Bulletproof (Healer) (19 page)

             
I give up.

             
The sound of his footsteps are close now. I can feel his dark aura filling the air around me. I always know when he is there, his existence is like a vacuum, sucking the air out of my lungs. I turn round and there he is. Effortlessly handsome, aggravatingly so.

             
"Cassie…" he reaches his hand out to me but this time it is me that pulls away. I remember his face, full of revulsion, when I offered my help to him in the hotel in Paris. "Cassie," he says again.

             
"Don't touch me. Go away. I hate you," I say, each word rolling messily into the next so my sentences sound like one sloppy slur.

             
"Won't you just listen to me, please?"

             
"Why should I listen to you? You've made it your job to make me as miserable as possible. I should be enjoying this," I throw my arms to my sides to gesture at the beautiful surroundings, "Why won't you let me enjoy this? Toulouse and driving fancy cars and meeting vampires? I'm realising my dreams, Gabe, but you're so selfish. You're a moody, stupid
boy
,” I shove at his chest, “A silly little boy and you don't want anybody else to be happy because you aren't happy. You're sad and lonely so you want everybody else to be sad and lonely too! Well guess what? I will not be like you!" My words surprise me. I am panting exhausted by their harshness.

             
Gabe stands there filtering what I have said and looking hurt. I am crying again but I am indecisive as to what these tears mean. Am I angry? Or relieved that the words have finally come out? Or saddened by the expression on his face?

             
Gabe opens his mouth to speak but closes it again. He does this two or three times before I start to walk away again, unable to bear the silence. Then he tugs at my sleeve, I ferociously turn on my heels and growl, "Don't touch me if I disgust you so much. Just leave me alone, Gabe, that's what you want, isn't it? For me to disappear? So just go away!"

             
"Is that what you think?" Gabe asks, his voice serene.

             
I nod, "That is what I
know
, Gabriel. You walk around me like I'm dripping in poison."

             
"You don't understand, Cassie," he says scornfully; he is treating me like a little girl again.

             
"Make me understand!" I exclaim. “For once would you stop being so cryptic and just tell me what you are feeling? You are such an enigma and it is killing me, Gabriel! I can’t take it.”

             
When I'm looking in his eyes and feel the fiery heat raging between us and hear the many words being hurtled but thousands remaining unsaid I  suddenly know why it hurts so much and why my body is riddled with pain whenever I look into his dark eyes. It is because I love him. I am in love with him.

             
It's stupid. I don't even know him. He keeps his world hidden away from me. I don't know anything about his past, about Claire, why he works for Maurice when he clearly hates him, why he is an alcoholic youth with bad manners and a permanent scowl on his face. He won't open up to me and I shouldn't love him but I do. It's the only thing that explains why I so badly need to feel the relief of Maurice’s company. He numbs the agony of this unrequited love. Gabe abhors my existence and that is far scarier to me than any vampire or fast car could ever be.

             
"Make me understand," I say in a hushed tone this time quietened by my realisation.

             
I can't love him, can I? He hit me with a car! He was willing to risk my life to prove he was right. He's been nothing but fowl to me. Is that true? Surely my feelings for Gabe must have spouted from some fountain of hope. Although they have been small there have been moments where Gabe has revealed himself as the man I long for him to be: witty, intelligent, fascinating. I think I love the boy that exists behind the drinking and the cruelness. That's why I've always wanted to help him to prove he is a good person so I can feel less guilty about loving him.

             
"We need to go back. You're hysterical and you need to calm down," he says ignoring my request completely. Why can't he tell me why he doesn't want to touch me? Why doesn't he want to like me? He's happy to run me over with a car, willing to treat me like shit but can't tell my why. It doesn't make sense. Is he afraid of hurting my feelings? It is certainly too late for that.

             
I shake my head and take a step forward, "I'm fine. Please just stop shutting me out and ignoring the problem."

             
"There is no problem, Cassie," he says, the fire in his eyes is dimming. He is done fighting. No doubt he'll take me back and drown his sorrow in a bottle of Maurice’s finest champagne. I don't want that to happen again, I am too close to breaking down the walls and discovering what makes Gabe… so Gabe. "You're making a big deal out of nothing."

             
"Stop this! Stop this game, stop trying to protect me, I can handle it. If you don't like me, if I offend you so much, tell me. I can take it. What I can't take is you pretending this isn't real," I say, patting at my eyes to stop the tears flowing so readily.

             
"What isn't real? Cassie…" everything about his body is tight. His teeth are gritted, he is holding his hands up at his shoulders in clenched balls. "Cassie, please just get in the car."

             
"But Gabe…" I want to tell him how I feel about him, tell him how much I care and how I want to help but he stops me. He gives me a chilling look and says, "Whatever you're about to say, whatever you think you feel, don't. Please don’t say anything else, Cassie."

             
His words are clear to me. He doesn't feel the same way about me at all. He isn't pretending to hate me. He doesn't even hate me. He feels nothing. I am nothing.

FIFTEEN

              I walk towards the car, passing him wordlessly. Once I'm back at Maurice's, I can go to my room and I can really cry but not now, not in front of Gabe. I shouldn't embarrass myself any further.

             
How does he knows that my feelings go beyond what they should? I must be a dreadful liar. He probably knew I had a crush on him before I did. I cringe as I think about holding his hand in the airport and asking him to sit with me in the limousine. He probably pitied me and didn't want to encourage my schoolgirl obsession.

             
I punch the shiny exterior of the car, it is left unscathed but my knuckle bursts open. I watch blood dribble down my pale skin for a few minutes before my skin quickly heals and it's like the tiny leisure never existed. I wish my heartbreak could be so easily sewn up. Gabe isn't back yet. He will be mulling around in self-pity.

             
I turn around and thrust my curled fist against the smooth bark of one of the skinny trees that fence the curving road around Maurice's estate. My skin is tattered worse this time, shocking red blood appears, I suck at my fingers but the taste of iron melts on my tongue and is gone. I'm healed. Again.

             
I keep punching. Keep feeling the sharp pain which evaporates instantaneously. Why can't I be normal? If I didn't have this… this disease then I wouldn't be here. I could be watching movies with my friends, going on dates with normal boys, dancing in clubs on a Saturday night. No Gabe.

             
Gabe finally returns to the car. We are silent. Neither one of us wants to talk anymore. Anger, upset, sadness leave no room for words in this claustrophobic car.

             
The drive back to Maurice's house, winding through the grey dust and up the pink stone driveway, is long. When the car stops and I check that the coast is clear - there is no gardener or maintenance worker hanging around outside - I start to run through the halls back to the Andromeda Suite. I wish my feet were fast and strong enough to run all the way back to Ayrin, to my home with my dad and Shannon, to my own room. It was childish with pink, frilly trimmings and nothing ever worked properly at home and I used to think I hated it but at least it was my home. The obnoxious gold glitter that now surrounds me, the arrogance of a house where nothing ever breaks, where perfection can be sustained, makes me feel sick.

             
I am glad to be away from Gabe. Away from his watching, pitying eyes. I can stop analysing his thoughts but more importantly I can stop analysing my own. I can just bury my head deep into the pillow until I can barely breathe and cry and cry and cry.

             
Tears flow without interruption for hours. I cry for dad and Shannon and Bruce and Jana. Then I cry about Gabe. I cry because I feel like my heart has been smashed into a thousand pieces. How is it possible to hate and love somebody so much without knowing them at all? How can you miss something you never had? Something you never even knew you wanted? How can I miss the future?

             
I feel like someone has unlocked the place in my heart where I keep my fears and secrets and they have exploited them, thrown them across the floor for everybody to point and laugh at. I don't want this anymore. I thought I needed newness, contrast, excitement. I thought that I wanted to travel to Russia or to party with vampires in expensive clothes but the void where my family once was is widening and leaves me feeling unbearably hollow.

             
The only glimmer of hope is that I will see Maurice again soon. I hadn't even noticed that the sun was beginning to go down. Sunlight no longer streams into the sparkly room but instead a dim shadow has been cast upon it, dulling its excessive shine. Maurice calms me. He stops me being so frightened, not exactly what I had originally desired from a vampire suitor. His easy smile and hauntingly beautiful eyes allow me to get lost, to stop thinking about the confused mess that is my life. I am just with him and everything else seems to fade away slightly so it is more of a hazy hum that I can ignore rather than an overbearing drilling sound in my ear like dozing with the television on instead of sleepless nights in a noisy hotel room.

             
Footsteps are coming up the stairs. A knocking comes from outside then a voice. A melodic, sweet voice that I recognise. Rose. "Hello? Cassie? Are you alright?"

             
I try to answer but instead of words, a strangled cry escapes my throat like a dying animal. However, she takes this as permission to enter. The door swings open. I almost forgot how good it is to see her face. I sit up straight on the bed and grin at her. Her sympathetic, flat smile is enough to tell me that I look terrible. I am mentally and physically drained after today. Maurice's attempt at giving me a fun activity filled day has just left me feeling exhausted. "You okay?" she asks, sitting beside me. If I had been allowed to live a normal life with real friends and no scary hospital visits or researchers beckoning at my door every fortnight, I would want a best friend like Rose.

             
She rubs my back in comforting circular motions. I feel like I have missed a valuable part of life by not ever having a best friend. A girlfriend whom I could share all my secrets with, who I could laugh with until I pee myself. The sort of friend who you play Barbies with as a child then she holds your hair when you're spewing from too much alcohol when you're older. Then you swap high heels and short skirts from pregnancy books and coffee dates. Shouldn't every girl have a friend like that? And Rose seems exactly the sort of woman I'd want to give me advice on boys and help me pick out a cute outfit. She's feisty too so we could satiate my appetite for thrill seeking together. I hold back fresh tears. I want to cry because of another loss, my condition has robbed of a best friend too it seems.

             
"What's wrong, Cassie?"

             
"Everything," I say. "I don't mean to sound selfish or ungrateful, Rose, for all of this… for all the wonderful things you and Maurice and everyone have given me."

             
"I understand," she says and I wonder if she really does. "And Gabe?"

             
"What?" I feel my muscles tense.

             
She raises her eyebrows, “You like him a lot and you’re hurting because of him.”

             
I shake my head, a little too profusely, "No."

             
"You're a dreadful liar. It's been obvious since the day you and him arrived at my house. The way you watch him really carefully like he's going to burst into flames. I saw it, it was like you were waiting eagerly for his every move or maybe you were just contemplating how cute he is," she trails off into a snigger as if all of this isn't serious.