The Guardian Chronicles 2: Dark Horizon (2 page)

“You did more than anyone else.”

Although Gabriel knew it was true, he could have just as easily done nothing about it. In fact he was surprised with himself that he had the courage to get involved. Still, he didn’t think that he was the hero here. It was really Ethan and his friends that stopped both Cody and himself from getting their faces pounded in.

“I would say that Ethan gets most of the credit,” Gabriel shrugged. “I mean did you see the way that David and his guys looked at him…and they are seniors; I mean I never thought that I would see David back down from anyone, let alone sophomores.”

Cody seemed to think about that for a moment.

“You wanna sit down?” Gabriel asked, gesturing to the bleachers.

“Um…thanks,” Cody said. “Why do you come out here?”

Gabriel shrugged. “To think mostly and to eat lunch.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Oh lots of things,” Gabriel shrugged again. “What I want to do with myself when I get out of this town, what it would be like to have friends...you know the normal stuff.”

“You don’t feel normal?” Cody asked.

“I don’t think that any teenager feels normal,” Gabriel sighed. “Especially when your classmates point out every day how not normal you are.”

“So it is true what people say about you?”

“That I like guys?” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah, that.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Gabriel shrugged. “I’d ask if it was true that you came from Ireland, but there's no faking an accent like that.”

That brought a smile to Cody’s face.

“And besides, if you actually wore clothes that fit and stood up a little straighter, I bet you'd have the girls crawling all over you. You know, they actually dig guys with accents.”

“You shouldn’t worry about David,” Cody said. “He’s a wanker, once he gets done with school he’ll end up with some boring corporate job and probably end up hating his life.”

“You think?”

“Totally, man is a header for sure.”

Gabriel arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, I don’t know what that means.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“So noted,” Gabriel nodded.

“That’s very kind of you,” Cody nodded. He looked around, almost as if he was afraid to be seen with Gabriel. Not that it surprised him; getting seen with the one out kid in Highland Academy could be social suicide.

“Well, thanks…again.”

“No problem,” Gabriel shrugged.

Cody stood and quickly clambered down the steps and off the field.

Gabriel spent the rest of the day in a daze really; still thinking about all that had happened with Ethan and Cody that morning. He still wasn’t sure of several things. Foremost on his mind was the fact that he had come to Cody’s rescue…although it felt good to finally do something about the bullying he was still kicking himself for taking such action without any real plan. He was lucky that he didn’t get his face punched in.

And then there was the fact that Ethan and his friends stood up for him. Why would four of the most popular guys in school come to his rescue? They had all but ignored him before. None of them had ever been downright mean to him but up until recently they had ignored him.

And then there was the fact that Cody had actually sought him out to have a conversation. Cody had never done that before, they even had a few classes together. They passed each other each day in the hall and both trying to just survive and yet had never conversed outside the occasional hello.

The walk back to his house was kept his mind busy, going over and over the situation again. By the time that he arrived home he realized that continuing to obsess over the events of the day would get him nowhere. He resigned himself to the fact that he had just gotten lucky with Ethan’s stepping in and was willing to leave it at that.

They lived in a quiet average neighborhood near the edge of town. His house was two stories tall and was made of brick, with red shutters and a nicely manicured lawn. Gabriel grabbed the main on his way up the driveway. He punched in the door code and stepped inside, neither of his parents were home yet.

He found Sean in the kitchen, scarfing down an apple.

“Hey,” Sean smiled. “How was your day?”

“Why do you always ask me that?”

“On the off chance that one of these days you might actually say that you had a good day,” Sean shrugged.

“I guess it wasn’t so bad,” Gabriel admitted.

“I heard that you stood up for some kid.”

Gabriel’s head snapped around at that comment.

“Tim’s cousin goes to Highland, he told me about your little scuffle this morning.”

“I’d hardly call it a scuffle,” Gabriel shrugged. “It’s just the same thing that David says to me every day, although it had been a while since he pulled off the whole shoving me into a locker bit.”

Sean turned red instantly and looked like he was going to crush the apple core that he was holding onto.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Gabriel winced. “Because I knew that you would react like that.”

“React like what?” Sean demanded.

“Like you are right now,” Gabriel sighed. “I’m the big brother I’m the one that is supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around.”

“You need the protecting more than me,” Sean protested. “And don’t let jerks like him get you down, you’re better than that.”

“I know that look, it’s the same look that you gave me when you found out that well...you know,” Gabriel winced. “I already told you that I would never try that again.”

Gabriel felt a little guilty that Sean or his parents brought up what happened last June. He shook the thoughts of guilt away and tried to alter the topic of conversation back toward Sean and something a lot less depressing.

“Still dating Kelly?” Gabriel asked, as he pulled up the fridge. He looked around for something and pulled out bowl of grapes.

“Yup,” Sean shrugged.

“You don’t sound happy about it,” Gabriel remarked, popping another grape in his mouth.

“I am!” Sean said. “But well…it’s just…I dunno, her friends are…”

“Shallow?”

“Eh…”

“Stupid?” Gabriel offered. “Vapid? Annoying?”

“You can stop now.”

“You started that conversation.”

“I just don’t see how they can spend so much of their time discussing stuff that doesn’t matter.”

“She probably feels the same way when you and your buds talk about sports,” Gabriel shrugged, eating another grape.

Sean shrugged again. “I guess so.  I don’t think that I will ever understand them.”

“Men have been trying to understand women since the dawn of time,” Gabriel said, standing up. “And we still haven’t figured much out…other than they like chocolate and diamonds, beyond that I would say most men are pretty clueless.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Sean sighed. “Got any big plans this weekend? I think Tim and I were going to go check out a movie, you’re more than welcome to come along…mom’s probably going to make you drive us anyways.”

“Not spending time with Kelly?”

“Nope,” Sean said, shaking his head. “It’s a girl’s weekend. I don’t know what that means and I don’t think that I want to know what that means.”

“They are probably going to sit around and complain about all your disgusting habits.”

“They do that every day,” Sean said, making a face.

“Maybe they’ll talk about which boyfriend is the better kisser.”

“Wait…what?” Sean asked, practically spitting out his milk. “They don’t talk about that stuff…I mean that’s locker room conversation like what I talk about after practice…oh hell.”

“Sean,” Gabriel said, standing and clapping his brother on the shoulder. “You’re going to have to realize that women are the most mysterious forms of life on this planet, sure they chastise you about that kind of talk but from what I have heard, they engage in it just as often as men, except they keep better notes. And women don’t forget.”

Now Sean actually looked a little worried.

“Relax,” Gabriel smiled. “I’m sure you’re a great kisser.”

“And what if she thinks that I’m not?”

“Then you won’t hear about it, more likely she’ll just tell all her friends and they will just snicker behind your back,” Gabriel shrugged.

“Now you’re just messing with me, right?”

Gabriel just shrugged again and headed up to his room, he knew that Sean would spend the next hour or so chewing on that piece of information. In truth he had no idea if that really was what girls were like; although given what he had overhead in the hallways he thought he was pretty close.

He closed the door to his room and fired up his computer, signing onto Facebook. He didn’t even know why he kept it around, other than the fact that Sean would give him another lecture should he shut it down. He was about to log off when a message appeared on his screen. He had to read the name twice before he accepted it.

To: Gabriel James

From: Ryan Cloud

Message: Hey, just thought that I would say hi!

Gabriel shook his head, more than a little surprised that Ryan had messaged him. He assumed after their intervention earlier in the day they would never speak to him again. His fingers hovered over the keys while his brain attempted to figure out what to type.

To: Ryan Cloud

From: Gabriel James

Message: Hi, what’s up?

Ok, well that responded looked even lamer on screen than when he typed it out.

To: Gabriel James

From: Ryan Cloud

Message: Nothing much...just wanted to check on you and make sure you were ok, I know that David can be a real butt-head at times. You cool with adding me as a friend on here?

Had Ryan been in the room with him, he would have seen Gabriel’s jaw hit the floor. He was sure that this had to be some sort of a joke, right? He had never heard of Ryan acting like a jerk at school, in fact he was well known for getting along with everyone. He wasn’t one of those popular guys that seemed to alienate, well anyone.

To: Ryan Cloud

From: Gabriel James

Message: No, sure that’s cool man.

To: Gabriel James

From: Ryan Cloud

Message: Awesome! Have a great day!

And then Ryan signed off, leaving Gabriel sitting there staring at his computer.

What the hell was that? Gabriel wondered. He shook his head and went to his backpack to get his homework. For the next several hours, he worked on the various class projects that he had, most of them for his advanced biology class. He was about halfway through his history reading when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Gabriel called.

The door opened and Gabriel’s father, Eric, peaked in.

“Mind if I come in sport.”

“Sport?” Gabriel asked. “You haven’t called me that since I was eight.”

Eric smiled. “I know, can I sit down?”

“Sure,” Gabriel said.

“What are you working on?”

“I was reading up on history, Mr. Brown has us doing hypothetical scenarios about World War II, like what if the Nazi’s won or what if we decided not to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Eh,” Gabriel shrugged. “I’d rather be working on my science homework.”

“Which is what?”

“I’m reading up on mutation and evolution as well as genetic enhancement,” Gabriel said. He turned his computer screen so that his dad could see it. “Within my lifetime we should be able to wipe out cancer and a whole host of childhood diseases by gene modification.”

“Sounds impressive,” Eric said. “Look, Sean told me about what happened at school today. I can call the school tomorrow; Highland is supposed to have a strict no bullying policy...”

“Don’t dad,” Gabriel sighed.

“This is what we were afraid of,” his father sighed. “Look, you know that you can talk to us about anything, right? Me, your mother, Sean.”

“Dad, really I’m fine. Some guys stepped in and made him scram, I really don’t think that he’ll be bothering me anytime soon.”

“All we want is for you to be happy.”

“I know.”

They both sat there in awkward silence before his dad stood up. “Well, I should go help with dinner.”

“Yeah, see you down there.”

Gabriel whistled softly as soon as his dad left the room. He knew that his father meant well but it seemed like every time that Gabriel got even remotely down everyone assumed the worst. He couldn’t fault them for caring but it was a little unnerving to think that they thought he could be upset but the smallest run in with a bully.

Dinner went fine, his mother only mentioned the incident once and then was quickly shut down by his father. Sean seemed to want to press the conversation but again, his father made it clear that they needed to move onto another topic of conversation.