Wrecked

Gabe's POV

There were reasons to be on campus, sure, it was an easy way to get weed, Adderall and even ecstasy. If you knew where to look and I did. But coming here for classes? It was a waste of my time. I was shouldering first and second year classes on my third year at Columbia. I still hadn't picked a major. I wasn't too broken up about it. My family wasn't light on cash; Dad's Holdings Company was a factory of green paper. I could light hundred bills on fire for kicks.

I leaned back, draping both hands behind my head.

"Where the hell did you come from?" with that kind of greeting you'd think I was an alien that just so happened to crash-land on this blue marble called Earth.

"Hello to you too, bae." I grinned at Trip's scowl. "Gotta say, bro, I miss the tousled hair." Nowadays, Thomas was sporting a longish hairstyle with a side bang. Oh, let's not forget the beard—a full beard.

"Okay, number one," he dropped his bag on the table before taking a seat. "Don't ever call me 'bae' again. That's just stupid." I smirked. "Number two," he flicked honey hair from his right eye. "I've never asked or will ever ask your advice on hairstyles or fashion…"

"Is there a number three? I feel like there is."

"This is Logic of Collective Thought, what are you doing here?" Knew there'd been a third.

"What? I can't add a Political Science course to my schedule?" Trip grabbed a notebook out of his backpack. "Trick question. The answer might not surprise you. It's yes, yes I can."

"Gabe."

"Chill, man. I'll be gone before class kicks off. Plus, I have American Economy in ten." I sat up straight, dropping both arms on the table. "You've been avoiding me lately."

"Not this crap again…" Trip scrubbed a palm across his dark forest of a chin. "Do you have any idea how much you're starting to sound like a whiny boyfriend? I haven't been avoiding you on purpose. I've been busy. Juggling college, work and a girlfriend isn't easy."

I clicked my tongue against my teeth.

"Because God forbid you dip into your trust fund. Do you remember what that is, Trip? People like us don't need…"

"People like us can just live off our parents' money. Yeah, I remember that logic. Remember mine?" he wanted to build something that was his, something that mattered to him. I nodded, bored. Still, I could understand Trip's aversion to that money; half of it came from his mother, the same woman who had blackmailed him into being a bicycle for all her new models. The same lunatic who shot him. "I'm already paying college with that money, anyway. The rest is on Ava and me. I can't afford to slack off, like…"

"Like me?"

Trip flipped open the notebook, revealing entire pages crammed with his handwriting. Yikes.

"Like before." he stated. I retrieved a cigarette pack from my jacket; I shook the unopened pack, beating it against the back of my hand. "We're going to Sharon's for Thanksgiving."

"I know. But I thought we could do something together." I had a cigarette half way to my mouth when Trip knocked his knee into mine. I held up my hands in defeat; I pushed the cigarette under my beanie. I felt the butt of it scraping against my right brow.

"I'll see what I can do, okay, sweetheart?" Thomas patted my cheek mockingly; I knocked his hand away, smirking.

"Stop, or I'll sing Guy Love."

Trip sputtered a laugh.

"I'm going to pretend I know what that is."

"A song from Sharon's favorite show." Which made me wonder: would I sing JD's bit or Turk's? Save that under 'stuff to ask Share-bear'.

"Isn't it weird that you know that?"

I frowned, "What's weird?" Trip stared squarely at me for a very long time. Before he broke off, sighing.

The queue for leaving came in the form of Trip's teacher; the guy raced down the stairs like his life depended on it. I clapped Thomas on the shoulder and swiped my jacket off the auditorium's desk. My class was in the Fairchild building, about five minutes from Hamilton. I took a tardy seat way in the back. Ten minutes in, I had my phone out, ignoring talks about economic recession. Texting Sharon got me nowhere; she was probably working on her pointe technique or whatever else dance entailed. I ended up skipping my remaining classes.

I swung by the penthouse to grab my gym bag. Despite all the money, navigating New York was easier through public transportation or, my preferred method, motorcycle. Since the bike accident six months ago, though, Mom made me swear I wouldn't buy 'another one of those monstrosities'. Mom never asked for much, so I was letting her have this one. At least, until she forgot about her only son nearly bleeding out and needing a massive blood transfusion. Also, the three months of physical therapy. Even now, my left shoulder ached once the weather got colder; it wasn't horrible, nothing compared to the blinding pain after the surgery. Still, sometimes it was a bitching pain in the ass after boxing workouts or fights. Boxing required a lot of arm-action, but Lacrosse hadn't been any better. So, I'd traded Lacrosse for boxing. Punching things and people was therapeutic; I'd been doing it for… almost four years?

I lit a cig on the way to the subway station. I pulled the black beanie lower, making sure my ears stayed nice and toasty. Life was trying to make me think. I hated being forced to think about any situation regarding family, those matters were usually buzz killers; and my parents dropping the divorce bombshell was, without a doubt, a buzz kill. I couldn't wrap my head around it. Sure, my parents weren't the shining example of romance, but I'd caught them going at it more than once. Bottom line, they couldn't be calling it quits because of lack of sex. Then again, vouching for the state of their union wasn't something I could do with flying colors, since moving out two years ago.

Who the fuck knew.

Mom wasn't returning my calls and I hadn't seen Dad since he broke the news three weeks ago.

I stopped just outside the training facility. Leaning on the brick wall, I finished my second cig. Halfway through an exhale two dry coughs burst from me. A snicker caught my ear; I cocked my head to see Liam coming up on my left, a white sports' bag slung across a shoulder.

"Those things will kill you."

I sent a devious grin his way.

"Something has to." I kept the cig between my lips to reach out for the standard cool guy handshake as Sharon dubbed it. "Came around to get your ass kicked?" I talked around the cigarette, mouth morphing into a shit eating grin.

"Nah, man. Just to wipe the floor with your pearly white ass." Liam popped in a piece of strawberry gum, his all-time favorite. He lingered, waiting for me to finish. I'd been coming to this gym for years. It used to be near my old high school—the one Trip got kicked out of while I studied abroad for three months; now, it was twenty minutes from the penthouse via subway.

Unlike me, Liam didn't have a trust fund. He was an average guy, from an average family, training in an average gym. Which was fine with me, I didn't live by Dad's dogma on 'avoid people from other walks of life'.

Liam walked ahead just as I tossed the cigarette butt onto the sidewalk; the locker room was warm and damp from the nearby showers. I sniffed, dropping the Adidas bag on the bench. I pulled off the beanie, throwing it into my locker. Next, went my jacket, sweater and wife beater.

"That's an ugly motherfucker, dude." Liam pipped, stealing a glance at the scar running from the top my shoulder, down to my middle back, narrowly missing my spine. The doctor told me I'd been lucky—three inches lucky if I was being accurate.

"You've seen it a hundred times. It can't still shock you."

"It's just…" Liam tilted his head, tsking. "I've always been terrified of bikes. That freaks me out."

I rolled my eyes, heaving a mirthless chuckle.

"You and my Mom should start a club."

"Your Mom's a wise lady, 'kay? That's all I'm saying."

"Yeah, yeah. Get your gear on and get in the ring."

"Can't skip warm up, Gabe." Liam's voice echoed as his head poked inside the metal locker.

My shoulder gave a twitch as if to prove that, yeah, a warm up was necessary if I wanted to last more than one round. I sat, mummifying my hands with Mexican Wraps: covering the back of my hand, wrapping the wrist three times in a row, bringing it down to my thumb, Xing the semi-elastic material through all of my fingers, before doing another wrap around the back of my hand, locking the thumb and wrapping my knuckles, finishing with the wrist. I slapped the Velcro on it to maximize support. This used to be a long, tedious process; when I started out, I used to be shit, the bindings came undone before I could leave the locker room.

Unlike Liam, I didn't care about competing; he wanted to win the New York Golden Gloves. A lot of people who trained here said I was good, but honestly, I just liked letting off steam.

I struck the hanging bag. It lurched as I pounded it, raining consecutive punches. Once I got going—breathing hard, eyes focused on a single point—the only thing I was aware of, was the hard leather menacingly swinging towards me, ready to bulldoze me. I side-stepped, resuming the assault from another angle; like a flicked pendulum, the bag flew in a different direction. Footwork was important. The bag swung at me. I avoided, delivering a low punch. Sweat dotted my body, it felt freezing against heated skin; an itch started near my left eyebrow thanks to matter hair, but I didn't stop to scratch it. I stamped thoughts about their divorce from my mind, punching until worry became a white cloud, too transparent to bother me, something light instead of a looming question. When I finally eased up, it was because my scarred shoulder gave something close to a jerk.

I straightened, falling back from the slowing punching bag. I was a mess of heavy breathing and feverish blood.

"Had enough?" Liam asked as I approached. I arched a shoulder to wipe my face even though it was equally wet. I ditched the bag gloves. I uncapped my water, drinking greedily. "Are you up for a spar?"

"Sure," I capped the bottle, setting it beside me.

We donned protective headgear, mouthguards, groin protector and sparring gloves before climbing into the ring.

***

By the time I got home, my shoulder was in a bitchy mood. At the gym, I showered and the small throbbing had disappeared, but as soon as I hit the streets, the pinching had returned with a vengeance. I had pain medication but, unlike many believed, I wasn't a fan of popping pills. Chasing a high with a joint was one thing, popping any sort of pill—too often—was another. My life might not be mapped out, but becoming a junkie wasn't a detour I wanted to take.

I let the bag thump on the floor, itching to just fall on my ridiculous large sofa and doze off. Sometimes my shoulder went cold turkey on its own, maybe if I went to sleep… My stomach coiled, making a loud sound. Huh, right, I needed to eat. I glared around the spacious first floor; two of my walls were top-to-bottom windows, facing each other. The view from them was amazing, so much, that the first time Trip and Ava came over, Ava had spent a good hour snapping pictures from a thousand different angles. Above the automatic fireplace, taking up a third of the wall, was my HD plasma. To the left, was a door leading into a spotless kitchen. That's where I headed; I opened the fridge, glad to see it was filled to the brim. Then again, that's why I paid people—that and to clean and make the bed.

I tapped the iPhone app that controlled the wireless sound system in the penthouse; it was awesome, I had a sound system in every room I spent time in—bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen—I could play different songs in different rooms or play the same song in every room. Or just in one room, like I was doing now. As Friction from Imagine Dragons started playing, I grabbed a pan, followed by eggs, mushrooms, bacon and pasta. I kept the jolting movements limited to my right arm; I poached three eggs, boiled half a package of pasta and started chopping bacon in tiny squares. I filled the pan with olive oil and waited for it to heat; once it started bubbling, I dropped the bacon and washed mushrooms in. I stirred the mix as it sizzled.

When I was done, my playlist had run into James Blunt. I shook my head; it was Sharon's fault. She liked to add her music to my playlist just to mess with me. Leaving that girl alone with any phone was dangerous for various reasons. Sharon could be as sweet as white chocolate and as hot-headed as a chili pepper. Over the years, I'd lost track of how many cellphones Sharon either misplaced or destroyed. Twelve years was a long time to know someone and I still couldn't understand how she did it.

So, yeah, I tried not to leave Sharon alone with my phone.

Speaking of phones… Music bled out from the room replaced by a standard ring tone. I reached across the marble counter. I held the phone to my left hear as I mixed the mushrooms and bacon with the cooked pasta.

"Yo," I greeted.

"Hi, sorry I couldn't text until now. I'm on a break." Sharon's voice was replaced by gulping sounds. Possibly drinking water.

"No sweat. I just got home from the gym. I'm making dinner."

She made a large whining sound. No one would believe she was measly tall, not with how loud she could be.

"I want dinner too." I could picture the pout on the other side. "Why can't you live closer?"

"Because," I lowered the dirty pan into the sink. I lifted the pot's lid; a hot puff of air hit me in the face. The boiled eggs were still smoking hot. "No place over at the West Side had a view as great as this one." I put Sharon on speaker. I grabbed a bowl and filled it with cold water, then put the eggs in it.

"Yeah… So, you texted me about being bored in class." I detected a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

"Drilling a hole into my hand would've been more fun."

"Gabriel!" she screamed.

I laughed my ass off. Her angry voice hardly topped my roaring laughter.

"That's disgusting! Very uncool. You know how much I hate that kind of… imagery. God," Sharon breathed sounding far from the phone.

"Don't worry, Ro. My hands are in mint-condition." Apart from the soreness that came with punching bags and Liam. "I skipped the rest, anyway." There was an internment pause. I tested grabbing an egg and found I could hold it without my fingers being lit on fire. I set it down on the marble and rolled it back and forth, applying slight pressure. The shell split with fissures, I started peeling it. "I can feel you judging me, Share. Spit it out."

"I'm not judging. It's… Why do you keep going? You don't like any class you're taking." A rustling noise emanated from the iPhone. "Why don't you switch courses? You don't have a major yet."

"There's nothing I like."

"You liked Chemistry." Introductory Chemistry had been easy-peasy lemon-squeezy for me. I think that's why I was so good at cooking; chemistry was a lot like cooking.

"You want me to become a chemist? And do what, teach? Shit, if that happened I really would use a power drill to…" I trailed off. Sharon was singing La La La like a little kid did when they covered their ears and pretended they couldn't listen. This girl… "Hey—hey. Okay, I dropped the power drill business." She stopped. Guess she hadn't been covering her ears. "I guess I could cook meth. What do you say? Wanna be my trusty sidekick?"

"Huh, no. But I'm serious, Gabe. Drop those economic classes. They're not you."

"What is me?" I asked bluntly, abruptly. I finished peeling the second egg; I cut it like the first one and dropped the round white and yellow pieces into the rest of my dinner.

Sharon took so long to open her mouth that I thought maybe she'd hung up because her break was over.

"There's a lot of things that are you." she whispered softly. "But I can't tell you what to be, Gabe." I poised the kitchen knife to chop the third and last egg. I let it hover, glaring at the egg but not seeing it. The thing was… I was taking Econ classes because I imagined it was what my father wanted, after all, someone had to take care of the family business someday. When he was gone. "…are you there?"

I blinked, regaining awareness.

"Yep."

"Alright, well, I have to go. We'll talk later." it wasn't a question, it was an affirmation. Gazing down at the phone, I smiled, even though there was no way she could see.

"Okay."

"Bye."

"Bye, Share-bear." I added quickly. I wouldn't want her to think my mood got bad because of her suggestions; she was only trying to help.

Finally finished, I took my plate into the living room, sat on the Persian rug and ate at the red-glassed coffee table watching some Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It was a rerun, so Sharon wouldn't kill me for watching without her.