All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1)(54)

‘No,’ I said honestly. The circumstances of my life had not allowed me the luxury of being squeamish around injury.

Gable laughed – a tinny, flat sound. ‘Then you’re a liar.’

I reminded Gable that I had seen worse things in my life.

‘Yes, of course you have,’ Gable said. ‘The truth is, I repulse myself, Annie. What do you say to that?’

‘I can understand why you would feel that way. You’ve always cared so much about appearances. Like that day at school . . . I know you hated having the spaghetti sauce on your shirt more than anything else’ – I paused to look at Gable and he nodded and, oddly, even smiled a little at the remembrance – ‘but how you are now . . . No one can deny that you are much changed, but I suspect it isn’t as bad as you think.’

Gable’s laugh came out as a wretched bleat. ‘Everyone says I shouldn’t say such things, but not you. This is why I love you, Annie.’

I did not feel the need to reply. He was still a liar.

‘For a long time, I wished I had died,’ Gable said. ‘But not any more.’

‘That’s good,’ I replied.

‘Come closer,’ Gable insisted. ‘Come sit on the bed.’

Through our exchange, I had been standing by the door. Even though Gable was confined to a wheelchair, I was still wary of him. Bad things happened when the two of us were alone.

‘I won’t bite,’ he said, kind of like a dare.

‘All right.’ As there were no available chairs, I walked to the bed and sat down.

‘Do you know why I lost my foot? Sepsis. I’d never heard of it. It’s when the body starts shutting down and attacking itself. I also lost three fingertips.’ He waved his damaged hand towards me. ‘But they say I’m lucky. I’ll walk again and even dance. Don’t I look like a lucky, lucky boy?’

‘Yes, you do.’ I thought of Leo and my mother and my father. ‘You look like someone who survived something awful.’

‘I don’t want to look that way,’ Gable said. ‘I detest survivors.’ He spat out the word survivors.

‘My father used to say that the only thing a person needed to be in life was a survivor.’

‘Oh, spare me the pearls of wisdom from the criminal! Do you think I have any desire to hear anything your father had to say?’ Gable asked. ‘The whole time I was with you, it was Daddy this and Daddy that. Your father’s been dead a million years. Grow up, Anya.’

‘I’m leaving,’ I said.

‘No, wait! Don’t go, Annie! I’m unfit for company and I’m sorry.’ Gable’s voice was whiny and babyish. I suppose I pitied him.

‘The thing is, you’re still handsome,’ I said. And he was. His skin would heal. He’d learn to walk again and then he’d be the same old awful Gable, hopefully a tiny bit kinder and more empathetic than the previous version.

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes,’ I assured him.

‘You’re a damned liar!’ Gable roared. He rolled himself towards the window. ‘I’ve thought of you every day, Annie,’ Gable said in a quiet voice. ‘I waited every day for you to come on your own, but you never did. I thought you would have, considering you had some role in my fate, but you never did.’

‘I’m sorry, Gable,’ I said. ‘We weren’t exactly on the best of terms when it happened but I did mean to come. I don’t know if you heard but I was sent to Liberty. And then I was ill myself for a while. And then I just lost track of time, I suppose. I should have come.’

‘Should have. Would have. Could have. Didn’t.’

‘I really am sorry.’

Gable said nothing. He was still facing the window. After several seconds of silence, I heard him sniffle.

I walked over to him. There were tears running down his ruined face.

‘I treated you so badly,’ Gable whimpered. ‘I said terrible things about you. And I tried to make you . . .’

‘It’s forgotten,’ I lied. I’d never forget what Gable had almost done, but he had been punished enough.

‘And you loved me! The way you used to look at me. No one will ever look at me like that again.’

I hadn’t loved him, but it seemed cruel and beside the point to mention that now.

‘And you were my only real friend. None of those other people meant anything to me. I’m ashamed,’ he said. ‘Can you ever forgive me, Annie?’

He was truly pathetic. I decided that I could indeed forgive him, and then I told him so.

‘I’ll need friends when I’m back at Trinity. Can we be friends?’

‘Yes, of course.’

He reached out his ‘good’ hand for me to shake and then I shook it. He pulled me towards him and the move was so unexpected that I stumbled into him. That was when he kissed me on the mouth. ‘Gable, no!’ I stood and pushed his wheelchair away from me hard enough that the back handles banged against the window.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘I thought we were going to be friends again.’

‘I don’t kiss my friends on the mouth,’ I said.

‘But you leaned into me!’ he sputtered.

‘Are you mad? I tripped!’