Born Different Read online

  “And don’t think that I don’t care Gabe but it is every day. This is our normal. If I wake her up she will only want a fight or start crying and wailing. She’s best off passed out. I can’t get her upstairs anyway. She’ll wake up soon enough, go on a hunt for booze and make her way to the sofa or her bed and then start drinking all over again. If I hide the drink, she’ll only take the car out or call a cab and get herself into trouble outside the house. At least if she is here, I know where she is.”

  “And where is your dad?”

  “Busy. He’s always, always very busy. Making lots of money, doing deals, catching flights . Whatever.”

  “And who hit you that time, you know?”

  “Do you really want to know Gabe?”

  “Yeah I do, I kind of think your family might think it was me and I kind of want to look after you as well and if it’s someone at school, I don’t know…I might be able to help or something.”

  “Gabe, it was my dad!”

  “What! Your dad?” The words didn’t really sink in, Gabe didn’t understand.

  Gabe had thought that this was paradise. He had presumed that Grace was so perfect and that her life was so easy and carefree. He had been convinced that she must live like a princess. Gabe had thought and assumed so many things. He had made up all these judgements and ideals about her.

  He had made up her whole life and he could not have been further from the truth. You really do not know what goes on behind closed doors and that counts for everyone, every damn last fucking one. Gabe was confused because he had thought that money was the solution, he had honestly believed that if you lived here you would be so happy. He’d even thought that living here meant that you must be lucky!

  Gabe was slowly realising that this was hell. This was hell and worse because its veneer was heaven. It told everyone it was heaven and it was hell. He had never seen or heard anything like it, not even in a movie. This life was worse than a bad movie and it did feel like a movie as his mind couldn’t quite take it all in as a ‘true life’ thing happening. It all seemed to be happening somewhere outside himself as though in scenes, each one worse than the next and getting worse only there was no way of pressing the stop button.

  Grace poured them both another big tumbler of Sambuca. She told him that you were supposed to have it in a little shaped glass and put coffee beans on the top and set fire to it, then after a minute, blow out the blue flame and drink the warm drink.

  Grace looked so sad and brave and Gabe loved her even more then. No wonder she drank the way she did, he understood that now, but that had to stop. This was not good, this was no life, it was insane.

  He didn’t want Grace to get drunk or like him because she was in such a shit place, or pissed, ill and desperate, even though she was all these things.

  “So, now you know. I told you about myself before and most things really but this is the rest mostly. ‘The big secret’. And the drinking, I guess you got that figured out by now too. I drink at least a bottle of wine before I leave the house in the morning. I hardly eat, there are no family dinners happening round here. And you know Gabe, what my darkest thoughts are and sometimes the only way I can relax? I imagine myself hanging.” Grace downed her glass of alcohol in one swift gulp and screwed her face up, wincing as it hit her.

  “So don’t you worry about your hump Gabe and your mum and what other people might say. You give me some light in my life. You are the only good thing, the only kind thing. You are the first bit of genuine gentleness I’ve had in a long time.” As she spoke the words, tears rolled down her face.

  Gabe could have cried too. And what now? They were friends in her hour of need, did she love him? Was he a fool? Should he take his shirt off and reveal his secret? Was that the idea? Was that the next obvious move to make? Surely she didn’t stage all this? No way, this was all true, it was too fucked up to be a lie.

  Grace leant over and kissed Gabe and her lips were wet with the aniseed alcohol and she was so soft and delicious that Gabe just couldn’t help himself from kissing her back. The room span and his mind cleared of any thought. She moved closer towards him until she was sat straddled on his lap. Gabe felt himself get hard and so aroused he felt like he was preparing to fly, his wings were twitching madly under the bandages. Grace must have noticed and she broke off the kiss and was smiling and curious. She looked at Gabe in the eyes and stayed staring for a long time. Gabe stared deep into her eyes too and they both saw deeper and deeper until it felt like a place that needed no words. There were no words.

  “You know I don’t care Gabe, about your back. You are so handsome and beautiful and I think that you are gorgeous and kind and loving and I don’t care, you know, what it looks like. I’ve thought about it. Even if it is the worst thing, I don’t mind. I want to see it Gabe, I want to see all of you.”

  Gabe had thought that one day, this day might come but he hadn’t thought it would be today. He was so wound up, it would have been so easy just to undress and make love to her now and for everything to go on in the direction that it was heading, speeding. But something was stopping him. It was not supposed to be like this. Not in this kitchen with her paralytic mother on the floor sparko, not even in her bed of this crazy place. He wanted to take her somewhere nice, make her a meal. Have bloody soft candle light or something.

  “No Grace!” Gabe had to push her away.

  “Don’t you like me Gabe, is that it? Do you really find me that repulsive? Did you kiss me because you feel sorry for me?” Grace lent over to refill her glass.

  “No Grace. It is not like that at all, God man, I have loved you forever…” and he’d said the words again and it was too late to take them back. Grace didn’t say anything. “But not here Grace, not like this! Soon, I promise. Let’s get out of here, it’s giving me the creeps. My mum’s not well. Come over to mine.” Gabe would have rather that she didn’t see his mum the way she was and hoped that his mum didn’t mind either but he was all out of choices again. His life was on a path that he couldn’t get off of. If there were other choices, Gabe couldn’t quite see them now. He felt like he was in a dense forest and the only path out was really narrow and dimly lit and it also might not be a path out at all, just part of a greater maze and Gabe was lost.

  Chapter 19

  Gina had already been to the doctors and got herself on some different medication, it usually knocked her out, dulled her emotions so that there was no longer happy nor sad but just existing on a cloud of nothing-really-matters-at-all. It was the only way for now.

  Gabe ran up to the chip shop and fetched them all some dinner and some wine. By the time he got back, the girls had made up a candle lit table, set for two.

  “I’m off to bed love.” Gina gave him a wink and took herself upstairs. Gabe noticed that she was looking happier already.

  “You know she suffers, you know, with depression?”

  “Yeah she told me Gabe and you know she is dealing with it. Looking after herself and you looking after her and everything. At least she admits that there is something wrong. All the denial round mine, it’s going to kill us.”

  Gabe took Grace in his arms and kissed her again. He kissed her face and her cheeks and her neck and then her eyes and again he felt himself getting aroused again. Grace was pushing her breasts hard up against him and guiding his hands under her shirt and Gabe thought about how lovely and natural it would be to just carry on like this and get lost in this feeling and the actions the feelings dictated. But then, what if she got to his wings and got completely freaked out? It was one thing finding a hump and another all together to realise that he was a bigger freak that she could have ever possibly imagined.

  “Come on, our chips are getting cold and I’m guessing you want a drink?”

  “Aha you know this girl well.”

  Gabe thought that he did but that perhaps she didn’t really know him at all. Not the real him and this was where he was holding back. Things were kind of going the way that he had always
dreamed and now that it was all here, he was afraid that it was all going to shatter to dust. That it was all going to blow up in his face and who could he turn to in all this? Gina would say, “Just show her Gabe, school’s nearly out. What’s the worst that can happen?” And Gabe thought of his dad, all hidden. Even if Gabe could not predict his own future, he could see where running away and hiding would get him.

  “Why you looking so sad Gabe?”

  “Nothing, I was just thinking. I’m not sad.”

  “So? Is now the right time?”

  “You’re never going to give up on this are you?”

  “No, why should I eh? We’ve come this far.”

  It was now or never thought Gabe. Shall I drag this on for weeks? Even make love to her in my bandages? But that was not the love he wanted, he wanted it to be true. He had to show her and what was the worst that could happen? She ran away, she told everyone, the newspapers found out? What? He was a man now, what could they do? He could deny it, it would all die down, he could handle it. He could even move away, go to Europe for a couple of years. There were solutions to any problems. She could hate him for it but that was the risk he would have to take. He had to try and steer away from his father’s fate, from committing the same sins as his father. If Grace hated him for it, then…then she would have to hate him for it and Gabe would have to learn to live with that. With having at least made an attempt to live the dream, rather than having never tried at all. Yes, tonight was going to be the night. Gabe had made the decision. From now on, it was inevitable.

  “Soon, very soon.” Gabe whispered.

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes tonight. But first we must eat and we must drink and we must kiss a little more beautiful girl.” Grace couldn’t help but giggle and she reached out and held his hand and let him twirl her around.

  “I love you,” he said again when Grace had twirled into his chest so that their faces almost touched, but Grace still didn’t say it back.

  So they got a little bit drunk for courage, to melt away some of the inhibitions and they watched a movie and they cuddled up on the sofa and Grace told him some more stories about her family that all sounded even worse than what Gabe had heard already. How did she cope with all that? She had walked around all those years with a smile on her face, mixing with the others, doing well at school, going home to that hostile hell hole. She was as neglected as Frank, if not more!

  Just as he thought that she was falling asleep in his arms on the sofa, wrapped in one of the big blankets, Grace asked him again.

  “Gabe can I see you?”

  “Do you really want to Grace, what if you are freaked out?”

  “Well if I am then I am and I am sorry for that but give me a chance to get used to it.”

  “And will you run to your friends and laugh about it?”

  “Gabe you are my only friend. Those other people are not my friends, how many times do I have to tell you? I don’t talk like this with them, like we do. We don’t really talk about anything. We just talk about people and gossip. We don’t talk about ideas or feelings any deeper than what we think everyone wants to hear. I don’t even think that they really know me. And they don’t make me feel good about myself or even help me even feel like myself. I don’t actually recognise my own self when I am with them.”

  Gabe took a deep breath in and exhaled noisily. He could have made the same speech himself. She really was his soul mate.

  “Come on then, let’s do this.”

  Grace leapt off the sofa excitedly and readied herself.

  “But not here, let’s go to my studio.”

  Chapter 20

  Gabe made sure to bolt and lock the doors and check the windows. He turned on his music and he lit some candles and some incense, so that the room was dimly lit by the flickers of the flames that encouraged them to draw together. The sweet smoke filled the air and Gabe stood before Grace as the first beats to the song played out.

  Gabe undid his shirt buttons, slowly revealing the bandages that wrapped tightly around him. He removed his shirt and he unlocked the safely pins and began to unravel himself.

  Gabe closed his eyes and cleared his mind, he was on a path again, a journey but one that he was sure would end soon, it had to end. How it would end? He couldn’t predict, he had no idea. So he turned on to automatic pilot and undressed himself as he had done every night of his entire life. Slowly he revealed his torso; lean, muscular and not so pale from having worked in his studio on and off for the last couple of weeks. Then he revealed the parts of his wings that poked out from beneath the remaining bandage.

  Around and around, he unravelled the bandages. Gabe revealed himself and at the same time unravelled and revealed everything about himself that he had even hidden. The secret was out.

  Gabe let the bandages fall to the floor along with his fear and his shame. He opened his eyes, half surprised to see Grace still standing there.

  Grace’s face changed but she did not say a word. Gabe took a deep breath in, counted to ten and stretched his wings out. He lifted and stretched his wings as far as they would go, farther than if he held his arms out wide, and then he settled them back down in to a comfortable place again.

  “Gabe, you’ve got wings!” Grace reached out now, cautiously, to touch them gently and delicately. She stoked him as she made her way around him slowly, taking in everything.

  “Look at you” she said laughing.

  “Hey you, a bit less of the laughing if you don’t mind, this is a big moment for me.”

  “They’re amazing Gabe, they are bloody wonderful!” Grace stroked and caressed them again and they felt soft and smooth.

  Gabe felt his shoulders relax and he realised that they had been tight up against his ears.

  “So you’re not too freaked out?”

  “Well yeah I’m freaked out Gabe but in a good way. I can’t believe it! Why were you hiding these? Everyone would think you were some kind of God or Superhero if they knew.”

  “Exactly! Or a freak Grace. And I should make it clear too that I am no God or Superhero!”

  “Ha, well you are my hero!”

  “So you don’t mind?”

  “Hey shut up! I love them. Can you fly?”

  “Well maybe, I’m not really sure anymore. I could a bit when I was younger but I haven’t tried in a while. Not had much need to really and I didn’t want to get shot down or anything.”

  “Gabe you could be famous for these.”

  “Erm, somehow I don’t think I want to be famous for these. Famous for something else perhaps, some great art work or saving lives or souls but not as a freak of nature Grace.”

  “Yes, I see what you’re saying, jeez man. I was prepared for the worst but I never even imagined…” Grace had walked all the way around him, touching him again as she walked. She came back to face him and she smiled. Her eyes lit up and she kissed him.

  “Let’s go to bed Gabe, it’s been a long day.”

  That night, Grace and Gabe made love. They made love to the music that held the rhythm for them in their actions. They felt the songs in them, directing them and at some points they wondered if it was in fact them creating and directing the music. They made love all night between sleeping. Gabe worked a little on the sculpture and when Grace woke she joined him in creating his masterpiece, naked they worked on it together for as long as they could without falling into each other again. They didn’t need or want for anything. The whole world seemed to revolve around them.

  There were no inhibitions, no embarrassments left and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. There were no books to tell you how to do this, or words sufficient enough in which to describe how it felt exactly, as it could only be achieved between the magical combinations of the chemistry of two people.

  There was something deeply meaningful and instinctual, spiritual and all-knowing occurring. Making love took them to a different place, a place where they felt more alive and more at one with the univers
e. And they wondered why ‘this’ was not spoken about more.

  ‘This’ was not the sex that they had heard about or been taught about. This was nothing like pornography, copulation, baby making or fucking or any of the other ways they had been sold sex. Was this a secret? This felt clean and magical, not dirty, diseased or debauched. Gabe and Grace felt high, with each orgasm, they felt bliss.

  The truth was, they both said it, when they made love to each other, when they let go of themselves into each other, they felt like they were flying.

  Gabe and Grace could not keep the smiles off their faces, they were in a world of their own, high on pheromones and endorphins and love.

  Gina could obviously see that Gabe was not wearing his bandages under his shirt this morning and she could see his wings. Gina knew that Grace must now know too and although this had been a big event for Gabe, in its own way it is just as big a deal for Gina. All the years that she had shielded him from people and bandaged him from teachers and other kids and other parents. All the worry and fretting about her actions and then Gabe carrying it on, carrying his secret alone, when he got too old for her to do it for him anymore. And now, here he was with a girl and not just any girl, with Grace. And everything seemed ok, more than ok, great in fact.