Renascence

Author's Note:

My sincerest thanks to my dear friend Lun who worked tirelessly to make this chapter happen with her excellent editing skills and beta reading all the many, many drafts(even the discarded ones, bless her).

Hope you all enjoy the chapter. My only reward for my work are in your comments and votes. Please consider sharing your thoughts with me.

Cheers,

Nora

—

Renascence

Noun:

The revival of something that has been dormant

—

I was homesick.

All good feelings originated from the California sun, from the rapturous heat waves that cracked and fissured the skin of my elbows, tanning me until golden-brown freckles dusted my nose and bluer blues reflected in my eyes. In California I'd had a woman's body, flush with gentle curves and delicate bones. In California I'd known how to smile, how to laugh, how to

just be

because Emma had been there, walking one step ahead, casting me in her shadow, protecting me from being burned. In California, Emma had been my home.

And now I was homesick and homeless, skinny and frail with sunken eyes and broken dreams—but I had

love.

The big kind of love, the kind that sat in my heart impatiently before spreading to my veins, spreading to my nerves, and spreading to my fingertips like it was magic, pure magic. It was love like the California sun, love like vivid eyes, love like vigor and happiness and freedom.

It was love like Emma.

That's what made it hurt to fall in love—knowing I couldn't talk to her about it, couldn't tell her that she'd been right about so much of it, couldn't talk about the butterflies and weak knees and anxious heartbeats, of all those tell-tale signs of the heart relinquishing itself. There was so much I wanted to talk about with my sister, my best friend, but she was gone and that was reality and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it—except maybe make my peace with it.

And the man I was falling in love with was the one showing me how. With those hazel eyes, golden and green and blue, gazing in a way that was almost worshipful, I felt then that he could see through me, past the leftover twin and the gaunt face and the sad eyes, and see

me,

the real me: timid, all soft edges and flowery words, crowded brain and fingers searching, seeking contact, warm contact; big hands and hot lips kind of contact; whispers and words, needy and small, apprehensive and anxious—and somehow, despite it all,

still worth looking at.

And when he did that, when he gazed at me like I was beautiful, I felt powerful, strong, confident, and capable, so fucking capable that I hadn't been afraid to let myself wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. Slow and sweet, long and languorously, heart uncaged and open. We'd passed the minutes that way, losing ourselves in each other, creating dangerous memories, risking everything just for this—contact, warm contact,

real contact.

Gabriel Hart could become one of two things: my religion, or my ruin. He'd come into my sad, dreary existence like a messiah, bringing with him deliverance, guidance, and the renascence of happiness. He was a prayer answered, a wish granted, but in some ways, he was also a fallen angel, a demon of his own caliber, wielding darkness with one hand, blazing light with the other. He held the power to heal me, but he also held the power to burn me. It should have scared me to be so vulnerable, should have scared me to need him more than I needed air, but all I could do was open up my heart and pray;

please, destroy me in this storm.

And so he did.

We became tethered in lips and limbs, kisses raw and hearts vulnerable, smoking this pipe dream to a high, committing acts that held no honor, no morality, breaking all the goddamn rules that we pretended could keep us apart. I didn't give a fuck that it was wrong; to everyone else, he was abusing his power, using his authority to get me to bend my will to him, but to me, Gabe was doing nothing short of miracles, saving me when I'd thought I couldn't be saved. I was full of agony, dripping with agony, could fill entire oceans with my agony, and he came and offered those scarred hands to lead me away from it, to leave the agony locked up behind us.

And if that wasn't beautiful, if that wasn't pure, then I don't know what was.

—

Colors of a sunrise bled into the sky, purples to blues and yellows and reds and pinks, all like brushstrokes dipped in water, bleeding, swirling. Even here, even in this small godforsaken town in the dead of winter, the sky that I had always loved had followed me, loyal as ever, never letting me down, gifting me sunrises like these when I needed them most. In the unbearable cold of winter, at least heat could still come from the warmth of color.

In two weeks I would turn nineteen, but nothing would change, not even the sky. Everything was going to continue as normal with fate playing its' sick game, dangling Gabe in front of me like a prize, always out of reach. Legally, even now there were no laws being broken, but society dug its claws into us anyways, forbidding the purest relationship two people could ever share. I needed him in almost desperation, like my soul was starved for him, making a beggar out of me, anguished, ravenous. And crazy as it sounded, I knew he needed me too. He was lonely in his despair, filling all his emptiness with good deeds, like he had to make the most of being spared in the accident.

For as long as necessary, I was going to let Gabe believe that he was the only one doing all the saving. I was going to open up to him, blossom like he wanted me to, share everything, all the ugly, all the beautiful, and then maybe he'd see how alike we were. Inside he was vulnerable too, just as broken, just as alone. I wanted to show him that it was okay to let go, to stop being who he thought he

had

to be, and just... be. He hid all his scars, put on all these smiles, opened his mouth and spoke dreams, but still, he was compensating.

Over

compensating, like he was proving that he deserved to be here, worthy of living.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. I was looking out the window of his otherwise empty classroom, peering up at the sky. A steaming cup of coffee was warming my hands.

"Summer," I said. "The sunrise is the same every season in California, but the colors always reminded me of summer. I can almost pretend I'm still there."

Gabe came to stand beside me, looking out the window like he was trying to see what I was seeing. It probably wasn't very hard, considering all the time he'd spent there, studying at a college just an hour's drive from where I'd lived. It was bizarre to think that we may have passed each other as strangers on the street and never known it.

"Do you ever think about going back?" he asked.

I shrugged. I hadn't thought about anything.

"You should," he said, taking a sip of his own coffee. "It'd be good for you. This place isn't doing you any favors. You're miserable here."

"I'd be miserable anywhere."

"That's only true if you let it be true," he said.

We looked out the window in silence for a few more minutes. I saw the colors continue to change as morning touched the earth, bringing things to life even in the winter. Gabe stood a good foot and a half away, a modest distance that looked innocent on the outside, though inside we were still radiating heat together. My nerves were like clusters, tingling, almost

begging

to reach out and touch him, but I didn't dare.

The hallways were crowded with people: students, and teachers alike. Their presence was loud, so loud, like they were sounds that only existed to fuck with me; they were the reason Gabe wasn't standing closer to me, the reason he didn't have his mouth on mine. He'd pulled me into this classroom in the dark when we'd first arrived, kissing me briefly before switching the lights on and ending all contact. He tasted like mint toothpaste and coffee, a combination that made me hungry, like my tongue hadn't gotten enough, like I needed another taste, just a little one—but he pulled away, pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead and walked away.

For the rest of this semester, it was going to be this way. Quiet mornings with no touching, no kissing, no nothing, and then entire hours of being in the same building, existing in all the same space, and still somehow being apart. Entire classes without each other, hours and hours, the minutes ticking by,

tick, tock,

separating us, bringing us back together to meet for the last class of the day. This was it. This was our reality for four, almost five, more months.

We hadn't talked about last night. The second I'd first caught his eye in the parking lot I'd turned a little pink, suddenly shy because the words out of his mouth had been

filthy,

but in person he looked courteous and gentlemanly, holding open doors and getting me coffee from the teacher's lounge. If I was a more insecure person I would have taken the distance he put between us as a sign of his disinterest, but I knew better; Gabriel Hart wanted me. What was important now was protecting each other from the world. Gabe, from the world that would ruin him for wanting me, and me from myself and all the diseased thoughts that festered in my brain.

If Gabe lost his job he wouldn't get to be here with me in an empty classroom on a cold morning with the sunrise touching his dark brown hair, making it glint copper in some places, looking like sunlight had been melted and poured over him. If Gabe lost his job, how would he pay his bills? Student loans, rent, food, gas, car payment—it was all grown-up stuff I still hadn't been exposed to, but I couldn't imagine that it'd be any walk in the park navigating that kind of crisis. If Gabe lost his job, he wouldn't be able to look at me everyday and lend me his strength. If Gabe lost his job, I'd be cut loose into the void again.

And that was why even though he stood a foot and a half away, he was doing it because, in the long run, it kept me close. My arms ached in their loneliness, but my heart would ache in his absence, in his ruin.

When the bell rang, we looked at each other, our eyes speaking in our private language again, saying

'we can do this'.

And as the door opened, as a horde of students swarmed in, we did exactly that.

—

I liked the paint between my fingers, the Friday afternoon exhale, sitting on a stool and contemplating, reminiscing, getting lost in all the old while finding all the new; breathing, inhaling, exhaling, leaving behind who I'd thought I was, seeking who I

really

was. I am ocean eyes, painting on a blank canvas to see myself, to see where a paintbrush could take me.

Staring back at me from the canvas were vibrant eyes, soulful and alive amongst all the gray, all the silvery shadows and dark values. It was a distorted face, like the kind you'd see on an old VCR tape if you paused it between frames. It was a painting of a person changing, moving forward with time, leaving behind the old life lived, shedding skin and seeking sunlight. The idea had come to me in pieces. It had started as eyes first, blue, clear, bright; then the outline of a face, drawn faintly with a pencil; but when it came time to paint it, the face broke up into two, overlapping, warping. I hadn't decided I was going to do it that way. It just... happened.

"Ah, a self-portrait. Interesting," Mr. Young said, coming to stand beside me. I shrugged, unsure. He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't right either.

"What? You don't think so?" He asked, tilting his head from one side to the other, studying the painting with curious eyes.

"I don't know," I said. "I guess the eyes are mine, but I'm not sure about the rest."

"This looks like a transition," Mr. Young said, pointing to show me where the two faces bled into one another. "Marvelous. The technique is beyond what I would have guessed for your level of skill. Have you painted before?"

My face reddened. "Not really. I just did what I thought looked right."

"Keep it up," Mr. Young said, smiling wide. "This is good, very good. You may want to consider a future in art. Just a thought."

It wasn't a thought that had ever crossed my mind before. I'd been raised beside an academic, seeking knowledge the way Emma had, pursuing the greater meanings in life with wit, logic, and intellectualism. It hadn't occurred to me before that you could find those meanings through the arts. Now that I was here, painting and seeking answers, I knew that they both had their place in the world. There were some things that could

not

be measured, could not be explained or made sense of. It was only through art that they could be translated.

Saturated and spilling, I let the colors speak for me, telling my story. With fingers stained and eyes honest, I spoke a truth that I hadn't been able to speak before. I talked about my past, about the girl I used to be, the girl who read too many books, sought too much knowledge, tried too hard to make sense of the world. But I also talked about the new me, the quiet girl with the loud thoughts, saying nothing with her mouth, saying everything with her eyes and her canvas.

Every time I walked out of Mr. Young's classroom, it was a metamorphosis. Like a butterfly, I escaped my cocoon, reborn anew each day, sent out to the world to fly. In finding myself, in separating from the ghost of my sister's shell, I found some comfort, some relief. A weight seemed to be lifting off my shoulders, easing the burden. It still hurt to lose her, it would

always

hurt, but I was allowed to let myself heal. That's what Gabe taught me.

I was allowed.

And so the world may have witnessed my fall, but now it was time for it to watch my

rise.

—

During sixth-period Creative Writing, time became a concept.

The hour spread out like butter, sunshine yellow and warm, so warm that it was like time was melting. The afternoon seemed to stretch as Mr. Hart talked, expanding like a bubble, enclosing us all inside. In class, I could watch him in motion, the way his hands moved, the way his mouth moved, the way his words moved. He hardly looked at me, hardly seemed to acknowledge that I was there, but when he'd glanced at me briefly, when he'd looked me over from head to toe the second I walked in, he set me on

fire,

reminding me of all the filthy words he'd whispered, all the dark things that had come spilling from his mouth to get me slick and wet for him, panting like an animal, needy and small. My skin burned throughout the period, hot like the California sun, blazing inside of me like a ball of fire that lived in the center of my chest.

First period as his T.A. had been like this, only worse because I'd sat up front beside him, so close that I could've reached out and touched him. It was temptation that drove me, but compassion and understanding that stopped me. The one thing I wanted more than anything, more than his body, more than sex, was to protect him. So I'd folded away from the desire, picked up a red pen and graded papers in silence while Mr. Hart had talked, weaving a dream with his words to a classroom of teenagers.

Mr. Hart. That's what I liked to think of him as in the classroom to disassociate him from the man that made me come so hard that I saw stars. Mr. Hart was one of those involved teachers. You know the kind, the ones that engaged their students, the ones that knew how to command a room, the ones that got through to the stubborn teenagers, making them face the true reality of life and how fragile it was. Mr. Hart was my teacher, but Gabe was someone else entirely; he was the keeper of my secrets, my sanity, my

heart.

Mr. Hart taught creative writing. Gabe taught forgiveness, hope, and love.

And then class was ending and everyone left in a hurry, impatient to start the weekend and kick it off with a roar of engines in the parking lot, honking and tires screeching, people chattering, doors swinging closed. I lingered at the back of the classroom, organizing my bag just for something to do until all that remained was the silence and Gabe. The only reaction I had to the

click

of the door locking was meeting his gaze.

"About last night—"

"Don't," I said, cutting him off.

"You don't know what I was going to say."

I smiled humorlessly. "You regret everything."

It was his turn to smile, but I didn't like it—I generally don't like smug smiles. He looked delighted by the prospect of proving me wrong.

"No," was all he said. Great. He was going to make me work for this one.

"Alright, Captain Ahab, I'll bite. What were you going to say?"

"Well, Moby Dick, I was going to say that last night was—a lot."

"Stop trying to make this weird," I said, getting up from my seat.

"I just wanted to know if it was too much for you. I can back off anytime you need me to."

"I need you to

not

back off," I said. "I need you to do the opposite."

He nodded, striding over. My heart rate spiked as he took me into his arms, his warmth seeping, spreading to my skin like a fever.

"Grace," was all he said before his mouth met mine. I could taste the relief on his lips, the chaos unfurling from within us as we surrendered to something that we could neither define or defy. Almost like it was muscle memory, my lips parted for him, my tastebuds bursting with the leftover flavor of his cinnamon gum, spicy and sharp, cutting right through the last of my resolve. I kissed him like I loved him, like I wanted him to know,

and he kissed me back.

I whimpered against his lips, feeling my knees weaken with each passing second, inhaling the scent of him, the taste of him, losing myself completely in him.

When Gabe finally broke the kiss, he took my face gently in his hands. There was sadness there in those hands, lined with scars, ropes and ridges of being broken so permanently that it would always remain irreparable.

"How did you get these?" I asked, taking one hand. I followed the path of a jagged scar in the center of his palm with my finger.

"My brother was stuck in a burning car, " Gabe said. "I pried off a shattered window and put out the fire on his clothes with my bare hands."

The image of it flashed in my mind so vividly that I had to close my eyes to shut it out. Burns and cuts and scrapes were physical, but this? This went beyond that. This kind of sacrifice was like burns and cuts and scrapes of the soul. Despite it all, despite the scars, his brother still hadn't survived.

"Why do you hide them away from the world?" I asked. My voice was so small that I could barely recognize it.

"People ask too many questions."

"And what happens when you answer them?"

"They start acting like I'm some kind of hero. I'm not."

"But you are a hero," I said, pressing his hand back against my cheek. "You're saving me."

"No, Grace," he said softly. "You're saving me."

And there we were, the nerd brain and the drama queen, two souls trapped in two broken bodies, but when we were together like this, when time stopped and everything fell into place, it felt for a moment that maybe we weren't so broken—that maybe, just maybe, we could still be

whole.

With my body trembling, I wrapped my arms around his neck to find some of his strength to borrow, and he gave it to me, leaning into my touch, supporting me with one arm, pulling me flush against his body.

"A-About last night," I said, looking away in embarrassment. "It wasn't too much for me."

"No?" He said, leaning down to kiss my neck. I froze.

God,

where the fuck did all my cool go when I was around him? I was like putty in his hands, all gooey and weak.

"No," I whimpered pathetically.