[ t h e   m o r n i n g   a f t e r ]

♥ gabriel ♥

WHEN I WOKE up, I was laying with my long legs awkwardly bent in front of me in those black sweatpants that had passed their best but I didn't care enough to replace them.

Eyebrows furrowed, I squinted my cloudy grey eyes to shield them from the blinding sun that was shining in through the crack of the door and coughed. Realising that wasn't doing the job, I held my hand out in front of me to cover my taut face from its pungent bright rays.

"Where the fuck am I?" I mumbled under my breath, patting down my dark brown hair that was disastrously splayed around in a mess. The room was tiny for my towering self, probably a mere two by two metres.

Pressing my hand against the floor, I tried to use my bicep to lift myself from the floor but came crashing down when my hand buckled beneath me. I grunted in a low voice as I hit the laminate flooring.

Hard.

A few hollow yet high pitched clinks filled the small room as my foot accidentally kicked something.

Around a dozen - give or take a few - empty glass bottles were scattered everywhere, giving me company on the ground.

The one I had hit slowly rolled against the floor and hit another which then hit another. They all scraped against the floor tiles like dominoes, the chain reaction eventually coming to an end when a wide spirit bottle made contact with a cigarette pack.

It took me a good few minutes to recognise that I had passed out on the floor of my flat's laundry room.

The morning after was always a struggle but today was particularly difficult. Groaning, I blinked hard trying to remember how I ended up here.

Nothing.

Ever since I bought this apartment, I'd always drank clean. By that, I meant ensuring that bottles were precisely lined up my strength and organised upon the table and that I was either in my room or seated on the sofa, and most importantly, making sure I had pulled myself together.

After all, there was a difference between drinking not to remember and drinking to forget.

For months it had consistency been the former which had rather worked out well for me; less tidying up the next morning. Yet judging by my current situation, last night had certainly been the latter. The first in a very long time.

The next few minutes were torture as everything from two days ago came back to me.

I clenched my jaw with my eyes pressed shut and my head resting against the wall. Was I angry? I was nothing short of furious. It had been a day since I'd seen her but it felt as if it had only been mere seconds since I was drawn out like cloth and had my blood squeezed out of me without any warning.

My heart began bounding faster as my hands pressed tighter together. The rays of sunlight landing right in my eyes seemed to suddenly get to me and I slammed the laundry room door shut in irritation, sending two beer cans flying in the process.

A thousand emotions were roaring within me and the feeling of anger and frustration was certainly at the top.

But there was a third too.

Confusion.

What the fuck was going on? It was like the world was spinning in a rapid orbit around me, so fast that it was all a blur.

Painfully strong confusion was pushing me into a dark pit of even more agonising bewilderment. And there was a branch growing from the abyss of confusion exploding within me. It was as simple as a three-letter word.

Why?

Why was this happening? Why did things have to get worse as soon as they were getting better? Why the hell was she here?

The list was endless.

Goddammit, Gabriel. There's only one reason why she would be back. It's been in humanities genetics for centuries. It's what makes man man. The only species to be at each other's throats and tear each other down rather than build each other up. You shouldn't be surprised.

It was the third time she had appeared in my life.

I stared blankly forward.

Once was chance, twice was a coincidence, third times was a pattern.

A pattern that seemed to consistently end in my ruination. A pattern that tore at my world and left me building everything back up with sand from its broken foundation digging beneath my fingernails.

My steel eyes focused on the wall ahead of me in the analysis.

It was true.

Every time she had step foot into my life, a hole has seemed to appear on deck and the boat had come sinking further and further down.

That day in the club.

That day in the classroom.

And now.

The corner of my lip twitched up in a smile of sheer mockery.

Well, if there was one thing I was certain of, it was that that pattern was going to come to an abrupt end. That was undeniable. There was no chance of a third time if I was no longer the same person that she had met almost two years ago. There was no chance of destruction if there was no chance of connection.

I didn't know if it was because of the fact I wasn't entirely sober yet, but I laughed a short cold sound at that thought.

Connection? My, still got a sense of humour, I see.

A connection was thankfully impossible. I'd killed off the version of me she knew 6 months ago and reviving that link was something I knew better than to do.

Besides, I was certain that there was going to be one person latching onto me to make sure that there was no chance at reconciliation.

I glanced at my phone when I got an email.

I'm writing to regretfully inform you that your modelling contract to represent our brand has been terminated given your recent actions. We feel as if you no longer share the same values that we deem integral to our foundation and-

Christ. Well, there went fashion week.

My pinkish lips pressed together tightly. Oddly enough, the empty feeling in my heart towards my parents was no longer there. It was replaced with a loathing that I thought I'd never have the capacity to feel again.

Finally forcing my legs up, I stumbled my way out towards my bedroom, searching for my phone on the messed up bed sheets. I glanced at the time and swore under my breath.

It was 10.48 am meaning I'd already missed almost two lessons. History and Economics; both of which I'd been dedicating hours towards to improve my grade.

Not good.

"Lisa."

"Gabriel, where are you? I've called you like 20 times."

"27."

"What?"

"27 times. You've called me 27 times," I repeated monotonously, pulling out a grey Ted Baker suit and a shirt from my wardrobe and laying it out on the bed before walking towards the bathroom. "Can I have a lift to school? At break. If you can pick me up."

I hated asking for favours but considering how much alcohol was probably still in my bloodstream, I would be daft to sit at the wheel.

"Yeah, I'll come now. Dr Wang's boring me to sleep anyway," she said in her silvery voice as I heard a textbook being shut in the background. "I'll horn when I'm outside."

"Okay."

"Just a word of warning," she began tentatively, trailing off. I could almost hear the smirk that must have been on her face as she fell silent. "Oh, it doesn't matter."

I was milliseconds away from bluntly ending the call because deep down, I didn't care but stopped myself when a thought crossed my mind. I could tell she was silently begging for me to ask her.

The basis of that thought told me to relent.

"Talisa. What?"

"Hm?"

"Tell me."

I could sense her smiling breathily at my words before she continued. "Things are tense here because of- Everything. It's just that-"

A breathy sound travelled down the phone. "She's come to school. Which I obviously should have seen coming. And that stupid friend of h- But I can fill you in in the car."

Rolling my eyes, I responded before ending the call and rubbing my pounding headache. I glanced at the battlefield which was my apartment.

Things were tense.

No shit.

But frankly, I didn't care.

It took less than ten minutes to clean myself up completely. I left the apartment at 10.55 am in a crisp white shirt, metallic steel face and immaculately smooth gelled back hair that had no remnant of the disastrous state I was in minutes ago.

"That was quick," Talisa stated, eying me up and down impressively. Her long arms were dangled over the steering wheel as she pulled up her Alfa Romeo in front of the apartment with the windows wound down.

"Takes me a good 27 minutes 14 seconds to get my hungover self together."

I raised an eyebrow at her intricate accuracy, seating myself in the passenger seat.

"On average, of course."

I replied succinctly, "Who said I was hungover?"

She snorted, tossing her chestnut hair over her shoulder. "Liubimiy? Now that is hilarious.

"This will help you with the headache, not the denial," Talisa said, giving me a look of disbelief before reaching into her handbag and handing me a pack of paracetamol and a bottle of water.

Glaring at her coldly with bullet eyes, I swallowed two tablets and looked out the window. "Just drive."

She did.

***

Never did I think that what once moved fluidly like water, would uneasily stunt like broken clockwork. But I guess you could only drown so many times before you learnt how to sink and it only took so many hours for the ticking of the clock to waste into background noise.

I didn't feel perturbed or electrified the second my eyes locked with her.

I just felt empty, dead, nothing and in that there was some security.

"Why don't all of our exchange students introduce themselves?"

The newly qualified English teacher began. A loud laugh with the pure attempt of ice breaking filled the air. "I've been practising my French for this, you'd be delighted to know."

Mrs Marshall then proceeded to obnoxiously state her name in a terrible French accent.

My neck felt stiff and I didn't see much point in turning my head to look at the rest of the students from Paris stood at the front of the class. I'd already inspected each of them when I entered the room. Nothing was interesting there.

Like a hook under the sea, my eyes were dug deep into her and only her.

I leant back in my chair, my face unreadable and shielded as I watched her, waiting for anything that told me why the fuck she was here.

When I had dropped Nanna back to her house on the way from Brighton, I could have sworn I saw a woman watching me. I shouldn't have doubted myself.

She squirmed on the spot, trying to stand tall whilst uncomfortably avoiding my intense look. To everyone else, she looked more put together and confident than ever but I knew better. I knew her enough to tell that was just a show.

Do you really though? Don't go forgetting already, Gabriel. You don't know her. You never did. Name one thing which left her mouth that wasn't a lie.

"Let's start from the left and go along. Don't be shy all of you. Go on."

A blonde man began. "I am Raphael."

"Janet."

"Elodie."

There was a brief pause. "Louisa."

A quiet ridiculing sound followed, which I was sure to have come from a member of Forteaux. Instead, it came from a rather short dark-haired girl from Espirits who was stood a few metres down the line. Jet black hair shielded her face, preventing me from seeing her face.

People continued.

"Hugo."

"Je m'appelle Dorothy."

Next was the same girl who had sniggered earlier. My eyebrows furrowed as a feeling I couldn't put a name to flooded me.

I surveyed her carefully as she tucked her hair behind her ear revealing sharp fox-like features, a hooked defined nose and soft toffee skin.

"I'm Ananya."

There were a few whispers of surprise and even my eyebrow raised slightly at the ex-student.

I thought back to our night together in that exclusive hotel that felt so long ago. She had seemed like a sweet girl, irritating but not cold, which is why I had been so surprised to hear a while back that she had been expelled for vandalising school buildings. It didn't seem like something she would do yet I didn't know much about her. She was only a one night stand.

The brunette leant forward and looked at the Asian girl in disbelief as if she had never realised she was there.

It was certainly another pretence. She had been at Espirits for six months now. There was no way she wouldn't have realised Ananya's presence.

Around me, the whispers got louder as the petite girl smiled. It seemed like Ananya's reappearance was getting more of a reaction that the other individual who had returned.

Perhaps that was because everyone had already been aware of the other one at the ball.

"Hush everyone. What's all this whispering about? That's not very polite. We do not want our sister school thinking that behaviour like this is acceptable at Forteaux," the teacher interjected before obliviously directing her attention back to the Espirit students.

"Anyway, you are in this class because your exchange partners made the joyful decision to study English Literature. I'm sure you are going to love it. Now take a seat with your partners."

My unwavering state was still on her as she walked past me with composure. I glanced at her long arms and nails which always drummed against her thighs whenever she was uneasy. Her hair was no longer black, it was now slightly lighter with highlights rippling through its length.

She took a seat next to Lexi as I robotically turned my head to the front. The pair of them were sat at the back whereas I was seated at the front of the class.

I had never thought the pair of them would be friends considering how she had told me in the past how much she despised Lexi. The truth was that didn't surprise me. Months back I'd accepted the fact that I never really knew her.

I had known what she wanted me to know.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

I didn't care enough to turn around and look at her anymore.

Mrs Marshall continued. "Anyway, the next part of the lesson won't be helpful for our exchange students. The rest of you, I've marked the exam paper you did last lesson. Jeanette, can you hand them out for me, please? Thank you."

When I began this academic year, my grade had become stunted at a D. I didn't focus on lessons and frankly, didn't care about any of my grades. I messed about, didn't take lessons seriously and more importantly, didn't take myself seriously. That had now changed for the better.

I pressed my hand against for forehead, feeling the dull pain of a headache. I was hungry too considering I'd left in the rush.

Jeanette walked towards me, unashamedly reading my paper and looking at what mark I got with big eyes before even I knew. It irked me like hell.

"Are you done or do you want to continue reading something that has absolutely nothing to do with you?"

"Oh. S-Sorry." She paused in her step, a sheen in fear in her eyes before dropping the essay on my desk like a hot coal and quickly walking away.

Picking it up, I sat up straighter in my seat starting a new document in my mac titled corrections.

The blonde teacher continued rambling. "I must say I'm quite disappointed with most of you in here. I could tell that a few of you simply ran out of time so I suggest practising some questions under timed conditions outside of lessons.

"On the other hand, I did receive some outstanding essays. Gabriel's for example."

I met her eyes with a slight surprise before nodding in acknowledgement. Turning my attention back to the paper, I glanced at the mark in the top right-hand corner.

73/75

Besides it, an A* was written with a circle around it.

There was a clattering sound and I turned just in time to see her bending down to pick up a metal water bottle that seemed to have slipped from her grasp.

You're not the only one who can change.

The remainder of the lesson went relatively quickly and at the sound of the bell, I began packing my things away and walking towards the dining hall.

Let us hope the damn chef's given up serving pathetic excuse of broccoli.

Everyone in the crowd divided like a sea as I began walking down the minimalistic white corridor, the sound of my shoes sharply thumping against the floor.

"Gabriel, wait!"

I came to an abrupt stop.

Oooh, who could it be? Take a guess. Go on. What are your thoughts on Gabriel from this chapter? Notice anything about the way he interacts with both Talisa and Louisa, similarities and differences. Drop me some comments, I'd love to hear!

Thanks as always,
KiwiAndKoalas

♥ 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫! ♥