Look at Me

Through the dirty passenger side window, Hayden watched Gabriel step onto the curb. He stood tall and his steps were confident as he walked into the surrounding darkness, but …he looked very alone.
Hayden wondered where exactly he was going. Or if he even had anywhere to go. It wasn’t like he knew who Gabriel was or where he was staying. They’d barely said a handful of sentences to each other. The only thing Gabriel had even mentioned about himself were his feelings toward Our Lady of Sorrows. He had just appeared and then caused an unusual amount of damage in an unusually short period of time…It was probably a good thing he was leaving.
No, it was a good thing. Gabriel was a stranger and a dangerous one. Hayden knew that something selfish inside him was curious about the other boy. That part of him that felt some kind of stupid urge to relate to someone who was so much like him. That was where the irony came in…
What made them the same, the curse or twist in genetics was ultimately the reason they could never be friends. Hayden knew there was a monster inside him. He’d felt it fighting to break free, and in his stepfather’s case…it had. So, he hardly even trusted himself. Trusting Gabriel was just asking too much.
Turning abruptly away from the window, Hayden said, “Are we going Terry?”
Terry munched determinedly on her fifth piece [or so] of gum and put the car hurriedly in drive. It jerked forward and made a seriously strange noise. It actually sounded a little like Darth Vader as it came sputtering and wheezing back to life. “Where to?” she asked tersely, pulling quickly and a little scarily back into traffic.
Hayden opened his mouth to say the police station. They probably had an amber alert out for him already. He could see the psychologist he’d spoken to going on about how the trauma of what he’d seen has caused him to act irrational and run away…
The only problem was, that wasn’t completely wrong. He had been desperate to get away from the voices. The constant questions and the false pitying curiosity. It had just gotten to just be too much…
So, he’d seized onto Gabriel. His opportunity to run away for a while. But he couldn’t ignore his past or his future, so there was no choice but to go back. Only… it turned out Paige had other ideas.
“Take me home,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to hear my mom freak out all night, because I was out past ten.”
Terry nodded and drove quickly past the crumbling downtown area. Then they were through the town completely and coming into suburbia. A place full of pretty white picket lies…
As they passed identical two story houses that passed for symbols of middle class security, Hayden’s eyes strayed to Paige. She was leaning against his shoulder, her soft pale hair brushing his shirt. Paige’s delicate hand was resting on his leg and from the soft rise and fall of her chest, Hayden would have guessed she was sleeping.
Except she was singing softly to herself. A low comforting noise that calmed Hayden’s nerves. The song was familiar and the lyrics couldn’t have been more perfect.

“I’m coming to find you, if it takes me all night. Wrong until, you make it right. And I won’t forget you. At least Ill try. And run and run to tonight. Everything will be alright. Everything will be alright. Everything will be alright…Everything will be alright.”