Chapter 13: Chapter Thirteen
Wednesday, November 10th
“Do you understand now?” Gabby stares me down like she might a ref after a bad call.
I respond using my lips the same way I’ve been using them the past hour, by kissing hers. We’re in the back seat of her vehicle—a newish white Chevy Tahoe SUV—parked in another unfinished Fenton subdivision. The windows are fogged up as I try to clear my head about the reasons Gabby wants us to stay a secret. Keeping secrets is another area where I excel.
“That’s why my dad can’t know,” she repeats for a third time. There’s fear in her eyes and voice. “He and my mom, they went through a lot of shit. He doesn’t want that for me.”
“I understand,” I lie. I don’t understand her father’s prohibition against her dating someone like me, especially after learning that Gabby’s mom is white. A mom she mentioned this one time, but never before and somehow, I suspect, never again.
“It’s not personal, Carson, really,” she says, trying to laugh. “It’s just so complicated.”
“I understand,” is the latest lie to slip easily off my tongue.
“He’s protecting me,” she says. “He says we have enough problems living out in Fenton without calling attention. But it’s also focusing on my goals.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wants my focus on athletics, which means not wasting time with distractions like dating,” she continues, looking embarrassed. “I don’t think anybody I went out with—black, white, or blue—would measure up to his standards. He means they don’t measure up to him.”
“Well, I bet he’s tall,” I crack.
“He’s like six eight.”
“Six eight! I don’t mind not meeting him. He’d crack my head like an egg.”
“He’s not a person you ever want to disappoint.” She sounds dead serious.
“So did your dad play basketball, too?”
“He’s got more trophies than a Saginaw Street pawn shop!”
“Did he make the pros?” I ask.
“He should have, but he got hurt his sophomore year in college. In high school, he was all-state and had a free ride to UCLA.” She sounds suddenly sad. “He tore up his knee something terrible. He’d try to come back, but his knee always let him down. I guess that’s why I can’t.”
“Let him down?”
“I don’t know about you, Carson, but sometimes I feel like I’m carrying the weight of my dad’s dreams,” she says. “The good thing, though, is they are my dreams now.”
“So, Gabrielle Gibson, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“My dream? My dream would be to be the first woman to play in the NBA, but I know that’s a fantasy, not a goal,” she says, then laughs it aside. I admire how she can tell the difference between the two. “I want to win a scholarship to a California college in basketball, volleyball and track. I want to make all-American then go to the Olympics as the first woman to compete in three sports. I want to win three gold medals and—”
“It sounds like you’ve not really thought this out,” I joke. “Why California?”
“I’ve lived in cold, damp, gray Michigan all my life,” she says. “I want to watch the sunset while walking on a California beach, like my dad never got to. I know, stupid, right?”
“I hope that dream comes true.” I hate that I feel like I’m lying to her in some way. Look where Caitlin’s dreams got her? Maybe if everything—
“I love this song!” Gabby reaches to the dash and turns up the radio. “Just listen.”
Yet, even as I’m just where I want to be—having this smart, beautiful, successful girl in my arms—I can’t stop thinking about Caitlin. Not just because I still don’t know where she is, but because I remember who she was. All this talk of dreams gets me thinking about Caitlin’s ambitions of stardom, despite an outstanding lack of talent. Maybe the porn-site owners haven’t found Caitlin yet for me, but I shouldn’t be so surprised that she found them.
I’d sneak into her room when I was in junior high to use her computer—my parents had locked a filter on mine I’d not yet cracked—and I found a notebook filled with different versions of her autograph. She’d wear gold-rimmed, expensive sunglasses no matter the weather, and I don’t think it was to hide bloodshot eyes. Caitlin drank, dropped X, smoked weed, but her real drug of choice was celebrity. She’d watch every reality TV show and talk about trying out for all of them. The only thing Caitlin had wanted was to be the person on the screen, not staring at it.
“I don’t need to ask you, do I?” Gabby says when the song ends. “You want to be a writer.”
“More than anything in the world,” I reply with a truth so deep that it hurts.
She turns down the volume and leans against me. “How is your story coming?”
“It’s a series of stories that will make a novel.”
“Autumn’s going to make it?” It’s cool Gabby likes my story, but it’s her body I’d prefer she be interested in exploring. I’m curious why she’s so interested in Autumn but am afraid to ask.
“Like I said, I don’t know yet,” I answer.
“I want a happy ending, and you should know I don’t like not getting what I want.”
“That’s because you love to win,” I tease.
“No, Carson, it’s because I hate to lose.”
“But just because you don’t win, doesn’t mean you’re a loser.”
“That’s why I was so messed up at Charlotte’s party,” she says. “That’s maybe why—”
“Is that the only reason you kissed me? Because you felt like a loser?”
“Look, Carson. I’m not good at this,” she says very slowly in a whisper. “I’m good out there on the hardwood floor, but I don’t know a lot about this stuff.” She kisses me softly.
“I like this stuff.”
“Not just doing stuff, even talking about it. It makes me feel like I’m not in control.”
“Well, you took control of me that night!” I remind her.
“The reason I never approached you, after you broke up with Thien, was because of Charlotte. I know you liked her. Everybody knew that. So as long as she was available, you’d always want her, right?” she asks.
“Maybe,” I mutter. I’m amazed, and a little scared, at how Gabby sees the real me.
“When she and Josh hooked up, I figured I had a chance. I went to the creative writing club even though the most creative thing I do is a head fake. I wanted to know you, but when I heard your story, I knew I needed to know you. I guessed that you’d be at Charlotte’s party, so I pushed myself to go,” she continued. “Then I saw you but was still too afraid to talk to you.”
“Why? I’m so nice,” I joke.
“The worst feeling on the basketball court isn’t missing a shot, but a blocked shot. I hate being rejected,” she says in a voice that sounds so vulnerable, innocent yet experienced.
“Me too, although you’d think with all of my experience that—”
“Listen, I’m serious,” she says, then cuts me off with a kiss. My head is still spinning when she adds, “So, I did what I never do on the court. I made a desperate shot way out of my range.”
“She shoots. She scores!” I use my overexcited sports announcer voice, following up with a fake crowd sound. For a second, I imagine the loud noises Gabby will make during sex.
“So, if you think about it, there’s really one person who set all this in motion,” she says, moving closer. “I know you hate Josh, but you really should thank him.”
“For what?”
“For us,” Gabby says as she lifts off her shirt. We kiss as I fumble with her bra. She unhooks it. As I move my mouth onto her nipples, she rubs my hair. While there’s music from the radio, there’s no screaming or yelling my name. It’s church silence. What am I doing wrong?
Unlike Thien, who played defense, Gabby’s not shy about her body, only her words. She unsnaps my jeans, but when I try to do the same, she bats my hands away. “Slow down,” she says. Yet even as she says those words, she’s got me in her left hand and I’m ready to explode.
I try to push down my pants, but she’s not having it. I lean in, put my mouth against her ear and breathe heavily. I start to talk. “Come on. Give it me. Don’t you want my—”
She pulls her hand away. “Carson, shut up,” she whispers. Why isn’t she pulling off her clothes? Why isn’t she acting like she’s supposed to?
“What’s wrong, Gabby?” With my mouth by her left ear, I bite down.
“Fuck! That hurt!” She pulls away from me. “Carson, what’s your problem?”
She finally screamed, but not in ecstasy. This is wrong, all wrong. “What’s yours?”
She moves back toward me. “Carson, just slow down, okay?”
Before I can answer, her left hand is back in my pants. I close my eyes, but wonder if I’m asleep because it’s more like a dream than my daily life. In the cramped back seat of this SUV, the big distance between what I have and what I want disappears.