His Guilty Pleasure (FIRST DRAFT)

Cookie Cutter (9)

(A/N: You might notice the chapters are getting shorter. They are! They're like only 1000 words a chapter now. However, the posts will become more frequent. LMK what you'd rather have...frequent updates that aren't as long or not so frequent updates with loooong chapters. Comment below. And don't forget to vote and follow me! Love you all...we're almost at 1000 reads HOLY COW!!!!!

Also this is a multiple POV chapter that has both Leo and Gabby. What do we think...should I do more of these often? Or stick to just Gabby? LMK!!! FEEDBACK PEOPLE!!! SOS)

Gabby

When I get home from the coffee shop, Janice is waiting for me, a displeased expression plastered on her face.

"Haley came home crying. I asked what was wrong and she told me to ask you. Is there something you want to tell me, Gabrielle?"

"No." I mutter, looking sheepishly at the ground. 

"There's only one thing you could say that I imagine could get Haley that riled up. Did you tell someone about her and Kurt?"

I want to lie but instead I shrug. Janice is a human lie detector, there's no use. "She's sleeping with Leo. I wanted her to stay away from him, he's nothing but bad news you know, but she wouldn't. So I had to make him dump her."

"That wasn't your call, Gabby." Janice's expression softens slightly. "You may have had good intentions but whatever was going on between the two of them was none of your business."

"But Leo Hamilton is a douche! He only cares about sex, money, and himself. Nothing else. Nobody else."

Not me. Especially not me.

"You were trying to protect your baby sister, I get it, and after what he did to her and Bianca, I don't blame you for not liking him. I'm not too fond of him either. That's not the point. The point is that you humiliated your sister and told a secret that she wanted to remain a secret."

"But--"

"Stop trying to make excuses, Gabby. The fact of the matter is you told someone's secret. It doesn't matter why."

"You're not my goddamn mom!" I shout, surprising both of us. Her eyes widen, but once the words have come out of my mouth they just keep flowing. "You try to pretend that you are, but you're obviously not fit to be a parent! Your own fucking son turned out to be an incest loving, pot smoking, dead beat! You do not get to give me lectures! You cheated on your first husband with my dad, or do you not remember that? Was it because you wanted to feel loved again? That's the excuse you gave Kurt, right? You were in a loveless marriage? Stop trying to make excuses yourself before you tell me to stop making mine, you goddamned hypocrite!"

I storm out of the room and up the stairs, falling on my bed. I stare at the white ceiling above me. I watch my rose gold ceiling fan spin and spin and spin. Soon after, I find myself falling asleep.

LEO

Gabby fucking Hampton. I can't get the image of her out of my mind. I replay our conversation at the coffee shop over and over. I remember how her shirt dipped so low and her pink bra peeked through and it took everything in me not to shove the table away and not take her then and there. I wanted to, fuck did I want to. But I didn't. And I never can.

I thought I was a better man. I thought I could get past caring what people think of me, but I can't. Everything I do, every breath I take, is watched, evaluated, analyzed, discussed. I can't have everything I've worked so hard to build for myself at this school slip away because of a girl. 

Being with Gabrielle Hampton would be social suicide. I would become a chubby chaser. A fate worse than death.

Even my good looks, my charm, my money couldn't get me out of that. 

When I first got back from the Hamptons this past summer I thought I could make it work. I did. I was ready to shout from the rooftops that I was in love with a girl I barely knew. But then my buddies all started ragging on our old friend Jake Gordon because he started dating this chubby chick from the next town over. I realized then that if I chose Gabby, I would lose my spot at the top of the food chain. She'd pull me down to rock bottom with her. 

Is a girl really worth that?

I don't think so. Especially one that I barely know. Granted, she's funny, nice, smart, witty, she's loyal, she's loving...but she's fat. 

In our society, it doesn't matter how funny or how nice or how smart you are. It only matters if you fit the cookie cutter image the people have come to expect of you. And if you don't, you're out.

I fit that cookie cutter image of perfection.

Gabby does not.

Simple as that.

And that's why we will never be together, whether I personally find her attractive or not.