Born Different (19 page)

Gina had her
own ideas on things but was not one to expose these thoughts,
especially not to Gabe, who she thought was so obviously in love,
infatuated and taken with Grace. She wondered how he was coping
with this new development. He had to learn these things, she had to
let go and let him learn for himself the way of love. That rocky
terrain that although was full of heartache and pain, was also so
imprinted to be so appealing that it never failed to lure people to
take its path.

Gabe thought he
might walk Grace back to her house so she could spend some time
recuperating or resting or pampering or whatever it was that she
did but Grace said she didn’t want to see anyone. She didn’t want
to go home, she wanted to keep her head down.

The bruising
actually looked worse today.

Gabe knew that
he needed to finish the sculpture; he needed to get all his art
work to school as well at some stage but given the choice, he would
pick Grace every time. But if he was with Grace, they couldn’t just
hang out in the city where they would see people they both knew.
Gabe didn’t think Grace would find it very interesting spending the
day in his studio and it would have felt too weird anyway.

He thought of
what Grace might like to do and he could feel his personality
morphing to suit her and he checked himself.

No, I am not
going to completely change to suit her. I have got to be me. If she
doesn’t like it then at least she will find out now. And what have
I got to lose?
Gabe thought. When you do not have much to lose,
you can do almost anything. The black clothes thing had been for
him firstly, then for her, he wasn’t going to pretend to be someone
else to trick her into liking him because then she wouldn’t really
like him. She would be liking Gabe pretending to be someone who he
wasn’t. If she did really like him, she would want more and Gabe
wasn’t ready for that either. Better she finds out she doesn’t like
me and goes off, than pretending to be someone she might like and
get myself into a situation. As Gabe was turning this all around in
his head, he realised that Grace was laughing at him.

“What you
laughing at?”

“Your face,
Gabe!”

“Hmm
thanks.”

“No, I mean
it’s cute. The way that it changes when you are thinking and you
are having this little conversation in your head and your face is
getting all involved.” Grace had got the giggles.

“Hmm. Yes well,
I’ll watch that in the future then.” As if Gabe wasn’t feeling
paranoid enough already.

“Hey no it’s
nice, it’s lovely.” She tried not to smile and gave him one of her
nudges to make it up to him.

No one had said
it to him before, that he had these habits. No one noticed because
they weren’t new to them or they simply just did not notice. Grace
must be noticing and she seemed happy enough.

He thought of
what his friends might say if they knew.
It’s time to grow up so
fuck ‘em
, thought Gabe.
Fuck the lot of them!
He played
out their wrong doings in his head and he could feel his face
twisting up in frowns and grimaces.
Man I’ve got to stop
thinking like it. If I keep thinking of all the shit and negativity
my face is going to end up all twisted and bitter. I’ve got to
think good things, I’ve got to see good things then life just might
be good.
They say you get the face you deserve so Gabe reckoned
if he kept thinking crap and bollocks, his face would show that in
its lines. He didn’t want that. He saw people in the street that
looked wrecked with bitter and twisted, downturned grimaces, from
years and years of their resentful thoughts shaping their faces.
Perhaps their thoughts even shaped their lives, leading them down
everlasting paths of misery. Gabe wanted a face that read of peace
and happiness and serenity. And he wanted that path too! If it was
his thoughts that shaped his face, that shaped his actual whole
life, he better sort it out quick.

“Let’s go up
into the countryside and on to the coast. Get away from it all for
a bit. I’ll borrow mum’s car and we can have a drive around. Maybe
take a picnic or something? Go for a walk if the weather’s nice up
there. Take a flask of tea. How does that sound?” Gabe thought that
Grace might laugh and say, ‘no way let's go to the pub and get
pissed’, or something similar instead, but Grace said, ‘Yes!’

“Gabe, that
sounds like the loveliest thing ever. Perfect.” And Grace’s face
lit up and looked so pretty despite of its damaged appearance.

Being in the
car gave Gabe and Grace a sort of shell of protection from the
outside world and from their own self-consciousness. As they looked
ahead, along the road towards the horizon, they couldn’t stop
talking. They talked about everything and anything. They told
brief, edited versions of their life stories. They spoke and
discussed their different hopes and fears. They laughed and cried
laughing over funny stories. They got on really well and even when
they were quiet, it was just peaceful, not awkward or embarrassing.
They both just looked out of the window and enjoyed the view and
occasionally pointed out a particularly nice looking cloud or
landscape view and they drove into the moors until there were no
other cars on the road and it was just dirt track after dirt
track.

Gabe didn’t
really know where he was going, he just kept going and turned off
roads when it felt right to turn, not worrying too much about
getting lost. What did it matter if he was with Grace? Finally,
they landed in a place that was just like out of a postcard.

Not far from
where the land met the sea, they had found themselves at one of
those places that looked like it didn’t really exist, not in
real-life, only in fantasy, in imagination, in children’s picture
books. The light here today looked polarised; all the colours were
more intense and the scenery couldn’t have been more dramatic.
There was a stream and a waterfall that glittered and shone like a
million diamonds in the sun. Gabe found a place to park, off road
so that they would be completely hidden if by chance another car or
tractor found its way down here. There was the odd sheep hiding out
in the nooks of the rocks and the purple heather stretched as far
as the eye could see. The sky seemed vast here. The sun was out
almost alone up there but happy, happy in its solitude. It was so
warm but with the sea breeze everything felt good and easy. Gabe
thought about how things were falling in to place and how that made
life so much easier, a pleasure even. Life was usually a damn
struggle and a bloody battle, he was always coming up against
situations and people that he felt were difficult and wrong. Maybe,
if things came easily, then surely that must mean that you were on
the right path? Surely this universe and everything in it hadn’t
been created so that life was always about suffering and strife and
obstacles? Life should be full of beauty too. Today life was full
of so much beauty and it came effortlessly. It came from every
direction without so-much as a thought about it. Maybe it was
always there, it just took a shift in your thinking and emotions to
see it? Perhaps if you touched beauty then it spread like a
passionate fire, lighting everything in its path. Perhaps there
would always be friction but if you walked the path with love it
smoothed the way.

Gabe took
armfuls of blankets and pillows and then the hamper from the boot
of the car, he set all their things down half shaded under a tree
and they sat and they ate from the basket that Gina had made up for
them and drank tea. Everything just felt calm as they were just
sitting and listening to the sounds of nature. Listening to the
sounds of the light breeze and other sounds they did not instantly
recognise, even though they were the sounds that were always there
in the background beneath the noises of everyday living. Sounds
that could even be coming from the movements of the whispy
occasional white clouds up ahead or by the gentle swaying of the
grasses and leaves.

The tune of the
stream on its long travels over pebbles and rocks. The sound of
heat waves rising and radiating, almost visible when you stared for
long enough. All the natural sounds that came from the earth. The
primordial sounds that were not invented but had always and forever
been.

Full and tired,
they both lay flat with their backs touching right down on the
earth, on the warm ground and, surrounded by the soft blankets and
cushions with tiny mirrors sewn in, they looked up to the sky and
beyond. They felt their bodies connect with the soil and with the
crust of their planet and they realised how good it felt just to do
that. And they wondered why didn’t they spend more time just doing
that? Connecting back with the earth and realising the connection,
the life being experienced. Gabe and Grace talked about their ideas
on the meaning of life. Of how far space went. Of how small they
could think. Of conspiracy theories and scientific thoughts and
they thought of other questions that they didn’t know the answers
to. They talked of evolution and if even that truth was true, about
all the missing information and missing links. They spoke of
philosophies they had heard of and read about on the internet and
discussed them excitedly. They debated if science would indeed have
all the answers one day and if everything could be explained with
an equation eventually. And how much it might matter, if anything
mattered at all, if anyone did eventually figure it all out.

Gabe looked
over at Grace as she spoke. She was more beautiful by the day. She
was still bruised and there was a scab now on the cut on her lip
but she looked better, happier. The more Gabe knew her, and got to
know her, the more she spoke; the more beautiful she got. Even
bruised and battered, Grace glowed. That was the only way he could
describe it. Whether it was the sun that day or the position of the
land, or something else all together, Grace looked like an angel or
a saint in a stained glass window of a church. She had a glow all
around her. A golden aura. Even amongst the beauty and perfection
of nature, Grace had an ‘other worldly’ iridescence about her.

Hours passed as
they talked and day dreamed and laughed. Gabe took another blanket
out of the car and a bottle of wine and they sat there on the side
of the moor by the stream and they watched the sun go down. As if
seeing that everyday phenomena for the very first time they noted,
in detail, how the colours changed so subtly but greatly. As the
sky turned from blue to purple to orange to red and pink and then,
when the sun had finally disappeared over the horizon, to where
people in another land were watching it go down, the sky turned to
the darkest black. When the sun was no longer there, with its
bright, life giving fire, shining in the sky, they could then see
the stars. Stars that were always there but that they were blinded
to during the day and even to most nights of their lives due to
being indoors, in their own box. Even if they were to look up to
the sky from the city, most of the stars and sky was blocked from
view by the high rises and the ever present light pollution of the
city’s nightscape.

Up here, where
there was no city life and no light pollution, Gabe and Grace could
really see in the clear night the millions and millions of stars
that seemed to fill every spare space up above. The longer they
stared, the more stars seemed to be revealed. It was as if they
were both falling deeper into the universe; where it was possible
to believe what they had heard, that there were more stars in the
sky than there were grains of sand on earth. That if the all the
grains of sand from all the beaches and all the vast deserts on
earth were added up together they were still outnumbered by all the
stars in the sky. The same earth’s sky that the ancients had seen.
Distant relatives and forefathers and mothers who would have all
also stared up at the night sky in wonder. Before the invention of
TV and radios and video games and the internet. Before they knew
what any of it meant and even if people now did know the science
behind some of it, it was hard not to believe that really it was
something so greatly misunderstood and powerful and wonderful. That
witnessing the night sky was so life affirming, humbling and at the
same time awe inspiring, that there must be so much more to
everything than what they knew or could ever know in this, their
life time. That there also had to be that other thing, that thing
that people had tried to name, that thing that could be God, or
Love, or Mother Nature. The Essence of the Universe. That thing
that made them human, that gave them the power of consciousness,
the ability to question, to reflect, to imagine, to create. To feel
feelings so complex, so strong and so deeply, like the feeling of
the absolute awe of it all. This was the biggest miracle perhaps,
to be able to witness all the other billions of miracles and ask,
why?

Gabe thought of
the holidays he had with his mum when he was younger, when they
would camp somewhere beautiful and deserted and he could leave his
shirt off all summer, and roll around in the dirt and run free. He
could use his wings and fly around the hills and up the streams. He
could watch the birds and join them as they soared high above the
earth, high above any problems or worries. Gabe felt now like he
did then. He felt the need to take his shirt off. Undo his
bandages, where his wings were, after a day of being stifled in the
heat, dripping with sweat. Free them from being imprisoned by
layers of material and of shame. The natural and free world was
tempting him to join it.

Gabe thought
about facing his greatest fear, exposing something that was way
beyond intimate. But Grace had fallen asleep. The wine and the
soporific effect of the dark starry night after the sun went down,
after its gift of such a hot day, had lulled her to her dreams.
Exhausted from all of the deep and passionate conversations they
had had today and the ultimate feeling of peace here. This place
was like the breast of Mother Nature herself, so calming and safe
and natural. Gabe guessed the effects of yesterday’s drama were
still tiring her too. She was still refusing point blank to talk to
him about it and Gabe didn’t want to push it. Whatever it was, he
just wanted her to get better and for it to never happen again. He
wished he could lie down next to her and put his arms around her.
Hold her, whisper into her hair and tell her that everything was
going to be alright. Tell her that he loved her.