Robin des Bois ✓

nine. White Lies Turn Black

“Excuse me?!” Tina screeched, eyes wide. She looked as though she might faint and I felt the same way. The only thing holding me up were Gabriel’s arms wrapped around my midsection.

I could feel his chest vibrating with laughter. “I’m just kidding,” he said, his voice still light. “Isis and I aren’t together. She is pregnant, though.”

Tina leaned against the wall heavily. “How –when… Why?”

Gabriel was laughing openly by then and he let me go –partially. He still held my hand. “No, but in all seriousness, Isis is my girlfriend.”

“Are you pregnant?” Tina demanded, her side still pressed against the wall, as though she might fall over without it.

“No, I’m not,” I said through clenched teeth. I squeezed Gabriel’s hand as hard as I could, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

“You didn’t tell your friend we were together?” he asked, his voice overly incredulous.

“What’s going on here?” Tyler asked, finally making his entrance into the already cramped hallway.

I glared at Gabriel, waiting for his next ridiculous explanation. “And who is that, Isis? Was I mistaken about the nature of our relationship? Am I nothing but a side-ho to you?” He placed a hand over his heart, feigning hurt.

“Stop!” I finally burst. “Just stop, Gabriel! This isn’t funny!”

“It actually kind of is,” he countered, his eyes defying me. The message was clear. Do you want me to tell the actual truth?

I bit my lower lip, boiling with anger. I didn’t answer, but hoped that my glare conveyed everything I didn’t say.

Our staring match was interrupted by Tina’s outraged voice. "Would you mind explaining what the hell is he doing here?” she asked, and she was looking only at me, as though Gabriel wasn’t even in the room.

I couldn’t utter a single word under the fiery intensity of her enraged gaze and so I just gulped, feeling trapped.

“I think we should go,” Tyler, ever the pacifier, intervened. “She’ll explain some other time.”

“What?! We’re not going anywhere until she explains herself!” Tina argued. Tyler sent her a withering glance, which seemed to communicate some unspoken message and she finally relented, but not without casting one last glare at Gabriel and me.

Gabriel stepped to the side to let them get to the coat hanger, pulling me with him until we were both pressed against the wall. I wanted to say something –anything –to try and fix what had just happened, but I couldn’t find any words to make things better. This was yet another thing I could add to the ever-growing list of things that had gone terribly wrong in the past few weeks.

Tina didn’t spare me another glance as she stormed out, obviously fuming, but Tyler did. The look he gave me was so filled with sadness and disappointment that it broke my heart. It told me everything he didn’t say. It told me that he thought that I trusted him and Tina enough not to keep secrets from them and that I’d betrayed that trust.

I felt my throat close up as he closed the door behind him and I rubbed my eyes, trying to contain the tears that threatened to overflow.

Gabriel sighed. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna cry.”

“Asshole,” I muttered and turned my back to him.

“Isis, don’t be like that.”

I started toward the kitchen, ignoring him. My cheeks burned, my eyes itched and my throat was so closed up I was seconds away from choking. I just needed a moment to compose myself so I wouldn’t cry in front of him, but of course he didn’t give me even that.