Highway Don't Care (Freebirds) (7 page)

  Opening the letter, I read it and then re-read it again.

Ember,

  I know that you trusted me, and I wish I could’ve been worthy
of that trust.  I am the one who told the Blue Skulls about you.  I
didn’t know what else to do.  They have my little brother; he’s only
ten.  Last week they made him help beat an old lady.  I can’t get him
out without getting back in myself.  I never would’ve believed when I left
them that they would recruit him.  I got to get him out.  I’m gonna
watch out for you as best I can.  I’ll give you everything I got when it’s
safe.  Forgive me.

  Kale

  My breathing turned sporadic, and tears stung my eyes. 
That poor kid.  Poor baby.  Oh god. 

  Reaching for my phone, I whipped it out and dialed Gabe’s
phone number.  It rang three times before he picked up.

  “I’m outside, come to me.”  Gabe answered, and then
hung up.

  Hands shaking, I made my way outside; the sun blinded me as
I pushed the door open.  Gabe was there straddling his bike, but quickly
jumped off and was at my side as soon as he registered the look on my
face.  Gabe’s hands went around me, and I buried my face into the muscles of
his chest.  His dog tags dug into my forehead, but the pain wasn’t
registering.  I was numb. 

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Kale sold me out!”  I cried.

  Taking my head in his hands, he pulled my face out of his
chest and wiped my tears with his thumbs.

  “One more time.”  He said.

  “Kale, my most beautiful and promising student joined that
gang.  And he sold me out!”  I said handing him the note.

  He took the note out of my hand, and scanned it.  He reread
it and then folded the note up, shoving it in his back pocket.

  “This could be a good thing, Ember.  I know you don’t
like that he did that to you, and I sure as fuck don’t either, but we could use
this to our advantage.  We can get some information next time I corner him
and question him.  He could have kept this from us, so I think he wants to
help.  Because if this got back to the Skulls that he did this, he would
be dead.  It wouldn’t be a nice death, either.  These gangs are crazy
as fuck.”  He said to me gently.

  “I know.  I just can’t believe that this was who
started this for me.  I brought him food, I gave him rides home, and I
picked up his brother and him when their car broke down.  I even took the
little brother to his pediatric appointment when he broke his arm!”  I
said.

  “We’ll figure this out,
bebê.” 
He whispered into my hair.

  When he said things like that to me in Portuguese, it made
me all tingly inside.  My heart lightened a little from its heavy
feel.  Gabe made me feel things, things that I haven’t felt since I was a
teenager, right before my parents died in the plane crash.

  “You make me feel alive and whole again; I haven’t been
right since my parents died.  I feel like I’m slowly getting back to my
old self.  I can put on a good front, smile and act happy, but it’s been a
long time since I have truly
felt
happy.  I know we’re in a shitty
situation, but you being here makes it all okay.”  I whispered to him
while burying my face into his neck.

  “I want you to tell me more, but not until we get you
home.  Being out here in the open makes me twitchy.”  Gabe said.

  He grabbed my hand and hauled me over to his bike. 

  The ride took no time at all.  As soon as we made it
through the door, I made a beeline for the fridge and grabbed us both a
beer.  If I was going to spill my guts, I needed some liquid
courage.  Handing him his beer once I was back in the living room, I
plopped down into the Lazy Boy that sat directly across from the fireplace
where Gabe had parked himself. 

  Okay, here goes nothin’ I said to myself.  I hadn’t
spoken about this to anyone since the week after it happened.  I’d spilled
my guts to Cheyenne, and we never spoke of it again.

  “It’s been a little over nine years now, and at twenty
five, going on twenty six, it feels just as raw now as it did that day.  I
can still remember when Max came to get me from school to tell me.  I’d
been in lunch, sitting at my usual table with Cheyenne, and our closest
friends.  We were having a great time laughing and playing around when I
glanced up and saw Max there, dressed in his fatigues, wearing a grim
expression.  The lunchroom had gone quiet, and all eyes watched as Max
scanned the lunchroom for me.  My stomach had fallen to my knees, and I
stood up slowly.  Max found me then, and started walking to me.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and then started
again.

  “I hadn’t seen Max in a little over six months.  He’d
joined the army right after high school, and boot camp was the hardest thing
I’d ever experienced.  Max was my rock, my confidant.  He knew my
hopes and dreams; he beat up anyone that looked at me funny.  I’d never
been away from him for more than a weekend since I was born.  When he’d
deployed, I was lost.  But seeing him right then, I knew something had to
be horribly wrong since he was supposed to be thousands of miles away in
Iraq.  He didn’t waste any time.  Once he reached me, he grabbed me
by one hand and Cheyenne by the other and led us out into the hallway.  He
didn’t stop until we reached his old Bronco in the front visitor’s lot.”

  Gabe must have felt I needed the support because suddenly I
found myself sitting in his lap, my head tucked up under his chin.

  “Keep goin’.”  He said.

  “Anyway, once we came to a stop beside the truck Max took
me into his arms and nearly broke me with a bear hug.  He told me that my
parent’s had died on the way back home from visiting my grandmother.  The
plane they were on crashed when it was landing.  The landing equipment
never engaged.  They didn’t die right away either.  They burned to
death.  They were wrapped around each other when they were extracted from
the burning remains of the plane.  We had a whirlwind the next two
days.  The funeral was planned for the day after, and Max was shipped back
to Iraq before we could even take a full breath.  I was left alone in a
huge empty house.  Cheyenne’s mom had ‘guardianship’ of me, but I didn’t
stay with them.  My parent’s life insurance policies were doled out, we
had plenty to pay off the house, cars, bills, funeral costs, and then I
invested the rest.  I had to go from partying carefree Ember to
responsible Ember in less than two days.  When I needed my brother the
most, he wasn’t there.  I didn’t see him but for his leave for the next
couple of years.  The only good thing in my life was Cheyenne.”

  “Sounds like we could be soul mates.  I’ve had one
shitty thing happen to me after another too.”  He said to me forlornly.

  “I think since I shared my shit life story with you, that you
should share yours.”  I said seriously.

  This was my chance.  If I had known that was all it
took, I would have spilled these crappy memories from the get go.  I’d
been wondering what made Gabe tick since I met him.  He was always the sit
in the back of the room and watch type of guy.  He would join in
reluctantly, but never of his own volition.

  He was also the type of man whose presence you couldn’t
ignore.  My eyes were always drawn to him, and I itched to be near
him.  However, he always came off unapproachable at first.  It was as
if one damaged soul was drawn to another.  His story had to be hard to
bring down a man whose presence seemed bigger than life.

  “Not really much to tell.  I just have shit
luck.  My dad died when I was young, my mom remarried a piece of shit who
made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to do anything.  Then my mom died
of the same disease that took my dad.  A year later, my girlfriend aborted
my kid without my knowledge.  Since then two of my closest friends have
died.  I’m just not that lucky.  That is until I met you.  When
I met you, I started to feel different.  I was happy when I was around
you.”  He said.

  I sat up straight in his lap, and then turned to look into
his eyes.  They gave nothing away.  When he gave that speech, it was
all monotone.  Like he didn’t feel any emotion anymore, or he made himself
not feel.

  “Okay.  I don’t even know where to begin.  Do you
mind if I ask you questions?”  I said while looking deeply into his eyes.

  “You can ask, but I don’t know that I’ll answer.  Some
of it’s still too raw.”  He said.

  I didn’t know where to even start.  Therefore, I
started with the one that irritated me the most.

  “So who’s the bitch I need to kill, and where does she
live?”  I asked seriously.

  Gabe burst out laughing, and it made my heart go a
pitter-patter.  I didn’t say anything else though.  I was completely
serious, and if I knew where she lived, I would give her a piece of my
mind.  I had a strong pro-life stance, and felt that every human being deserved
a fighting chance.

  I knew there were some circumstances where abortion was the
only option, but in Gabe’s case, I felt like there was something more to the
story, and she didn’t have that excuse.

  Once his laughter died down, he started speaking.

  “I met Sidney when I was home on leave.  We hit it
off, and dated for about a year when we found out she was pregnant.  I was
over the moon.  I was confused on how it happened, since I never once
forgot the condom, and supposedly, she was on the pill.  That’s neither
here nor there.  I was a guarded happy.  I wanted the baby, but
wasn’t too sure about her.  The circumstances seemed a little fishy, but
there was nothing I could do about it then.  She found out the day before
I was to deploy for six months, and I didn’t have enough time to process that
she was pregnant.  She made a doctor’s appointment, and sent me a picture
about four weeks in to my deployment.  Three months in, she sent me a “Dear
John” letter.  It said that she was no longer in love with me, that she
found someone else.  She was kind enough to tell me in a P.S. that she
wasn’t pregnant anymore, that she took care of it the day after I was
deployed.”

  I was stunned into silence.  I honestly didn’t know
what the fuck to say to that.  Who in the hell wrote that in a
letter?  This man was fighting for our freedom.  He was in a danger
zone that could have killed him if his whole mind wasn’t on the task at
hand.  Anyone who was anyone would have known that you didn’t tell someone
that.  Hell, if that woman had any morals what so ever, she wouldn’t have
aborted his baby in the first place.  What kind of God-awful person did
this?

  “I don’t even know what to say to that.”  I said
quietly.

  Leaning down, I gave him a soft kiss on the lips. 

  “Nothing to say.  I just hope I never see her
again.  I had the landlord kick her out of the house.  Apparently,
the new love interest had moved in.  I closed the account that had our
name on it.  I also called movers to move all my shit into storage. 
I didn’t leave her with a thing.  I was so disgusted with her that I cut
all ties with her.  I never even went back to the town I used to
live.  I moved here when I retired from the army.”  He said.

  The more he told me about this woman, the more upset I
got.  If I’d been a cartoon character, I would be blowing steam out of my
nostrils and ears right about now.  My eyes would also be shooting laser
beams.  What.  A. Bitch.

  “What a bitch!”  I fumed.

  One of Gabe’s rare smiles flashed across his face.  It
was a good thing to see right about now.  No wonder he always seemed
moody.  He’s had a tough lot given to him in life.

  “How long ago was this?”  I asked cautiously.

  “I got out of the army a year and three months ago.” 
He said quietly.  “If the baby had lived, he would be a year and a half.”

  Oh Jesus.  Tears were running down my face.

  “Your mom?”  I sniffled out.

  “She died while I was on deployment.  She didn’t even
tell me.  I never knew until they told me she had gone.  My
stepfather had the funeral before I could even get home on emergency
leave.  Didn’t even bury her where she wanted to be buried, which was next
to my dad.  He had her buried in some tomb in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 
She hated it there.  Dad was buried in Detroit.”  He said
easily. 

  A little too easily.  His face was closed off now, and
I knew that I had pushed him farther than he wanted to go.  Deciding to
change the subject, I started telling him a funny story about Max, James, Cheyenne
and me.

  “So this one time at band camp.”  I said while pausing
for effect.

 He rolled his eyes, exasperated at my attempt at
lightheartedness.  I small smile crooked the corner of his lip up, but
that was all that he gave me.

  “Okay, it wasn’t at band camp.  Cheyenne and I were
having a sleepover, and found out that Max and James were going on a double
date that night.  So, we did what any thirteen year olds would do, we hid
in the back of the car while they went to pick up their dates.  Things were
moving along nicely until around ten that evening.  We thought they would
just go to a movie, but they didn’t.  They went to some party, and we were
stuck in the car for hours.  Luckily, we planned ahead and brought snacks
and drinks.  Here we were hanging out in the back seat eating some trail
mix when the cops show up.  The car was boxed in pretty good, and there
was utter chaos going on outside our doors.  Deciding that it was best for
us to get out of there, I hotwired the car-“I was saying before he interrupted
me.