EMILY***I know what happened to Emily in high school and I am going to expose it to the whole school.That statement had been ringing in my mind ever since Gabriel showed me the message. There was someone who knew about what happened to me in high school, the reason why I moved to Cresswell just before my senior year. But that’s not what fazed me. I was sure there were people who knew outside of my family and Gabriel. What shook me to my core was the fact that they were going to expose me to the whole school.It had taken all of my strength to walk from my dorm to Gabriel’s after he had shown me that text. I felt like my legs wanted to give way under me. I wanted them to give way, them and the ground beneath my feet, because I could not imagine being the topic of attention. I could not imagine people knowing what I had kept to myself for years, something that I hadn't even told Harry. We went to Gabriel’s room and I tried to be as cooperative as I could but I was scared. I wanted t
GABRIEL***It’s not that simple. I will tell you what I want when I want to tell you. All I want for now is to watch you squirm in fear.I didn’t think that I would have been able to fall asleep considering the circumstances, but I had. Talking to Emily had given me a strange sense of peace. It felt just like old times, except this time I wasn't protecting her from myself.I didn’t know if the same memory came to mind for her when I said I would protect her. For me, it was the memory of the day when the people in school were making fun of her for our kiss. That had been all my fault. I had been stupid enough, not only to take a dare from boys who didn’t know better but also to allow them to make fun of Emily in the way that they had done.I had corrected my mistake, but the memory had stuck with me. Haunted me. She wouldn’t need protecting if I hadn’t taken the stupid dare in the first place. Essentially, I was protecting her from the consequences of my own actions. Was it the same t
(Bakersville HighSchool)***It had been a month since Emily’s family moved. He’d found out that they had moved when he saw a ‘FOR SALE’ sign on their front porch. It had been, for him, the worst way to find out that his best friend had left him. Everything had started going wrong on the day of Ashley Brown’s party. Gabriel and Emily, who had been dating for a little over a year at that point, had argued that morning and he had decided to go to the party without her. He told himself that she had a car, too, and that she knew where Ashley’s house was, so she would make it. He reasoned that they didn't need to go together. He hadn’t wanted to do that, hadn’t wanted to leave her even if they were arguing, but he had also argued with his Dad and he had feared that would make things worse. It was something he had started considering ever since that day in middle school when he got into a fight in school after arguing with his Dad. Arguing with his dad made him angry and when he got angr
EMILY***I hadn’t heard him walk into the room. I had to think fast.“We have something to tell you,” Gabriel said. My eyes turned wide in surprise. Was he going to tell him about the messages?He flashed me a brief look that I assumed meant that I should trust him, so I decided to keep quiet and let him do the talking. He had said he was going to protect me. It was time to prove himself.“What’s up?” Harry asked after making himself comfortable on his bed.“Emily and I don't think it’s a good idea for us to have double dates anymore,” Gabriel said.Harry laughed and I breathed a sigh of relief. Gabriel had saved me. He seemed to be encouraged by Harry’s reaction, so he continued.“One of us is a bad luck charm and we can’t keep meeting because all our dates will be awkward or will end up badly if we do.”“Was that what you wanted to tell me? With the way the both of you froze, I would have thought that you were hiding something from me,” he said.It was funny that he mentioned that.
EMILY***“What do you mean what happened to me in high school?” I asked, and I could feel the world shifting under my feet. “I mean I need to know so that I know what we’re working with. If it’s something serious we could even get authorities involved because it will change the nature of the case,” Gabriel said.I needed to sit down. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. Was Gabriel really asking me what had happened to me in high school? Him of all people? “I understand what you’re asking, it’s why you’re asking that baffles me. Why would you ask about something you already know about?” I asked. What was going on?There was a look of confusion on his face. “I’m asking because I don't know,” he said.I felt the world spin. It was a surprise that I was still up and standing. What did he mean he didn’t know? He was one of the reasons why I had to move, one of the reasons why I couldn't stand the thought of being in Bakersville anymore. If he hadn’t been involved, maybe
GABRIEL***I should have known better.It had taken all my courage to ask Emily the question that had been looming over my head for years and all I had gotten in return was an accusation. And to make it even worse, Harry has taken her side.He had called me that night after Emily and I had talked and I had tried to the best of my ability to explain what was going on, hoping that he would at least help me help Emily, but he told me he felt that it was best to take Emily’s side because it seemed that the whole situation was hard for her.I tried to tell him that the smart thing to do would be to help her if being on her side was what he really wanted, but I could tell what he was thinking. Even in his silence, I could tell that he thought that what Emily had told her was true. He believed that I was capable of sending such a message to Emily and to myself just so I could mess with her.I was angry but I also felt guilty. I hadn’t known that the small things I had been doing to upset Em
EMILY***“Aren’t you late for class?” Nila asked me.“I’ll be out in a minute,” I said and she walked out of the room.I actually didn’t know if I would be going to class that day. I didn’t feel too well. I hadn’t been feeling well ever since my interaction with Gabriel. I had been feeling dizzy and unstable, and maybe that was because the world I had worked so hard to build was threatening to come crashing down. I hadn’t imagined that Gabriel would become cruel to that extent. I had hoped that he would be content with just annoying me, but clearly, he wasn’t deriving as much pleasure from it as he was hoping to, so he decided to go bigger. I had expected anyone else to bring up my past. Honestly, it would have been less scary if Harry was the one threatening to expose me.But the fact that it was Gabriel, the only person in Cresswell who knew what happened, the only person who said he would protect me but didn’t, the only person who made me move towns, the fact that it was him scar
Bakersville Middle school***It was the last year of middle school. The rumors had long died down, both the ones that were true and the ones that were fake. It had been months since Gabriel had stepped in to defend Emily from the saga of the first kiss and the rumors that came with it and she had managed to go through it unscathed but so much had changed while still remaining the same.Something had shifted in Emily. She couldn’t place it, but something had changed.She had expected to be thankful to Gabriel for what he had done but she found herself thinking and feeling something entirely different. She found herself feeling and thinking that if Gabriel hadn’t taken on that mindless dare in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to be protected in the first place.She found herself feeling and thinking that Gabriel was essentially protecting her from himself. She didn’t know how to feel about this. She didn’t know how to deal with this realization. As soon as it came, it did so wit