Page 115 of Gabriel's Salvation

“Have you ever been?”

“No,” Nate replies with a sad expression on his face.

“I’ll take you soon, I promise. You'll love it.” Finally for once, there's a nice experience, something exciting I get to show him as his big brother. “I'll speak to Riley, maybe we can go again in a few weeks.”

“What?” Nate squeals as his eyes go as wide as saucers. “That would be amazing; I've always wanted to go. The rides look so exciting in the commercials.”

My heart aches as I think back to our childhood; the way we’d see commercials with happy families and pretend it was us.

How we’d play in the lake and pretend we were at the beach, or we would take turns dragging each other around on an old blanket as fast as we could and pretend we were on our own version of a rollercoaster. I’m going to take him for real. Prove to him that I can be a good brother after all.

“I promise, I'll take us. We may need to take your car though.”

“Of course. We won't exactly fit all three of us on your bike,” Nate jokes.

“Actually…” I say, before taking a deep breath. You're doing this for Riley and Nate, I remind myself before I continue, “I was thinking maybe we could make it a foursome.” You can do this Gabe, it will be okay. You promised Riley you'd make the effort. Plus, you’ve got a lot of making up to do for the shitty way you’ve treated Nate since he got back with Isabella.

“Foursome?” Nate says with a confused frown. “Who else is coming?”

“Perhaps… well maybe it wouldn't be the worst if… she’s probably too much of a princess to risk messing up her hair but…”

Nate jumps off his chair and throws his arms around me in a tight hug, “Thank you!”

Nate releases me a couple of seconds later and gives me an ‘oops, sorry’ look as he does.

“Wait, you did mean…” Nate asks hesitantly as he sits back down.

“Yes, Princess fucking Isabella can come as well,” I say as I roll my eyes and let out a breath. I hope this works out! It could be a complete fucking disaster, but it could be alright.

Nate beams from ear to ear like a kid on Christmas morning, and I must admit it feels nice to know that for once I'm the cause of someone else's happiness. If anyone deserves some happiness in their life, it's him.

“So what was it like? What did you do? Were the rides as fast and terrifying as they look on TV?” Nate asks excitedly.

I go into detail about the rides, about how I thought my heart was gonna fall out of my ass on the rollercoaster. I complained half heartedly about Riley making me go on some baby teacup ride and then tried to make me jealous.

“Yup, sounds like Riley, alright,” he laughs.

I explained how we ended up staying in some hotel as the rain got too heavy to drive home in and then about how we went out for lunch and even visited a local stadium to watch a baseball game this afternoon before we drove back home.

“Wow, putting me to shame, Gabe,” Nate laughs. “I’d best not tell Bella; she’ll think she chose the wrong brother. Who knew you were such a romantic at heart?”

“What? I am not!” I exclaim, feeling oddly insulted.

Wait, am I? Am I romantic? I don't do all that flowers and chocolate bullshit, but I do like to make Riley happy, I guess.

“So you and Riley are getting pretty serious now. Never thought I'd see the day Gabriel Scott would settle down and get himself a girlfriend,” Nate teases. But I can see from the huge grin on his face that he’s proud of me.

“I’m just as surprised, heck probably more fucking surprised than you are about it,” I reply honestly. “But there's something about her, she's just different. Different to anyone else I've ever met, I guess.” Why is it so hard to put into words what I see in her?

“I'm so happy for you Gabe, I'm so glad you've finally let somebody in, plus Riley is amazing. I love her.”

I must fire him a disapproving look because he quickly adds, “Like a friend; I love her like a friend. She’s great for you, and I love seeing how happy she obviously makes you. You deserve it.”

I deserve it? Is that a good thing? A compliment or an insult? Usually when someone says I deserve something, they're talking about a fiery death, or at least a shit ton of pain. But could it be just once that someone truly believes I deserve some happiness? That maybe I'm not beyond redemption, that I do deserve some goodness in my life after a lifetime of pain and trauma.

We sit in silent peace for a few minutes, just listening to the chirping sound of the grasshoppers around us, before I decide to speak.

“I told her about Dad,” I say, my voice barely louder than a whisper.

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