Healing Gabriel (BoyxBoy)

✣ Chapter Twenty-Nine ✣

Healing Gabriel: Chapter Twenty-Nine

             

                                  ※(*)※Gabriel's POV※(*)※

  

        After three short knocks and a quick three-second greeting kiss to match, Evan and I were in his living room watching reruns of Johnny Bravo the next Sunday late-afteernoon. Well, he was watching; the show was more so background noise than anything to me. That and his occasional coughs, which were not sounding any better, might I say. But I couldn't bring myself to nag about his throat anymore; if he didn't want to talk or do anything about it, then fine, it wouldn't be a discussion anymore.

      Anyways, I wasn't really into the hotheaded, vain personality of Johnny Bravo, but instead felt more of a connection with Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls. Which wasn't a problem for me or anything; I actually quite liked her. When I was younger, maybe five or six, I vaguely remembered having a crush on the little blue-clothed Townsville superhero.

        I couldn't help but smile a little at the innocent irony of it all. Instead of dating someone like Bubbles, it seemed that I had fallen into her personality and ended up having a relationship with a brown-haired Johnny Bravo.

        Speaking of Evan, he was seated next to my legs on the soft white carpet, the side of his head lolling against my knee. I was nestled in the corner of the couch, wanting to curl up in my usual fetal position but resisting the urge. Evan seemed comfy resting against me, and I didn't want to disrupt that. I know that I strictly prohibited any physical contact below the waist, but he seemed to be getting away with touching my knees. I didn't mind it, though. He was always so gentle with them, never once applying any excessive amounts of pressure to them. His hands always rested limply over the jean-cladded joint, his thumb occasionally rubbing the side of it just like he'd rub the back of my hand when we entwined our fingers. It was almost as if he knew of all the painful bruising they'd been through. Of course, there was no way he could have known that because I'd never shown him them before.

        As weird as it may sound, my knees were one of the more sensitive parts of my body, just like my head, wrists and ankles. My knees had been locked, stepped on and shoved to jagged, cement grounds too many times in the past. The constant abuse resulted in them being awkward looking to the eye and caused me moderate soreness when touched. The pain in them had of course decreased into a dull sort of throbbing over the years, and with each caress and soft little squeeze of Evan's hands against them, the pain seemed to be diminishing even more.

        The relief that prickled within me whenever he eased away the mental and physical pains was such a crisp, fresh emotion. It was much different from the usual compressing, emotional rubber band ball I always felt like I had instead of a heart. A rubber band ball was a good way to compare my feelings to, I think. Each single rubber band was like an emotion such as confusion, sadness, guilt or even happiness. The rubber bands would eventually build up over each other, stretching and continuing to multiply as the ball grew, tangling up or burying all the other rubber bands. Or, in this case, emotions.

        Of course, a rubber band can only stretch so far before it snaps. And when it snaps, it hurts.

        It freaking hurts.

        I recalled the time when I'd told Evan about Sixx. I'd been a crying, disheveled mess during that discussion. But after the ordeal, I didn't have as many troubling memories of Sixx. And when I did, the usual distressing emotions that followed after him weren't nearly as strong and overpowering as they were before. They weren't taking as much of a toll on me like they had been before. Whatever led up to me not having a mental breakdown at every recollection of Sixx, I was grateful. I think it might've been getting some of the burden off my shoulders and falling asleep in Evan's presence that eased my thoughts about the deceased young boy.