We Stitch These Wounds

I slept until about noon and when I woke up, I only had a text from Gabe. It read "call me" and so I did.

"Hello?" His voice sounded tired and sad.

"Hey, bro," I said, "You wanted me to call?"

Gabe and I were close, not as close as Brayden and myself, but still close. He trusted me and I had always been there when he needed to talk.

"Yeah, can we hang out today?" he asked.

"Yeah, what do you want to do?"

"Let's meet at the mall."

I agreed and got ready. I had my mom drop me off at the main entrance of the mall where we caw Gabe waiting. I walked up and high fived him and we walked into the mall.

Gabe and I loved to shop. It was sort of our thing and we could spend hours doing it. The Hot Topic employees knew us personally. But that time was different, that time we walked straight passed Hot Topic, straight passed every store. We sat down at the edge of the food court and Gabe looked at me with sad eyes.

"I need to tell you something, Tatum." He barely ever said my full name so I knew something serious was up. I just looked at him questioningly and he continued.

"I won't be here for Senior year." He looked away from me, gazing towards the sea of shoppers.

"What? Why?" I couldn't bring myself to accept that what he had just said was real.

"I only have this summer left, and then we are leaving, my mom and me, my parents are getting a divorce." He still didn't look back at me.

"No, stay here," that's all I could think of to say. I felt a lump in my throat big enough to choke on. I think he could hear the despair in my voice because he suddenly jumped up and smiled.

"But hey, we've got a few more weeks and one more summer. This is all the more reason to make it fucking great."

I stood up, too, and smiled. He was right. I didn't want to spend our last few months together being sad. He gave me a hug and we started shopping like nothing had even happened. That was one of my favorite things about Gabe, he could take the bad, lay it out on the table, and then wipe it all away and see the good tings that were still just barely there. We tried on stupid outfits and laughed at random mall walkers. I loved Gabe so much.

We had gotten ice cream from Cold Stone and were sitting at a table across from a bridal and dress shop. Through the large glass windows, you could see girls in and out of the dressing rooms, squealing over prom dresses with their best friends or their moms. Gabe saw me watching and smirked.

"Prom dresses?" he said, bearing his half smile.

"Ew, don't make me puke," I said.

"You can't tell me that you don't have even the slightest desire to be swept off to prom by some prince charming, you're a girl for Christ's sake."

"Fuck off," I said, punching his arm and laughing a little, "prom is over rated."

"What if Brayden were to ask you?"

I snapped my head in Gabe's direction. He didn't look me in the eye, it was as if he hadn't meant to say it.

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"Nothing," he said quickly, getting up and walking to the trash can. "I have to be getting home, let me give you a ride." On the car ride home, we were silent except for the occasional singing along to the radio.

When we got to my house, Braydens dad's bike was parked in the drive. Gabe and I said our goodbyes and I walked inside to find Brayden and my brother sitting at the kitchen table, pokemon cards everywhere. My brother was fourteen and he still played pokemon. Hell, Brayden was seventeen and he still played.

"What's up, guys?" I asked, taking a seat at the table next to Brayden.

"Ryan is kicking my ass at pokemon," Brayden said without looking up from his cards.

Ryan laughed, looking pleased with himself. I watched them finish their game. Ryan informed us that he was late to an X box live party and that he had some zombies to kill on COD. He retreated upstairs to his room.

"So, not that I'm not cool with you being here, but why are you here?" I said, smiling.

"Because we are hanging out tonight," he informed me, "at my house. My dad is out of town for the next two days, fuck yes," he said, grabbing the bike keys and heading for the door.

I followed him out to the bike. Words could not describe how happy I was. We arrived at his house and went in. He sat down on the couch and I sat next to him. He turned on the tv, Adventure Time.

As we watched tv, I just sat back and lost myself in thoughts. Brayden had such a nice house. It was huge and fancy, one of those houses you were afraid to touch anything in for fear of breaking something important. We watched three episodes of Adventure Time before Brayden shut off the tv.

"Let's go up to the balcony."

I agreed and we headed up. It was almost nine now and it was getting dark. I stood leaning against the balcony railing, looking up at the sky. Brayden was sitting on the lounge chair behind me.

"It's really beautiful out here," I said.

"Yeah, this is where I come to get away from my Dad. It always calms me down, especially at night. I think about a lot out here, it's easy to lose myself in my own head."

"What do you think about?"

"Everything, my mom, my dad, school. What it is going to be like when high school is over, land, you know..." His voice trailed off there.

"And?" I said.

At that moment, I felt him standing behind me. My heart sped up. He put his arms around my waist and his chin rested on my shoulder.

"I think about you a lot,"

"You do?" I couldn't think of anything else to say, I could barely speak. I wasn't sure if I was whispering or if I was shouting.

"Yeah," he could tell, "I think about when we were kids and we thought we were so cool because we listened to different music than everyone else. I think about all the times I've climbed to your window when I needed to talk. You've always been here for me. I think about how beautiful you have always been. I've felt that way for a really long time now, I just haven't wanted to say anything because I don't want it to make things weird."

I turned to him so that we were facing each other. Under the pale light of the night, I could make out his sharp features. His eyes shined, staring down into mine. The right side of his mouth hung up in a crooked smile. My heart sped up even more. I thought I was smiling, but I wasn't sure and that didn't matter for long because his lips met mine without me even realizing it.

I pulled myself closer. This is what I had wanted since the seventh grade. This is what I had been waiting for, and I didn't want him to let go, I wasn't sure I was able to let go.

He puled away, and I looked down, I felt his eyes on me, I just couldn't look back. He pushed a piece of my hair back and laughed. I just hugged him, that's all I could do.

"Stay here tonight," he said in a hushed tone.

"I will," I said.

The rest of the night, we sat out on the balcony. We talked about everything. About how we had felt about each other without even knowing our feelings were the same. We talked about the summer, and about the road trip ahead of us. We talked about how school would be different Monday because of us and what the rest of the group would think.

I fell asleep in his arms for the first time that night, it was possibly the best night of sleep I had ever had and I wanted many more of them. And I knew I had a whole summer of them ahead of me.