Page 3 of A Forgotten Mistake

“When I suggested a blanket with your face all over it so they were aware that the only reason I was doing any of this was because of you, you balked.”

“You said it required wording, and you were going to put ‘Thank you for your copulation.’”

I hesitate. “I see no problem with that… oh no… Gabriel, are you not aware where babies come from?”

He sighs and I love it. I just love everything he does.

“You’re so cute,” I declare.

“Thank you, Robinson. There could be a literal rock from your driveway in here and it’d be better than anything Liam could have gotten.”

“Oh! No, Liam’s joking. He bought the items, I just wrapped it,” Robinson says.

“You just… wrapped… whatever Liam got,” Gabriel says, looking oddly terrified. Does my sweet love have so little faith in me? “Liam, what are your thoughts on me looking at it before you hand it over?”

“I think that you would make Robinson cry after he shed blood, sweat, and tears to wrap it,” I respond. “And, before you remind me that I do love tears, I don’t like Robinson’s tears. There’s generally a lot of mucus involved in his crying, so I’d rather avoid that.”

Gabriel sighs as he stares at the bag like if he stares hard enough, he might acquire x-ray vision. It’s really quite cute.

With the realization that I’m not going to open the package to verify with him that it’s adequate for the people who brought him into this world, he says, “Let’s go.”

“Suddenly, you sound like the one who doesn’t want to go. What if we tell your parents that I’m allergic to humans and shouldn’t be around them? We could FaceTime sometime; just give me a heads-up on when so I can get a cardboard cutout of myself to take my place.”

“None of that is going to happen.”

“Stop dashing my hopes and dreams.”

Once Gabriel has his coat on, he sets a hand on my back and ushers me over to the elevator.

“Please, everyone, pray for me,” I call as Gabriel forces me inside.

“I’ll pray you won’t come back,” a detective named Matthew says as he buzzes on by, reminding me that he’s dreadful to deal with.

“I can make sure you don’t?—”

Gabriel’s hand cuts me off from the rest of that threat. “Would kindness toward others hurt you physically?”

“Mentally for sure, and we all know how important mental health is,” I say, then I sneak a quick cheek kiss before the elevator door opens on the bottom floor. Gabriel looks at me in surprise and smiles.

“I’m a little nervous,” he admits.

“Why areyounervous? I’m not nervous at all. Speaking to people is my forte.”

“Yeah… you know… I almost can’t put my finger on why I’m nervous after hearing that fabrication of the truth.”

TWO

Liam

We head out to the car and Gabriel gets in the driver’s seat, probably because he doesn’t think I know where his parents live. It’s not at all weird that I do… maybe I was simply… curious and looked them up. Maybe I spent all of last night researching everything about them so I could pretend to know how to interact with them. His dad is an avid fisherman, so I spent at least an hour watching fishing videos while my mind drifted off to how I could use a fishing line to kill someone since it’d be hard to see and certain lines obviously are strong.

When I remembered that knowledge such as that would not win over his parents, I switched to looking up stuff about his mother. She was much harder to find information on, other than her Facebook profile which is mostly pictures of her dog. Clearly, Gabriel got his obsession for his cat from his mother.

Gabriel pulls into the driveway of his parents’ house and looks over at me. “You good?”

“Better than you, it seems,” I say. “I did extensive research on your parents. I know their blood types and that your fatherwas arrested when he was nineteen. I thought that worst-case scenario, I could hang that over his head.”

“Wait, what? What the hell was he arrested for?”

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