Page 205 of Poor Little Rich Girl

My chest heaves as I struggle to keep up with Gabriel as he winds his way through the labyrinthine halls. I nearly lose sight of him in a long gallery of creepy portraits, catching up to him just as he disappears up a winding stone staircase. The steps are uneven and worn round on the edges. I scramble up after him, growing dizzier as I climb higher. I have to use the velvet rope pinned to the wall to keep my balance as I wind around and around.

Finally, I reach the landing and step into a round room filled with simple, comfortable furniture coated in layers of dust. The bare stone walls are crowded with photographs, children’s sketches, and Gabriel’s album cover art. There’s no one in the room, but I see a wooden ladder leading into the ceiling.

As I make for the ladder I peer at the images on the walls – pictures of Gabriel as a boy, his dark hair styled in a haircut nearly identical to his father. These aren’t the posed portraits of the galleries downstairs – someone who loved him has taken these candid pictures of Gabriel and another boy playing on the lawns, rowing a boat on the lake, feeding animals, riding horses, drawing, and playing music. The pair of them always together, always grinning wildly.

I recognize the steel-grey eyes and full lips of Dylan O’Connor from band photos. My stomach lurches. I know I’m trespassing in Gabriel’s memories. I need to tread carefully. I turn from the photographs and climb the ladder.

Upstairs is a circular bedroom. We must be in one of the turrets – small arrow slits filled in with glass offer views across the lawns. A single brass bed made up with layers of wool blankets is shoved against one wall, and on the other is a chest for clothes and a rough bookshelf filled with comic books and rockstar biographies. A dusty drum kit sits neglected in an alcove.

Gabriel lies on the bed, staring up at a circular skylight. I climb up beside him and curl up into his armpit.

“This is Dylan’s old room,” he says. “I used to hide up here all the time. The duke would never wish to step into the servant’s quarters to find me. Look.”

He points to the ceiling where someone has scratched his and Dylan’s names into the ancient wood beams. Gabriel chuckles, but his laugh is tinged with sadness. “Liam was so angry when he saw we did that. Liam was Dylan’s dad, and he kind of saw it as his job to father me, too. Satan knows no one else wanted the job. ‘This house is a majestic lady and you’ve treated her like an old tramp,’ he said. He made us scrub the entire ballroom, top-to-bottom, for defacing the castle. But he couldn’t stay mad at us long. He loved this house, and he loved Dylan, and me.”

Gabriel points to a telescope in the corner, so thick with dust and cobwebs it appears to be assimilated into the stone itself. “Liam gave that to Dylan for his tenth birthday. He must’ve saved every penny of the duke’s meager wage for a year to be able to afford it. I’d sneak up here after I was supposed to be in bed and the three of us would train it at the skies and imagine ourselves far away, anywhere but here. Then Liam would sing us to sleep. He knew all these old folk songs, about fairies and water spirits and going off to fight Napoleon. My parents forced me to attend stuffy piano lessons since I was four, but I got my love of music from listening to Liam sing.”

“Where is Liam now?”

Gabriel swallows. “He died. Shortly after Dylan and I left the castle. The duke stumbled across us in one of the outbuildings in flagrante delicto. He reacted about how you’d expect a conservative peer of the realm to react, said some things that still burn in my nightmares, and threw us out of the house.”

I’ve read enough press interviews with Octavia’s Ruin to know already that Gabriel considers himself pansexual, which he used to play off as simply, ‘I’ll fuck anything that moves’ in true rockstar style. But hearing his voice crack, I see his feelings for Dylan were deep and real to him, and his father’s rejection hurt more than any of the other wounds the duke has inflicted.

“Liam tried to make the duke see sense, and for his efforts my father dismissed him from service. Forty-nine years of loyalty, of practically raising me as his own son, and the duke throws Liam out without a pension. Liam died ten months later from cancer he never told us about, alone in hospice, while Dylan and I were on tour.”

Gabriel falls back against the pillows, resting his hands behind his head. His dark eyelashes tangle together as he opens his mouth to sing. I’ve never heard this song before – it feels old, baked into the stones of this room and all the bloodshed it’s seen. The lyrics drip with sadness and longing. Gabriel’s voice rings bitter and lost, as he uses the only language he knows to deal with his feelings about the disease that took one father from him and will soon claim another.

There’s a small tin whistle on the nightstand. Gabriel rubs away the dust on the bedspread and brings the mouthpiece to his lips, transforming his words into a haunting melody that sends shivers over my skin. When Gabriel trails off the final note into haunting silence, I bring my hand to my cheek. It’s wet with tears.

“Did Liam take all those pictures on the walls downstairs?” I ask.

Gabriel shakes his head. “The duchess did.”

I pull back, surprised. I can’t imagine that cold woman taking an interest in her son. I wonder how she fits into his story.

“I nearly killed her,” Gabriel says. “I was a big baby. I tore all kinds of things coming out. The doctors told her she’d never have another child. Even in the womb I still managed to fuck things up for everyone.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“Why not? Everyone else loves doing it,” Gabriel sighs. “She wasn’t always so weak. That’s what being married to a man like the duke for twenty years will do to you. She used to be an artist, a nature photographer. She even exhibited in the Royal Gallery. My father made her give it up. He made her give me up. Bit by bit he worked away at her until she became that shell of a person you met downstairs, the one who only cares about money and status and comfort. But she used to be someone special – she saw something in me from a young age, some spark of her artistic talent, I guess. She took me to lessons – music and sculpture and painting with her bohemian friends – and encouraged Liam to play his folk songs and rock music for us. I even did ballet for a while. My father put a stop to that. Not masculine enough, apparently, although prancing around with those ridiculous fencing foils is just fine and dandy by him.”

The words come out in a garbled rush – as if the song has shaken loose the guilt and hope and longing that’s bound Gabriel’s wings. I have so many questions, but I let Gabriel talk. I’ve never seen him so raw and honest.

Except… that’s not true. The Gabriel I see now is the one who steps on stage. As he tells me these stories of his family, I realize I’ve heard them all before. They’re hidden in his lyrics – the pieces of himself he flays from his skin so his fans can find their solace in his blood.

“I wanted to play the guitar ever since Liam first played me the Pogues and the Boomtown Rats, but the duke forbade it. The duchess bought me an instrument in secret, but she made me hide it away in one of the outbuildings where he’d never know about it. You know the band we had at homecoming, Broken Muse? The cellist with the cornrows, Titus, he used to do the same thing. He learned the cello because his parents are famous in the classical music scene, and they wanted him to become their legacy. It was only in meeting his girlfriend, Faye, that he found the strength to claim his own voice. He says he doesn’t want to hide anymore.”

“But you’ve never been afraid to be yourself.” Tears fall thick and fast now. “You sing your truth every night on stage. You sang to me on my darkest nights. I survived because of you.”

“That’s not true. You survived because of you. I’m still hiding. I’m always hiding. Being a rockstar is no different from being a duke’s ungrateful son, and now I’m not even that.” Gabriel’s fingers clasp the bedspread. “I’m hiding in Emerald Beach, the way I used to hide in the music, and the drugs and alcohol I needed so I could make it on stage to play those songs. But when I’m around you… I don’t want to hide anymore.”

“So don’t.” My voice is husky.

The air in the room shifts, becomes heavy.

He pulls me on top of him. His lips find mine, his kiss hot and needy. His hands find my hips, the fingers sliding under my shirt to touch fire against my skin.

Gabriel has always given me what I need. All those nights alone when I needed a friend, his voice – his pain – was with me. When I needed someone to take my virginity, he made sure it was a beautiful dream. When I needed him to step up, he reined in his demons. Now, he needs me. His whole body trembles with need of me.

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