Breaking Rules

  Twelve

  As we drove down Highway 6 and farther away from the park, I was at a complete loss as to why Gabe had gone through the trouble of asking me to play hooky, only to turn around and tell me that he was taking me to school. It didn’t make a bit of sense. As we approached the filled parking lot at Sugar Creek High School, Gabe didn’t bother slowing down or even looking in the direction of the building. He kept his hands at ten and two, and his eyes fixed straight forward on the road.

  “Gabe?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You passed the—”

  “I know,” he said, and he didn’t take his eyes off the highway.

  Twenty minutes later, we crossed over the Desden city limit line, and it finally occurred to me where Gabe and I were headed. Just outside the city, he turned down University Boulevard, and the majestic brick buildings of the DU campus came into view. We weaved in and out of the winding brick streets, making our way deep into the heart of the school grounds.

  He pulled into the campus parking garage just next to the football stadium, killed the engine, and then turned to me with a quirked brow. Still curious about his motives, I turned to ask him, “What are we doing here?”

  “Celebrating,” he said, taking no time at all to slide out of his seat belt and out of the car. He came around to my side, opened the door, and offered me a hand out.

  “And what exactly are we celebrating?”

  “Your acceptance, of course,” he said. “I assume you’ve already taken a tour?”

  “Virtually.”

  “You mean—”

  “Only online,” I said. “I couldn’t get up here without Dad asking questions.”

  “So then today’s your day,” he said. “Let’s tackle the campus, see the sights. We’ll do whatever you’d like. You name it.”

  We left the garage and crossed the boulevard, landing us directly in the student square. Gabe didn’t waste a second to lead me to the top of the highest, grassy hill, and the steep hike was a rough one. He tackled it—limp and all—a lot faster than I did. He spent more time waiting on me to keep up than anything else.

  Once we finally reached the top, Gabe kept walking until the ground leveled out.

  “Did you know that you can see everything from this spot?” he asked, positioning himself in the dead center of the hilltop. We were truly at the tip of the tallest hill, the place that was designed to overlook the entire school. “You can see it all. The entire campus, everything. No matter which way you turn.”

  I imagined he was right, but I didn’t bother turning to look at all of the buildings. I’d seen the pictures online. I already knew that they were each very unique in their own special way. I knew that if I turned, I’d see the dining hall, the rec complex, and the dormitories. I’d studied the maps, too. I knew exactly where each building was. If I turned, I’d see hundreds of students walking from building to building, some moving a little more hurriedly than the others. If I turned, I’d see all those things. But if I didn’t, then I’d just be looking at Gabe, and that seemed more intriguing than observing a bunch of architecture and strangers.

  So I just kept staring.

  “You call the shots, Mandy. What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?” Gabe asked, and then he finally tore his gaze away from the view to look back to me.

  He bounced back a step, surprised to find that my stare was still fixed on him and not on the campus view in front of us. As we watched one another, his breathing became shallower, and his fingers fidgeted at his side. His blinking became a little more frequent, his posture a little less perfect, and his general presence took on a very unsettled quality. He was keenly aware of the fact that I was watching him, studying every one of his subtle movements. It made him nervous, and it was the first time I’d ever really seen him let his guard down.

  “You okay?” he asked, trying to find his voice. He cleared his throat and shook his head, finally breaking our eye contact once and for all. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nope. I’m great,” I said, finding solace in the fact that Gabe had the same human capabilities of getting nervous and flustered, too… and I kind of liked that it was because of me.

  When we finally hiked down the hill, we spent the better part of the morning just walking the paths that circled the campus. Gabe asked me to stop off outside the performing arts center to take a picture of him posing next to a life-size statue, his arm wrapped around the shoulders of some guy who must’ve been really important on campus at some point. While I didn’t understand why he thought it was funny, he said that the picture was for Lashell, and she’d get it a kick out of it, so I went along with it and captured the shot on his cell phone.

  We had a quick lunch in the dining hall amongst the registered students, and then we stopped off at the bookstore to buy a bunch of university gear. Gabe swapped his beloved ball cap for a new one, a gray one sporting a bold, white DU on the front. He talked me into buying one, too, but I knew that I wouldn’t look half as good in mine as he looked in his. By the time we left, I bought two new shirts, a hat, and a ton of school supplies (that I didn’t need)—all stamped with the Desden U logo.

  The day passed far too quickly for my liking. But I’d gotten to spend each moment with him, so I couldn’t find room to complain. It gave new meaning to the phrase time passes when you’re having fun, and it was the first time I’d ever experienced that unfortunate truth.

  “All right, Mandy Parker,” he said, as the early afternoon quickly faded into late. Back at school, the school where I was supposed to be, the last class of the day was scheduled to let out in only an hour. “What’s next?”

  “Can we just sit for a little bit?” I asked. I knew that if I had started to feel the long day taking a toll on my body, then Gabe couldn’t have been feeling any better. He hadn’t once complained about any kind of pain, but his limp had gotten worse as the day went on. We stopped at the south lawn and took a seat on an empty bench. We let our bookstore bags rest at our feet, and both of us stared at the buzzing campus.

  “Thanks for today,” I said, finally turning to look at him. He smiled and nudged me with his shoulder.

  “You had fun, then?”

  “Loads.”

  “And to think you almost blew this off.”

  “I know, right?” I said, feeling my eyes grow heavier. I didn’t know if it was the long day of walking, the downward spiral of my adrenaline high, or what, but I suddenly found my eyelids falling heavily with each blink. My head landed softly against his shoulder, and Gabe rested his head against the top of mine.

  “It was fun for a day, you know?” I said quietly. “Getting to see what it would be like, having the chance to experience it for a while.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, and although I couldn’t see his face, I sensed that his eyes were also closed. There was something heavy in his voice, something that sounded relaxed and completely at peace. “Even if you have to go to LA, Mandy, you’re still coming back. You’re in. You’re going to spend four, glorious years here.”

  “Not if my Dad gets his way,” I said, and my eyes flittered open. I watched as groups of students walked by, each of them in their own little world, and none of them paying the least bit of attention to us. “Well, I guess it’s not so much the school that bothers him as it is the chosen field of study.”

  “Which is English, right?”

  “Yeah. I want to focus on creative writing. I feel like I have a thousand stories inside of me, and I need to write them.”

  “Really?” he asked. There was a catch in his voice, but he didn’t sound surprised. “And that’s a problem, why?”

  “Because my mom is a writer,” I said, hoping to spare the details. “It’s really a long story, but in a nutshell, she chose her career over our family, and Dad’s never really forgiven her. None of us have. I guess he’s just afraid that I’ll do the same.”

  “Surely he knows you better than that,” he said. “Sur
ely he doesn’t think—”

  “You’re right,” I said. “He doesn’t think. He doesn’t care about anything but his own selfish wants and needs. That’s kind of why I needed the scholarship in the first place.” Gabe didn’t say anything for a moment, so I assumed he was trying to put all the pieces together. “Dad’s only agreed to fund my education if I promise to study anything other than English. I can’t make that promise. I won’t, so I’m stuck trying to figure out how to do it my own way. I only applied here because I thought I’d have time and resources to figure out an alternative solution.”

  Gabe’s head slowly eased off of mine, so I lifted my head and sat up straight.

  “You should keep going after what you want, Mandy,” he said. “With or without your dad’s permission. It’s not his life, and you can’t make decisions for yourself just to appease him.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’re on track for the scholarship,” he said. “Your whole team is. You guys are doing great.”

  “I know.”

  He slowly pulled away and turned to face me. “So then what’s the problem?”

  “Hmm?”

  “We’re talking about your future here, but you couldn’t be less enthused. What’s wrong?”

  “Gabe, this was all really nice, don’t get me wrong,” I said, looking back at the grass to avoid his stare. “But we’re not going to stay in Sugar Creek, I know. I can feel it. And that just means I’ll have to give up my chance for the scholarship. Without the money, then I only have one option: Dad. And what kind of option is that if it means I have to give up the one thing I’ve always wanted to do with my life? I’m not going to go to DU. I’m not going to study English. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You’re going to give up that easily?”

  “I’m not giving up,” I said. “I’m being realistic. RI was my only shot at doing things my way, and if we leave today, tomorrow, or next week, I have to leave the group, and that pretty much seals my fate. I’ll end up going to school wherever Dad wants me going to school.”

  Gabe didn’t say anything.

  After a solid fifteen minutes of silence, we finally agreed that it was probably a good idea to head back toward Sugar Creek. The walk back to the car was quiet, but the drive was even worse. I didn’t know if I’d upset Gabe, and if I had, I didn’t know how I’d done so. I’d only been honest with him. I thought he would respect that.

  He pulled into the SCHS parking lot a few minutes before the final bell was scheduled to ring. He drove up behind mine and Bailey’s parked car, stopped, and then unbuckled his seat belt. As he’d always done, he came around to my side to open my door and help me out.

  “Thank you,” I said, holding on to my purse. “I really did have a lot of fun today.”

  “Good,” he said, smiling again. He walked with me to the side of the car, and I turned back to him just as I reached the door.

  “I don’t want you to think that I didn’t appreciate—”

  “I know,” he said, nodding slowly. “I just wish I had known how complicated things were, and I would’ve taken you anywhere else. I didn’t mean to take you out there and stir up all of those raw emotions. I never meant to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset, Gabe,” I said, shaking my head. “Quite the opposite, actually. I had fun, really. I’m glad I got to spend my day with you.”

  He took a step closer and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me a little bit closer to him. He closed the gap between our bodies, and I felt my lungs slowly drain of air as he hugged me.

  “It’s not over until it’s over, Mandy,” he said, and his voice was soft and sincere. He pressed a long kiss to the side of my head, keeping his lips there for a few long, glorious seconds. “Keep fighting for what you want, okay? Keep fighting, and I know that you’ll get everything you deserve.”

  I could feel Gabe’s heartbeat as it drummed against my ear, and I smiled as I realized that it was beating just as quickly as mine. For the first in my life, I couldn’t care less about my mother, my father, my sister, or my future. Nothing around me mattered but him. All I really cared about was being right there in that moment with Gabe.

  I closed my eyes and savored every moment that he held on to me, but then the car alarm sounded behind us. We both jolted, jerking our heads up to find Bailey waving at us from the school entrance. She lifted the keys with a wicked smile and then started toward the car.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at the soup kitchen,” I said, shaking my head, aggravated that my sister couldn’t let me have just one splendid moment to call my own.

  “Okay,” he said, reaching down to take both of my hands. He squeezed them. “I know that walking away this morning wasn’t easy for you, but thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For breaking a rule for me.”

  “And the big, fat celebrity ego rears its ugly head,” I said, trying not to laugh. “What makes you think that I broke that rule for you? How do you know that I didn’t do it for myself?”

  “Oh, geesh,” he said, pulling away. He shook his head and half-laughed, bringing his hands up to cover his supposedly wounded chest. “Break a man’s heart, why don’t you?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gabe,” I said, shaking my head as he turned away. He walked back to his car, only turning back once to steal a look at me. I shrugged and waved, and then I just kept watching him until he was back in his car and pulling out on the highway.

  I’d teased him, and maybe even flirted with him, I don’t know, but Gabe could never know how right he truly was. It had been really hard for me to break a rule for him, and that rule had nothing to do with skipping school, and everything to do with letting him in, allowing him to get a little bit closer than arm’s length.

  In that moment, I was certain, based on all the things I felt in the last few hours, today had even gotten me one step closer to breaking the biggest rule of all.

  Because of Gabe, my world was imploding all over again, and for the first time in forever, that wasn’t such a bad thing.