Born Different Read online

  Even the great sculpture of all his childhood junk and collections was complete with wings. But what Gabe only just saw, and it took him as much by shock as it did everybody else, was that it was him. A self-portrait. A man with wings, exactly the same as Gabe, except this man was embracing a woman, lifting her up and away with him and she had wings too.

  “Man they look so real, they’re bloody brilliant.” Gabe sensed that he had started to draw a crowd. He was attracting a large fuss and throng of followers, totally pissing off all the other artists who were wishing that they had thought of something like this instead of hanging around The Exhibition hall for the last few weeks. They had been slagging off Gabe for not hanging his work up till the last minute and now they were all feeling a little bit gutted.

  The attention and cheers and back slapping, was all getting out of hand, crazy and a bit too much for Gabe. He wanted to leave now, he had had enough. He had got there, done what he had to do and now he wanted, needed, just had to leave.

  Gabe had too much stress and worry already to really have the surplus effort required to think about the consequences of what he has just done. What if people thought they were real? Well, they were real. The people that matter the most knew the truth and that was all that mattered. Gabe needed to get home, get back up to the hospital, even if Grace was going to be unconscious for the rest of the day. Gabe still wanted to be by her side.

  The speeches had started and Gabe’s name was called but Gabe thought that he had already made quite a bit of an impact and words now would not match up or they would feel a little empty in comparison. Besides he had no idea what he was going to say and to get up on stage with his wings out would be a bit foolish.

  The headmaster was calling him up but Gabe made his way through the masses back out towards the exit. Then he caught sight of his mum, out there in the crowd smiling at him, so full of pride. Seeing her son with his wings out in front of everyone and not being bullied but being cheered and applauded.

  Then Gabe saw his father, now standing in Gabe’s exhibition space, looking at him with that same pride his mother had. Gabe could feel their pride lifting him up as it shone straight out of their eyes. His father had his internal light switched back on again.

  Gabe decided he had to give the speech. He was not going to be the man that ran away.

  His name was being chanted, at first by a few and then, as others joined in and the chanting got louder, it felt as if everyone in the hall was calling his name.

  “Gabe! Gabe! Gabe!”

  He was so close now to the double doors out and freedom but other students blocked the exit and pushed him back towards the stage. Gabe felt overwhelmed and compelled; he would have to do it. What would he say? He would tell them the truth.

  When he got to the stairs leading up to the stage Gabe leapt up them with what looked like confidence and the cheering stopped as everyone now had him in their view, up on the platform. For a moment, Gabe just stood there.

  “Er…thank you. I really do not know what is the right thing to say, other than what I feel I have to say. So, I’ll just say it as it comes. My art is in my soul and I have waited for this day for years. I thought it was the most important thing in the world to me, to exhibit my art and reach out to the world with it. But compared to what is going on in my life right now, what to me is more important than me being here right now, more important to me than even all of this, is my girlfriend. It’s complicated, you all know who she is, Grace. She nearly died this morning.”

  Gabe paused as the whole audience took in a collective gasp.

  “Everyone thinks that Grace is perfect and she is, but not like in the way everyone thinks that she is. Behind her beauty there is real pain and behind that pain lays her true beauty. All I know is that I love her and I can’t do anything now other than follow my heart and listen to my instincts. Face my own fears. For the fear of living my life the way I was, being all hidden and hunched and keeping myself and my art and everything a secret from everyone, was killing me too. So here it is, here is all of me. And you can love it or hate it. You can judge it all you like. But this is it, this is all I have to offer, this is all I’ve got. I am me and it has to be good enough that I can just be me and express who I am. Not a better or worse version. Just me. It sounds so simple, I’ve been so consumed with hiding who I am, when really I should have just been myself. And the funny thing is...is that I thought that was me. That the shame was who I was.

  These are my wings. You probably know me for my hump but I was hiding a secret. I have wings. That’s it! I thought it was a big deal but it doesn’t really matter anymore. And you might have secrets you hide too, secrets that make you think you can’t achieve your dreams but you know I am finding out that our secrets are who we are. Don’t hide them, don’t think you are defective. Those defects of character that you have, your shame, your secrets, reveal them and you will see that you have strengths too. Life is too short or too long to hide. Don’t let life make you ill, make you sad or make you hurt another human being. We are all unique and that’s ok. Live life people, I mean it, you got to live your lives how you were meant to , not how you are told to or how you think you should to please others. Be yourselves. Be yourself and live your one true life the best you damn well can. And love. Not just what you are told to love, entertainment things, celebrities, brands and possessions, but your family, your friends, animals, strangers even. It makes you feel better and if most of us lived like it I think it would be a far better world and existence for all of us. Break free from all of the brainwashing that surrounds you. Question everything and search for the truth. But don’t believe me, question everything I say too! Use your own brain, come to your own decisions. And be kind to each other and the planet. If evil is necessary, it would be nice to keep it to a minimum. Go home and talk and listen to your family and friends, ask them how they are. Don’t neglect the ones closest to you without even realising it. I am beginning to realise that these are the true treasures of life. Not the stuff you can buy. Not at all. For all the people in power we put on pedestals to tell us all what to do, we’re miserable, too busy to love fully. Time to wake up! Make changes. Time for action. Love is the only thing that makes any sense.”

  Finished, Gabe stumbled off the stage and into the stunned crowd. He could run now and he did, straight past his friends who had started to clap. As Gabe left the building he realised that everyone was clapping now and cheering and feet stomped as people were getting up off of their chairs and standing up. Gabe had got a standing ovation.

  Chapter 27

  Gabe got home and started looking for all the things he needed to take up to Grace and his mum got home not long after to find him running around.

  “Well, Gabe,” was all Gina could say. She was astonished, proud and still a bit mixed up with the turn of events. It had not all sunk in yet.

  “Mum, I know, but Grace is ill. We’ve got to get her some stuff and we have to get back and sit with her. She’s up there on her own mum.” So his mum started to run around, swapping the things Gabe had packed for some things that were a bit nicer.

  She wanted to tell him that everything was going to be ok, even though she was unsure herself that it would be. Before they left the house, she stopped Gabe and gave him a present, a necklace made of semi-precious stones.

  “I got one for Grace too. Each stone has a different healing property. I was going to give them to you this afternoon, after…but…”

  “Mum…”

  “Yes darling.”

  “Thanks I…I love you.”

  “Thanks darling and you know I love you too but the way you said it, it sounds like you are saying goodbye.”

  Gabe threw his arms around his mum and held on to her as tight as he could.

  “It’s for your chakras, for healing properties, for courage, for luck, for love, for everything that you are going to need love,” Gina said through her tears, choked up on all the intense emotions today.

&nb
sp; For a moment, Gabe, thought that he understood. That we all need to believe that we have superpowers sometimes.

  Gabe and Gina stayed with Grace till late and no one else turned up. Grace just lay there asleep and it looked like she was hardly breathing and Gabe kept checking to make sure she was. She was heavily sedated in order to detox, he knew that, but it didn’t stop him worrying that she would never wake up.

  Gina had put on one of the CD’s she had bought for Grace and had opened some jasmine essential oils to make the room smell sweeter and bring some calm to this area where they were surrounded by the smell of hospital cleaning fluids and of sickness.

  Visiting time was over, it was late and despite Gabe wanting to stay here the night he knew he had to sleep. Gabe stopped pacing for a minute and sat down next to Grace and, as she was still asleep, he wrote her a letter in case she woke up and he wasn’t there.

  “Are you sure her family know she is here Gabe?”

  “Yes, absolutely sure. But I had a feeling they wouldn’t turn up.”

  “Weren’t you scared the dad might, after last night and…”

  “No, not anymore mum. They can’t hurt me anymore than they have done. What are they going to do? My worst fears have already materialised so there is nothing left to fear. If I had lost her mum…” Gabe couldn’t finish his own sentence, it was too painful and he didn’t need to anyway.

  “It’s ok Gabe. Cry, it’s alright.”

  “I feel like such a stupid big kid. So out of my depth. So damn powerless.”

  “Gabe, crying is a good and natural thing to do. Especially with all this emotion. Don’t bottle it up. That’s what makes people ill.”

  “I love her mum, I really love her and I’m so scared and frightened that really I do not know how to do the right thing. How I can fix all this?”

  Through his sobs, Gabe realised that Grace had opened her eyes and was smiling at him.

  “What’s wrong Gabe?” Grace spoke softly, calmly and quietly.

  “Nothing, Grace. Nothing. Everything is alright. Everything is going to be alright.” Gabe dropped to his knees beside her and held her in his arms.

  “Am I alive?”

  “Yes babe, you are. You’re in the hospital but you are going to be alright. I am going to get you better.”

  “Ha! Is that a promise?”

  “Yes it bloody well is Grace. Remember my dreams, our dreams, everything we spoke about? Well they can come true eh, you believe that?”

  “You know I do Gabe, more than anything. I have to.” Grace was crying, tears that she had not shed, the emotions that had been bottled up for so long that they had hardened, were now dissolved and flowing freely in escape of the years of repression.

  “Well they’re going to come true and not in five years or ten years. Now! Ok? I’m going to make it happen now, this year, soon. As soon as humanly possible. OK?”

  “Ok Gabe. I believe in you. I believe in you more than I have ever believed in anything in the whole of my life. You loving me…” Grace began to cry so much that she could not speak another word. Her actions, her raw emotion spoke volumes. Too weak to cover or hide her face, Grace just let the tears well up and over and down her cheeks, the tears rolled down her face in streams.

  “Please don't ever do that to yourself again,” said Gabe, even though he didn’t know if Grace could promise him that.

  A nurse knocked politely, happy to see Grace awake and informed them that her mother had been but unfortunately she had been inebriated and a bottle of vodka had been found on her, so she had to be escorted off the premises and could only come back once she had sobered up or was accompanied.

  An emptiness filled the room but quickly came to an abrupt halt, when Grace’s father crashed into the room like a dark cloud of thunder, with his voice booming. Why had she been so fucking stupid? What a fucking idiot she was. How ugly and spotty she looked.

  Grace’s dad was obviously pissed but they did not stop him from coming in because he did not turn weak with the drink. He became even more powerful and instinctively people did not stand in his way. If anyone did, he knew that all he had to do was peel one of the fifty pound notes from his heavy wallet to silence anyone into submission. Most people’s silence could be bought for very little. And why not? That money could be used to buy something nicer to eat for dinner for them and their children or for new school shoes. Was it worth it to get involved? No, it wasn’t.

  “Your mother is out of the picture now, I will finance a nice flat for her in the city and it will just be the three of us at the house from now on. And you can get yourself a job within a week of getting out of here or you can be out as well!” The veins in his neck bulged bright red to maroon with the strain of shouting while keeping the volume down.

  “Just us three? So you are not having an affair?” Grace whispered but she knew that he was, the ‘other woman’ had been calling her mum for months and revealing the secrets of their affair in graphic detail whenever the two of them had had a row.

  “Affair, how dare you! Your mother is a bloody liar! The woman is hostile, I never saw her give you or your brother any affection. Not that it bothered me she was unaffectionate. But for your information, I do have a girlfriend and she will be moving in. And she is a damn sight more attractive and together than you are or probably ever will be. Look at the state of you. My girlfriend wouldn’t leave her bedroom in the morning unless she was fully made up, hair and nails done perfectly. Not like you who can’t even be bothered to brush her hair and with all those spots on your fat face. And what’s that smell? You need a good bath with a couple of bottles of disinfectant thrown in!”

  Grace tried to sit up in some vain attempt to make herself look more presentable, prettier but she was too weak and she just started weeping.

  Gina and Gabe were just too shocked to believe that what they were hearing was actually true.

  “Lulu,” her father said the name with a gentleness that he had not afforded Grace. “Lulu is pregnant.”

  “Mum will never survive on her own, she’ll kill herself!” Grace had been thinking of her mum and all that other stuff he had said about her, all that awful shit and crap and lies and bullshit he had said, she had just taken. Accepted as true.

  Gabe didn’t know what to say and for a moment he thought that perhaps he had no place here. If it was up to him he would say, ‘Never have anything to do with your family ever again! Walk away! Run away! Leave them!’

  “Come on Grace, let’s just worry about you for now eh! We are all adults ok? They have their lives to live and you have yours, ok? You can’t save anyone.”

  “But you can Gabe. You are saving me.”

  “And you are saving me Grace.” But this was different. They loved each other. Real love. True love. Soul love.

  “I don’t know Grace, I don’t know how it works. Maybe because we both want to be saved, I don’t know.”

  Grace’s father picked up the dressing gown and pyjamas Gabe had brought for Grace and he threw them in the direction of Gina so that he could sit down.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake will you listen to it! You can leave now I’m here,” Grace’s father said mockingly and so sternly that Gabe half thought he should do what he was told, until he caught himself.

  Gabe took in a deep breath and he replied to the older man. “We’re not going anywhere. Why don’t you leave?”

  Gabe tried to be polite, this man was older, richer, successful; all the things that demanded respect. But Gabe was torn as he also knew that this man was cruel, evil, unbalanced and massively dysfunctional.

  “Look boy, what are you going to do? House and feed her? No! Put her through university? No! You couldn’t even afford her mobile phone bill. You are a cripple, walking around with a pair of fairy wings on, like the freak that you are. You’ll be lucky if you get any sort of job. You are going nowhere, fast. And what no father too? Ran off before you were even born! You are from the same cloth. You’ll be the same, run off at
the first opportunity. And your mother…”

  Gabe stood up so forcefully that his chair clattered and toppled backwards behind him, crashing noisily on to the hard floor, making everyone jump and immediately look in his direction. Nathaniel was just coming into the room, escorting and holding the arm of his mother who had managed to sober herself up a bit and not attempted to smuggle in any alcohol this time.

  With all eyes fixed on him, Gabe spoke with a control and venom that he had never summoned or used before. Gabe, who was usually so quiet and awkward, usually so mild mannered. Gabe, who didn’t like any form of confrontation or argument, spoke now with a passion and force.

  “Hey you! You jumped up pathetic piece of sorry excuse for a father. Your daughter is lying here half dead. Your wife and son have only just turned up because they are too sick to even look after themselves, let alone Grace!”

  “Yes, agreed. Her mother is a monster!” said Grace’s father like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Shut up for a minute! How can you call anyone else a monster let alone the mother of your own children? They are ill and it looks like you are not making them any better, which you don’t even so much as have a shimmer of guilt about. What does that make you? You are the monster, worse than a wild animal. You do not even possess the basic animal instinct to protect your own family, quite the opposite in fact!”

  “I’m assuming you haven’t seen my house then. No wild animal could make something like that boy.” Grace’s father’s face was now puce to purple with anger and alcohol abuse.

  “You could have all the money in the world and you still wouldn’t care. All the things you say you want for Grace but the way you act, the way you treat her, how is she supposed to even stand a chance of getting anywhere? You show no respect to her. Do you want her bruised and beaten up, what is that all about? Hitting a woman, hitting your own beautiful daughter! One thing is for sure, that is not love! That is not good parenting. You may be top of the pyramid for business, you may have satisfied the Gods of power and money, but you failed in all the places that really matter. Failed. Being a decent human being, being a decent caring husband, being a loving father!”