Erich - Eighteen

Erich

            God damn it. God f*****g damn it. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

            I couldn’t even think for a good hour after I got off the roof. I paced around the dark campus alone. I just muttered to myself in German and kicked at everything in my way and smoked. Almost half my pack was gone in less than an hour. I headed back to the dorm but stopped short of the stairs. I just imagined what would happen if I met Jim in the hallway. If Hersch was awake. I would have to explain. I couldn’t do that. I kicked hard at the ground and walked faster away from the main building.

            I could tell Gabe was still on the roof. Goddamn it. He was still up there. He was sitting up there alone with a bloody lip. I couldn’t picture that without breaking down. I had to get inside where I couldn’t risk seeing him. Where he couldn’t see me. There was an annex building a few feet away from me and I realized it was the showers. The door wasn’t locked.

I tore my clothes off as soon as I was inside. The pitch darkness of the room made me feel better. It was like I wasn’t even there. I realized how dirty I felt. I felt disgusting and sick. All I could think was that maybe I could wash this all off. Maybe I could wash the smell of Gabe off my skin. I could wash the blood from his lip off my hands, wash the sting of his punch from my cheek. I could wash the taste of his mouth out of my own.

Smoke and honey. Now that my mind had slowed down I could place the taste in my mouth. Gabe was still fresh on my lips. I turned the valve and stepped into the freezing shower. I let my mouth fill up with the rusty water and spat and spat until I thought I might drown.

The shower was comforting for a minute. Numbing like it always was. Then I thought about the fact that this was the first time in months I hadn’t showered without Gabe close by.

That thought put me over the edge. I wouldn’t cry. I couldn’t cry. I hadn’t cried in years. But there was so much feeling scraping its way out of my chest that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I braced myself against the slick wall and punched the cement as hard as I could. The first punch made me feel better. But when I tried with my right hand I could hardly even make a fist. I realized I couldn’t box anymore. I couldn’t fight anymore. That was the last straw.

“F**k!” I screamed into the darkness. The word echoed through the room like there was a thousand of me. I let it go again. “F**k!” All the energy I had suddenly drained out of me. I slumped back against the wall with my face in my hands. The water was as blinding and suffocating as the darkness. I let the freezing drops run down my face and drip off my chin like the tears I couldn’t possibly cry.

I should have seen this coming. Everything that had happened between Gabe and me had been leading to this. I thought back to everything important that had happened to me since coming to England. Stealing the stash. London. The fight. The dream. The air raids. Detention. Gabe’s story. We had been headed down this road for months and I had been too stupid to see it. Hell we were like a goddamn novel!

What the hell was I supposed to do now? I had told Gabe everything. Everything. I hadn’t realized what I was trying to say meant. Until I said it. Goddamn it! I was an idiot! I had told him that I thought about other boys. What was he supposed to think? Obviously he thought I was like him. I had been so stupid to think anything else.

But what gave him the right to kiss me? Out of nowhere! Oh God. Gabe and I kissed. I had kissed another boy. This was so huge and so wrong. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. It was Gabe’s fault. It was all Gabe’s fault. He was the only one who made me feel that way. He was turning me into someone like him.

It wasn’t fair to blame Gabe. Deep down I knew that. I had told him myself. The feelings had been there long before I met him. But there was nothing else I could do. The only other person I had to blame was myself. And I damn sure was not going to let myself believe that I had caused this.

I had caused it though. I knew what Gabe was doing the second he touched my face. I hadn’t done anything. Not one impulse in my brain had told me to make him stop. I couldn’t move. I felt betrayed by my own mind now. I could have pushed him away right then and nothing would have happened. But I didn’t. It was my fault he had kissed me, because I had wanted him to.

But what I did when he kissed me was even worse. At first I really couldn’t process what was happening. My eyes had been open and I had just watched Gabe’s face for a second. Once I actually understood I acted on the first and strongest instinct I could find. I kissed him back. The memory was fresh and sharp in my mind. I could still feel the curve of his neck under my hand. The only voice in my mind that told me to stop was my father’s. And I had listened.

No! I threw my fist hard against the wall. I had to force myself to stop thinking that way. I couldn’t afford to think that way. None of this was my fault. If I had meant to kiss him back then it meant Gabe was right about me. It meant my father and Burkhard were right.

It wasn’t true. I couldn’t let it be true. I could do what I had done for years. I would press the feelings down until I couldn’t feel anything at all. That was the only way to survive in this goddamn world anyway. I was so stupid. Why couldn’t I be more like my father? Or like Christian? I liked myself better in Germany. Back when I never felt anything.

I managed to breathe a little easier after a while. In a few weeks I’ll go back to Germany. I’ll go home and I’ll never see him again. I will never have to feel like this again.

Why the hell didn’t that thought make me feel better?

I stayed in the shower building for most of the night. I think I even slept a little bit. Granted I was curled up naked on the freezing and wet floor. But it still felt good to get Gabe out of my head. I woke up shivering and sore. When I came to I had forgotten where I was. The blackness made me think maybe I was lucky enough to have died. When I smacked my head against the concrete wall in the dark it all came back to me.

There were no windows but I could hear birds outside so I knew it was morning. Then I got scared that there would be dorms coming down for showers soon. I threw on my clothes and got out of there as fast as I could.

Outside the sun was just peeking over the horizon and the clouds were light purple. And Gabe was still on the roof. I knew he would see me if he looked down. So I dashed as fast as I could back to the dorm and crawled into my bunk. The other two didn’t wake up. Hersch slept like a rock and lately Jim was lucky if he got two hours a night on Rebecca’s schedule. I crawled under the covers in my uniform. It was the first time I had been warm all night. I was already half asleep when Gabe came back to the room.

“Christ, Moretti, what happened to you?” I heard Jim ask sleepily.

There was a long silence on Gabe’s end. “Nothing,” he muttered just as I slipped off.

 

After that night none of us saw each other for a week. My method for avoiding them was simple. I slept late and went to bed early and stayed in the library all day. I was scared that everyone would know what I had done when they saw me. Somehow they would know.

Hersch pretended to be studying to stay away from us. Jim suspected him of trying to find a way back to Poland but no one asked him. He was the only one who tried to make contact with me. He must have known something was going on. I didn’t want to be around him. If anyone could figure it out it would be Hersch. He could see just about everything. Jim didn’t seem to notice any of us were gone. Life went on as usual for him, lucky b*****d. It seemed the only thing Hersch couldn’t see was Jim f*****g Rebecca. Without us around Jim was free to be with her any time. Which was no problem for him.

Gabe just stayed out of my way. He spent his time in the music building or faking sick. It wasn’t a hard illusion to pull off. He was pale and anxious and his face was swollen from my punch. Or at least he was the one or two times I saw him. Gabe gave them some story about tripping and cutting his lip on a roof tile and Jim patched him up the next day.

I realized now that even this routine of ignoring Gabe should have been a sign. How often had we done this? Something awkward would happen between us and I would keep away for a few days to convince myself it didn’t mean anything. That was the way the cycle had been for months. We had done this over and over and I had been too stupid to see what it meant.

Usually it was only a few days before I missed Gabe enough to disregard whatever had happened. But this was too big. I didn’t care how miserable my life was without him. Nothing could stop me from obsessing over what had happened. Smoke and honey smoke and honey. The taste in my mouth never went away. Nothing would convince me that kiss had meant nothing.

There was no question that we were done doing fire warden duty together. There had been nothing to stop us from skipping before. It was unspoken that we only continued working the shifts because we weren’t willing to give up the long nights together on the roof. Stupid stupid stupid. How had I not seen this coming? Gabe took the next Tuesday shift alone and I didn’t even bother to make an excuse. I expected him to do the same on Thursday. But he poked his head into the dorm long enough to tell us he was going to the music building to get a piece ready for his final exam. Jim and Hersch were both in there too and the room was getting too crowded for my temper. So I went to the roof.

Solitude was no new thing to me. But the shift was unnaturally lonely without Gabe there. It didn’t even seem like the roof without Gabe. I kept glancing over to his usual spot. I expected to see him there with his knees drawn up to his chest and the light of his cigarette in his green eyes. Everything seemed quiet and sad and wrong without him there.

Then I heard someone coming up the ladder. For one second I imagined Gabe was coming back. I had no idea what I would do if he was really there. I just imagined his face appearing at the top of the fire escape. He would smile his sad little smile. I would go and take his hand and help him up. And then… and then…

It was Hersch.

“Hi,” he said uncomfortably. He pulled himself awkwardly onto the roof.

“What do you want?” I grumbled. My own voice sounded wrong to me. I had barely spoken for days.

“Thought I would keep you company,” he took a step towards me and I recoiled against the chimney.

“No thank you,” I said angrily.

“Come on,” he snorted to my annoyance, “what if there’s an air raid?” he asked sarcastically. I could have thrown him off the roof. Hersch dropped down in Gabe’s spot.

He was quiet for a long few minutes. It did make me feel better to have him there, though I wouldn’t admit it. That is until he asked, “So are you going to tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about why you’ve been a ghost for seven days. Why Gabe’s lip is split clean open,” I wouldn’t look at him. I wanted to die. “Why you touch your mouth every time someone says his name now.”

I looked down to see my forefinger between my lips. How the hell had he noticed that? I didn’t even know I was doing that. There was no arguing with him. “F**k off,” was all I could say.

Hersch put out his hands defensively. “Whatever you say.” He sat there quietly for a long time. I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to murder him after all. It was a very long time before I heard his voice again.

“Kristen’s dead.”

I pretended not to understand. I wasn’t supposed to know that. “Who the hell is Kristen?”

Hersch took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “My girl form back home. I was leading a Resistance back home, and the Gestapo raided our apartment looking for me. They tried to lure me out with her and when I didn’t come they shot her in the street. By the time I fought through my friends who were trying to hold me back, there was only enough time for her to die in my arms.”

I couldn’t look at him. I hadn’t known how Kristen had died. Now I felt even worse. I felt responsible. Hell I could have known the guys who did it. Hersch’s story was a hundred times worse than mine and it didn’t make me feel better at all. “Why are you telling me, Abrahamson?”

“Because I hate secrets.”

“He kissed me.”

The words were out before I even knew I was saying them. It was so abrupt that Hersch barely managed to finish his sentence. He didn’t even look surprised.

“I figured.”

“I don’t know what to do.” I looked down and held my head in my hands. No going back now. I didn’t even care anymore. Hersch knew anyway.

“You have to be there for him.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Erich, look at me.” I didn’t. “I want to tell you what I would tell myself a year ago if I could. And you’re going to think it’s stupid and that I’m a fairy too just for saying it, but you have to hear this, okay?” If he thought he was getting a reaction out of me he was crazy. “Look, Erich, there’s someone down there who cares about you, for one reason or another. And I would die for that. You can’t keep everyone out forever. Trying to go through this by yourself will kill you, understand? You need Gabe as much as he needs you. And he needs you a lot. You will die without each other.”

“I don’t need Gabe!” It sounded like a lie even as I yelled it.

“Erich…”

“I don’t need Ga�"” There was a roar from the sky above us. A plane soared so low that I had to brace myself against the chimney to stay on my feet. Hersch staggered towards the edge. I grabbed him by the collar to steady him without even thinking about it. The fear clenched up inside me as the siren started to wail. I couldn’t move. I was locked in place as I watched the plane dive low. Watched something fall from the sky. Watched the buildings at the far, far edge of the campus go up in flames. The impact nearly knocked me off the roof. As I scrambled to my feet I knew immediately what had been hit: the music building.

“Gabe!”

I was down the fire escape before the fear could come back. I slid down the ladder and I was running before I even felt my feet hit the ground.

“Erich, wait!” Hersch’s panicked scream came from the top of the ladder.

But everything else was gone. It was just me and the sound of my feet hitting the pavement. I was running blindly as fast as I could towards the flames.

Author's Note

Posted exceedingly raw becasue it's been eons since i posted anything and I'm pumped for feedback! Edits to come

Reviews

[Arianna]

now im going to inform you that the time between the last chapter and this chapter was WAY TOO LONG! and if the same amount of time goes by.. i think i might just have to i dont know get on a plane to where you live and make you write by following you around with signs and a whole cheerleading squad or something drastic like that. GOSH THIS WAS A GREAT CHAPTER! :)
i want more emily, do you know that this is the book i tell people is my favirote book. i send them a link if they ask me online or write it down if they ask me in person... i really need to print out a smaller version though and just carry it in my pocket to show people. anyway onto the chapter. you gave me more gabe and erich moments! and im so happy! because i love them! and theyre adorable! and erichs in denial...and its just... ugh. but... i cant even process how much i love this chapter right now im too happy. great job. i love that he is admiting more things to himself while still in denial, and hersch's speech was brilliant. well done *claps* can i expect another one..... tomorrow?