Chapter 18: Regret

"You do it." Brenda hisses at Mason outside my bedroom door. I nuzzle deeper into the blankets, sighing.

They think I can't hear them.

"No." Mason says.

"Somebody has to do it." Harper whispers.

"I can hear you guys." I say, speaking up as loudly as I physically can, which isn't very loud.

I hear my door creak, and footsteps.

"You need to get up." Harper says, plopping down on my bed. I don't even bother opening my eyes.

"Get out." I grumble.

"Nate, Megan from work called." Mason starts slowly.

"Let me guess, I'm fired?" I grumble into my pillow.

He sighs slowly.

"We can't afford this place." He says carefully. "It's been two weeks."

I glance at Harper with my left eye.

"Did you get ahold of her?"

Harper is Odeletta's best friend, and all of my calls were ignored.

She sighs.

"Yes."

I asked her the day after it happened and that's the last time I saw Harper, but two weeks passed and I told my boss I had the flu and skipped class.

"You talked to Odeletta?" I ask, talking normally now. I sit up, revealing my bare chest. She adverts her eyes, nodding. "And?" I press.

"And what?" She asks.

"And how is she?" I demand, desperate.

She presses her lips together.

"I can't tell you that. I'm sorry."

I nod slowly and lay back down.

"Somebody is here to see you." Mason says slowly.

"Who?" I grumble.

"Don't get mad, alright? I didn't know who else to call and talk some sense into you."

I see a form in the entrance to my bedroom, but I don't know who it is. It's too dark in here.

I see the person move, flicking the light on.

The moment my eyes land on his face, I start rubbing them.

"Gabe?" I ask.

"Nate." He says.

Gabe. Gabriel, my cousin. He grew up thirty minutes away from me, in Millersport, the same town Odeletta's Dad grew up in.

My heart clenches at the thought of it, but I brush it away.

Gabe and I grew up with Mason. The three of us were inseparable. We spent so many summers at my aunts house with him, swinging off ropes into lakes. We talk on occasion, usually a text here and there with a conversation that lasts a couple of minutes. When Mason and I moved to Colorado, Gabe moved to Maine, and we grew apart.

Whenever we see each other, it's like we were never apart. He skipped out on holidays the last two years, so I've not seen him in a while.

He got taller, buffer, and the part of his chin that wouldn't grow hair finally has, but it's just a light beard that he has maintained.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"I hear you're in love." He says carefully.

I scoff.

"That girl? No, I don't love her. She's infuriating."

He smiles, a real, genuine smile.

"Ladies, will you give us men a bit?"

"You guys can head on home." Mason nods.

"Me too?" Brenda asks.

"Yes." He says.

"But I'm your girlfriend." She whines.

"Are you Odeletta?" He asks her.

"Well no, but-"

"Then go home."

He huffs, following Harper out the door.

When the front door slams, Gabe stares at me.

"Nate, your look like shit."

I grunt in response.

"I haven't showered in a week." I mutter. His face screws up in disgust.

"Go take a shower...and shave."

"I don't feel like it."

"Well..." He trails off, sizing Mason up. "What do you say Mace? Think we can wrestle him in fully clothed?"

"Flex." Mason says to Gabe, who tightens the muscles in both of his arms, making his muscles bulge. Mason looks at his arms and then flexes, looking at his own, and then looks at me. "Yeah, I think we can take him."

I grunt in response, practically falling out of bed, I drag myself to the bathroom.

_____

After I've showered, I walk into my room to find they have changed my sheet. I stare at my made bed and look at the two boys that are practically my brothers. I rub my freshly shaven face.

"So." Gabe says. "Tell me about Motorcycle Girl."

"Don't call her that." I growl. He puts his hands up in defense.

"Odeletta then." He says. "Who is she?"

"She's..." I sigh. Just thinking about her...about her brown eyes, her rare smile, her soft brown hair, the way she looks on that bike, how her lips feel against mine, how gentle she looks when she sleeps...my heart clenches painfully and I raise my right hand to my bare chest, rubbing my heart uncomfortably. "She's just a girl."

"Then why do you look like I just punched you in the chest?" He asks quietly. I look at him. Mason sighs.

"She's..." I squeeze my eyes shut and shrug. "She's Odeletta. She's an infuriating french girl with a smile that can make you stop in your tracks. She pisses me off, I hated her. She had to tutor me, she slapped me because I was a dick to her, but I needed a tutor in French and she knows it fluently so she was tutoring me. We had sex..." I trail off. "Long story short, it was just sex, and then I started noticing how her forehead gets lines in it when she worries, how her smile reaches her eyes unless it's not real, I noticed the way her nose crinkles when she laughs, how cute she looks when she's trying to say a word in English and she has to ask me what it is. She can't pronounce certain words and she won't say I'm or can't or don't because she struggles to pronounce it."

"That doesn't sound like just a girl to me." Gabe muses.

I sigh slowly, tracing patters on my dresser with my left hand as I fix the pockets of my sweatpants with my right hand.

"She saved her parents from getting executed in France. We visited the country together...with a class...we made out for three hours on the balcony...long story short, we were going to go on a date and some stupid bitch started hitting on me and because of my inability to tell when somebody is hitting on me, I agreed to go on a date with her without realizing I was going on a date with her. Motorcycle Girl was right there, she took off...after I shot the girl down, I followed her, and she told me how she struggled after her parents got arrested, how she learned to be independent and I stole everything from her and crushed her ability to trust...and destroyed her in the process...and then she told me she never wants to see me again and left the state to live with her parents and her aunt."

Nobody really says anything for a while.

"Do you love her?" Mason breaks the silence. I look down at the carpet, kicking it with my toes.

"I don't know." I admit. "Probably."

"Nate." Gabe sits down on the edge of my bed. "I don't think you'd have been locked in your room for two weeks straight if you didn't love her."

My whole body hurts as I realize I never even hugged her. Never, not once, did I get the privilege of just holding her in my arms.

"Do you love her? Yes or no." Gabe asks.

I squeeze my eyes shut and I feel like I could cry.

"Yes." I whisper finally. "I love her, alright? I love her, and she fucking hates me."

"We're going to Ohio." Gabe decides. "I got my Mom to pay for the tickets, Mason's Mom is paying for his. We can stay at my parents or yours."

"No." I say immediately.

"Tell me Nate, was she crying?" Gabe inquires

"What?" I ask.

"When she was yelling at you...was she crying?"

"Well yes, but-"

"Have you seen her cry before?" He asks.

I nod.

"Yes, but-"

"Why was she crying?"

"Her parents." I say.

"That girl is the strongest girl I've ever heard of." He say, staring at me. "She cried over her parents, in front of you, and cried over you, in front of you. She said you destroyed her. But she's so strong, I think she wouldn't cry over somebody unless she loved them." Gabe shrugs his shoulders.

"Yes." I say. "She doesn't cry unless she loves the person."

"Nathan." He whispers. "She was crying over you."

I stare at him.

"Harper told us that she's miserable." Mason whispers. "She left because she thinks you were going with somebody else, Nathan. She doesn't know the truth."

I stare at Mason and Gabe.

"You are going to regret it for the rest of your life if you don't fix this." Gabe says.