shit," Terrence wheezed before rolling off.

Colorful spots floated in front of her when she sat up too quickly. She pushed herself against the wall and looked down at his long body sprawled across the bed. The sight of his dick slowly softening, still sheathed by the sheer wet condom forced her to look away before her stomach turned.

"Damn girl." He placed a hand behind his head and lazily stroked the inside of her thigh. "You could have a brotha hooked."

She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. "Glad you liked."

"Liked? Shit, I loved."

Ella smiled at him and he smiled back, but she couldn't think of anything to say. She turned to the silent TV hoping she hadn't become one of those annoyingly clueless girls whose unwanted presence continued to linger after sex.

She inhaled deeply before staring back at Terrence, whose eyes were slowly roaming down her body. "How was your game tonight?"

"We won."

"Good."

More silence passed as she scrolled through things to say. She knew nothing about basketball and didn't want to bore him with questions about school.

He plucked his phone from the desk and scrolled through the many missed calls and texts that sounded off every other minute of their short sexual escapade.

"You know, I thought of trying out for the cheerleading squad last year."

"Mmm. You'd look fine as hell in that tiny little outfit cheering for me." He placed his phone on the desk and slid her down the bed by her ankle.

"What are you doing Saturday?"

He grinned and slowly opened her legs. "Hopefully you."

Ella forced another smile. "Other than doing me, I was thinking maybe we could hang out. Maybe catch a movie or something."

He rose to his knees and rolled on a fresh condom. "Yeah, but actually this Saturday isn't good for me."

She stared up at the ceiling and braced herself for the dry intrusion. "Oh. Do you have an away game or something?"

"No. But my girlfriend will be in town."

Ella choked out an incredulous laugh, searching his eyes for any form of joking.

He was serious.

Invisible prickles coated her arms and legs. "You have a girlfriend?"

"Yeah," he grunted as he pushed deep inside her in one fluid stroke. "Fuck, you feel so good."

She stared up at him as her emotions ping-ponged between shock, laughter and anger before settling on resignation. And honestly she wasn't that surprised, but if he was going to use her, then she'd use him too.

She moved her hips to meet his and wrapped her arms around his strong back. Her eyes closed and she sucked in her bottom lip when they hit a familiar rhythm. It was just sex, no different than taking a nice hot shower. For the moment, it satisfied every craving, but once the deed was done, that was it. No need to bask in the afterglow. There would always be more sex and for a long time, she hadn't really cared where it came from.

But memories of Simon's piercing blue eyes surfaced again. Her heart ached again.

"Ssh, Gabriella," Simon had whispered against her ear as she had clung beneath him on the last day of summer the year before. The light drizzle had driven everyone but them away from Lake Torrance.

His eyes held hers as her whimpers of ecstasy elevated, before being cut off by his lips, his tongue...swallowing every cry of passion she was about to release to the heavens above. Her body shook uncontrollably while her skin kept her insides from combusting. Simon touched every nerve inside her as his body pinned hers against the warm blanket.