 
# Born Different

# Faye Aitken-Smith

Copyright 2011 Faye Aitken-Smith

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission of the author.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Front Cover Image © REN Photography

Front & Back Cover Design by Kayla Wren

Because we all have wings, but some of us don't know why

Don't be afraid, love will mend your broken wings

# Prologue

Gabe had gone as far as he could go and now he was stood at the edge of the steep cliff. He was all out of options...there were very few choices left, if any. The throng, of what seemed like over a hundred people, inched closer towards him. Gabe was convinced that he even heard some of them shouting for him to jump.

They had all driven him here, each and every one of them, in their own way. _What sort of_ _world is this_ , thought Gabe? He'd never felt like it was for him! He was special and different and he had carried that on his shoulders like a heavy weight for all of his life. And now, after eighteen relentless years of it, enough was enough.

Gabe drew in one last deep breath. He looked down over the cliff's edge, down to the very bottom where the waves crashed, frothed and fought back. It was a hell of a long way down.

Gabe looked up to the bright summer midday sun and, believing with all his heart and soul that this was what he _had_ to do, Gabe jumped.

# Chapter 1

Still dripping wet from his hot morning shower, Gabe strolled into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. The bedroom light was still turned off and his thick lined curtains and wood slatted blinds were still shut firmly tight, so as not to let any light or curious eyes in.

Gabe took a moment to stay in the absolute dark for a while. He let himself disappear into its black hole of nothingness for a few luxurious seconds more before getting on with his imposed morning routine. Gabe felt peaceful as he let the sensation of just being at one with the dark air fill his imagination. If he stayed still, he thought it was like he wasn't really there at all. He could disappear. Gabe for a moment let himself believe that he didn't exist and this thought left him feeling absolutely serene.

A thought surfaced in Gabe's place of tranquillity, reminding him that he had an exam to sit this afternoon. His last one. And this very real thought, brought him immediately back to the present moment. Back to a not as pleasant reality, where he did actually exist and the feelings of peace and nothingness disappeared instantly, opening the flood gates for all the worries he was trying not to fret about so that they came through now in a torrent of abuse.

Gabe wasn't looking forward to the exam at all but, he reasoned to himself, seeing as it was his last one it meant that there were no more exams to sit ever again. No more school. No more lessons to sit through and endure. No other kids to deal with on a daily basis. No more school routine. He had made it. He was eighteen years old. A man, legally at least, and he was nearly free of the place that he had felt imprisoned him.

After today, he only a week or so left before the real last ever day of school and the only day that really mattered to Gabe; the final day, the day of The Exhibition, Speeches and Awards Ceremony.

Gabe was only interested in The Exhibition on the last day. He wasn't planning on receiving any awards but he was planning on exhibiting all his art works and, with any luck, his artwork would grab some one's attention. Enough so, that someone would give him a job to walk into of some sort or, ideally, buy all his paintings right there and then with a great big wad of cash and commission him to do more.

_Ha ha. Dream on boy_ , Gabe thought to himself. But he could dream on. 'Dreaming on' was all he had going for him at the moment.

Gabe's paintings could be found hanging on the walls all over his school and Gabe noticed that people were always stopping to look at them. Gabe liked to watch how his paintings changed people, how some had been left a little shocked, others confused and even some were, on occasion, slightly repulsed by them. His paintings always drew comments and, most importantly to Gabe, questions and stories. Everyone always had a reaction as to what his paintings meant to them. Gabe thought that that was what art was all about, how people translated the images when woven together with the facts and experience of their own lives. Gabe loved that about art. Gabe thought that his paintings distracted people out of their boxed minds so that a light was turned on for a little while, as the painting or drawing reflected on their deep hidden souls.

Gabe had to prepare a speech about his art which had been worrying him even more so than The Exhibition. He should really be allowed to just focus on the art and not be distracted preparing some justifying waffle interpretation of his art works and inspiration and other such bollocks.

Even if he did prepare the best speech ever, which was extremely unlikely, giving the speech up on the stage in front of the whole school, all the parents, teachers and any other attendees, which were likely to be certain influential people in the city, all full of themselves and dressed to impress each other; all those eyes on him, judging him, whispering! No! There was no way on this planet that that was ever going to happen.

Ever since attending The Exhibition in his first year Gabe had, on many occasions, found himself rehearsing and playing out the day in his head, the big day when it would be his turn. Seven long years, Gabe had daydreamed about how he was going to arrange his little art space area, what he might say to anyone that might ask anything, how he would indeed respond if some big collector or gallery owner gave him a wad of notes. And always, Gabe played out the moment when it would be his turn to get up on stage, in front of a packed school hall, the sea of faces and piercing pairs of eyes directed at him. He went over how he would have to focus on the stairs, for fear of tripping up in front of everybody. How he would have to remember to shake some sweaty hand of whoever, probably the headmaster who might even utter his first ever words to Gabe personally. Gabe had succeeded in avoiding the man his entire school life. One last handshake to go, "By the way, I was here too! I know you know that I was because it is a bit obvious to everyone that I am bit different. The teachers would have filled you in on whatever gossip, or lies, they had collected proudly like good little disciples. Good luck with everything and all that but I'll be off now!" And then Gabe would imagine taking to the microphone.

At this point, Gabe would feel sick. His legs would start to wobble, as if he was on a small boat on choppy waters, then the ground would start to wave and swell like the sea, antagonising the leg wobble so that they gave in and turned to jelly. Then Gabe would feel his lips go dry as, at the same time, the saliva in his mouth was being over produced, sliding down the gills of his throat as his stomach turned doing inside-out flip manoeuvres, as it worked whatever he had eaten back up his oesophagus, causing Gabe to get a fit of gulping swallows to battle the inevitable. Gabe knew there was a good chance his nerves would compel him to projectile vomit over the audience.

He'd even had nightmares about it. Similar to the ones when he'd been a kid and dreamt that he was turning up to school as usual, walking across the gravel of the playground, head down. And then he would suddenly realise, when it was too late and everyone else had stopped and had started staring, pointing and laughing at him, was that he was naked. Stark bollock naked. Naked without even a school bag to use to hide himself. Gabe had the exact same dream about being up on stage. Gabe took this as a sure sign that this was not his path in life. Hell, Gabe spent most of his life trying to avoid people. Trying to get them _not_ to notice him, even if it was impossible for them not to. Putting himself in their line of fire was against every one of his natural and learnt instincts.

The more Gabe thought about it, the more he thought that he should just give the whole day, The Exhibition included, a miss. He only really needed to get his art work down there at some stage and then he could let it speak for itself. He just had to move it all from his studio in the garden, to the big school hall and leave some cards out with his details on it. And then he could just leave and never need see another pupil, teacher or brick of the bastard school ever again!

It was a very tempting proposition. A far easier and less nerve wracking way of doing things. He could get his friends to help him transport the huge canvases, and a sculpture that he had goaded himself into making this week in a final all-out effort to make the desired level of impact needed. (The sculpture that he hadn't started yet. The sculpture that he had no material to sculpt it out of; no wood or marble or anything suitable. Or no idea how to sculpt, which was probably more of a problem. Or indeed, what to sculpt.) And then he could be back hiding out in his studio, on his own and free, by the time the hall doors opened up to the general public for The Exhibition. Not going felt like the right thing to do. It felt nice and relaxing as opposed to the other option which only ever left Gabe feeling gut wrenchingly nervous to the point of neurotic.

But there was just too much hanging on The Exhibition. Gabe knew somewhere deeper inside of him that he _had_ to be there. He couldn't leave anything to chance. The Exhibition was probably going to be the most important day of his life so far and he had to go the extra mile and give it his all. Even if he ran away before the speeches, he had to show his face around his work. It was the least he could do. If he was so desperate for someone to take an interest in his art work, he had to at least show them the respect of turning up. It was time to grow up and face a few fears if he was going to get anywhere in life.

If no one noticed, appreciated or liked his art enough to take it to another place, then he would be truly fucked.

Gabe reached over to the darkest corner of his room and he tried to locate the little switch on the lamp that was always on his desk. But he only succeeded in knocking down the precariously stacked pile of books that had been balancing amid his computer, sketch books, plate of half eaten food, discarded tubes of paint, brushes, dried up palettes and God knows what else, with a great domino effect, crashing din.

"You bloody clumsy fool!" Gabe cursed himself and in a burst of frustration, he swiped his arm over the top of the desk clearing it of almost everything including a pint glass that smashed in the process. And, once again, Gabe tried to find the tiny switch that he knew was hiding there somewhere.

"You alright up there?" Gina shouted up the stairs.

"Yes, fine mum."

The lamp gave a low, warm, orange glow to the room. Just enough light for Gabe to barely see what he was doing but still leaving enough darkness to hide the mess and filth of his room. Enough darkness to hide in the shadows, all of what Gabe would rather not look at first thing in the morning.

But at least the desk was looking neater now! That was a start. If Gabe's room was a tip, his studio was worse. His life was a mess and Gabe knew that it was time to start clearing up quite a few things. School was going to end and with that, so was everything about his old life. Everything was going to change, at last. Everything had to change! He couldn't go on living like this.

Gabe selected the music he wanted to listen to and turned the volume up. High.

The first beats of the song banished the silence and were a welcoming distraction from the constant train of internal, mostly anxious, dialogue that was plaguing him today. As the music washed over him, he gave an audible sigh of relief.

Gabe opened the desk drawer and got out all of the things that he needed. All the paraphernalia it took to keep his secret...a secret. Gabe had plenty of secrets, but this was his biggest one, his huge dark secret that he thought was the cause of most, if not all, of his problems and therefore what he blamed for all them on bad day, and there were lots of bad days. Out of all of his secrets, this secret was the one that he was by far the _most_ ashamed of! Everything else really just paled in comparison.

Gabe looked at his dimly lit reflection in the full length mirror. He made himself look over every part of his, partially, shadowed body until he caught his own eyes looking back at him.

Gabe stopped still for a moment and he looked back, deep into his own eyes.

"I am me," Gabe told himself.

It gave him goose bumps every time he did this and Gabe involuntary shivered as he felt a pleasant effervescent chill start at the crown of his head and oscillate down his body in a wave.

Gabe stayed looking right back into his own eyes and staring at his own pupils in the reflection of the mirror Gabe tried to recognise that there was someone there. He tried to recognise himself. Gabe tried to witness that he really was, alive. And more than that...that he was conscious of the fact that he was alive, living a conscious life in this body.

This always excited Gabe and he _needed_ this thrill. The thrill of knowing something special. Only he didn't know exactly what it was. The thrill halted the worrying in its tracks and the thrill counteracted the burden of what he had to do now.

Gabe looked at the items on his desk now with resentment and he knew that he should just get on with it and take it in his stride but, if anything, the procedure it took into hiding his secret, got more laborious and frustrating by the day. It depressed Gabe, but he had no other choice. He could hardly act like a normal kid and just throw on his clothes, eat his breakfast, kiss his mum goodbye and run out of the house. Gabe was not a normal kid.

Without turning his head, Gabe shook the blue glass bottle, popped the cork and poured out a good few drops of the apparently healing, blended essential oils into the palm of his hand. He rubbed his hands together thoroughly to cover them completely and to warm the oil. Then he began to massage and moisturise the dry, cracked skin on his upper body that, like the periphery hot lava from a recently erupted volcano, was red and raised, angry looking and seemingly creeping forward and expanding by the day.

Gabe started on his neck and then he moved onto his shoulders. His fingers expertly felt for the knots in his twisted muscles. He tried to avoid any open wounds as he massaged deeper, in a feeble attempt to try and make the pain go away.

Gradually, Gabe worked his way around to where the dry skin turned into thick dying flakes on top of cracking, so deep, that red crevasses of blood were visible between the split layers of skin, like thin red rivers running through the valleys of the steep differing stratum of flesh.

This was the skin that covered his shoulder blades. This was the delicate skin of the thin flesh that covered the bones and joints of the growths on his back. Gabe had been born with these growths. They protruded from his shoulder blades. They were, much to his horror, as much a part of him as his arms and legs were.

As Gabe had hit puberty, the growths, along with the rest of his body, had grown and changed and morphed into something quite different from their adolescent self. Their initial under developed, small and delicate form, had transformed to become something now quite large, cumbersome and dominant. He had grown from the boy with a slight hump, in his dressed appearance, to now a man with quite an apparent deformity.

Gabe was sure that he was a man, or at least on the brink of manhood. He had all the usual characteristics of a man. He sure as hell was not a bird or a bat or a butterfly or indeed any kind of insect. He just had these growths, or to be more accurate, wings.

Gabe had wings.

# Chapter 2

Everyone is born different but some are born more different than most and Gabe believed he had been born _a lot_ different to everybody else.

His mum, Gina, had named him Gabriel. Like the angel. But Gabe didn't feel like an angel, quite the opposite, Gabe felt like a complete and utter freak.

If everyone had been born with wings, then Gabe would probably have never had the need to give his own a second thought. But, as far as Gabe could tell, nobody else had wings. Gabe was so special and different that he was unlike anybody else out there in the whole wide world and therefore, therefore he felt, despite the knowledge that there was nearly seven billion different sorts of people on the planet, that _he_ was actually very much alone.

Gabe closed his eyes and he inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled fully through his mouth. Then slowly, as he counted to ten in his mind, he inhaled air into his lungs until they were full and his breath held steady. Gabe kept his chest high and puffed out and when he could not hold his breath for any longer comfortably, Gabe exhaled slowly and with control, and he tried to let go. With each tiny slow breath out, he tried to let go of all the stresses he had built up inside of him. The tensions, the resentments, the fears, the worries and the accumulated anxiety.

Exhale, deflate, release and let go.

Inhaling again, Gabe stretched his wings out wide. He stretched them out wide and then wider. As wide as they would go. Unfolded, unfurled and free. Expanded, extended and excellent.

Now that he was free, Gabe looked at his dimly lit reflection again. He looked at the contours of his image, at his wings, at himself. In this pose he was as no other human being would ever see him.

This was who he really was and no one would ever know.

Gabe stood tall and straight with his wings expanded proud and he held this position for as long as he could. He tried to remember to breathe. And as he breathed into the pain he tried, with each breath out, to stretch his wings that little bit further. The pain was intense but Gabe was always determined to hold out for just that one second longer. His stamina fought an internal battle with the lower voices telling him that if he gave up now then he was a failure. An ugly failure. And that failure was all that he was capable of. Gabe told himself he was weak and unlovable if he couldn't hold out any longer.

With every second, Gabe bullied himself, taunted himself worse than any other human had tried to. He pushed forward through the pain barriers until he was tortured. Until the pain threshold finally overtook the powerful strength of his rarely expressed and usually repressed anger and self-hatred. Until he started to shake, the trembles graduating to full body convulsions. Until it was physically impossible for Gabe to hold his wings out expanded for another second more... only then did Gabe collapse his wings down, exhausted.

He had broken a sweat and had to bend over, hands on knees, to support himself as he panted, red faced, trying to get his breath back again without retching. Gabe focused on the pattern of his rug and he tried to stare beyond the solid object in an effort to try and take his mind off the sharp as a knife, stabbing pains and agonising aches that he felt down to the bone. Way down to the marrow. Right down to the very core of his being.

Pain crossed Gabe's back and it burned so deep, Gabe felt like he was on fire. As usual, he knew that he had opened some of the old wounds with his efforts. Gabe felt the sensation of the wet, colder blood trickling down over his skin; almost tickling in the reflection of the more intense sensation of the burning furnace beneath.

Gabe knew that he needed to exercise more. He really should make more of an effort to get some fresh air and natural light onto his back, shoulders and wings. He had been forced to mix with the general public for too long and it showed in his health. He needed to build up his strength and do something more about helping himself to heal.

"But how exactly am I supposed to go about doing that?" Gabe angrily muttered to himself. "I can't exactly strip off in the city and just start flapping my wings about!"

Gabe shook his head and had a wry laugh to himself. It wasn't that funny but Gabe was in no mood to cry about it today.

What was he supposed to do? If he exercised them, they got bigger and he didn't want his secret getting any bigger. It was enough to cope with as it was. At least, when he let them wither, that despite the extra pain they were easier to bandage, to hide, to conceal and keep hidden. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.

The only time Gabe had the chance to live with his wings out, was when he isolated himself away from the rest of the world in his art studio in the back garden. So Gabe spent whatever little spare time he had in there, painting with his wings out, getting some much needed exercise or just doing nothing but staring up at the sky dreaming of a better future, a future filled with sunny days and carnivals. Of living life with his wings out all the time and never hidden; of being a great and celebrated artist, rich and famous; of talking to Grace, the girl he had had a crush on but never spoke to; or of being reunited with his long lost dad.

Day dreaming of all these things was preferable to Gabe's reality, which was that he was usually sat, dying of boredom, in lessons at school or hanging out, in the cold and damp outdoors, with his friends that he didn't really like anymore; courting trouble and committing, mostly by proxy, but Gabe was certain that was illegal too, crimes.

Gabe could put a lot of his issues and problems in life down to the fact that he had been born this way. The wings had set him apart, physically, socially and so too mentally. He may not have resembled anyone physically but Gabe was just as sure that no one felt, thought or saw like he did either. Only he wasn't sure if the wings had made him this way or whether it was another defect of birth.

Gabe often held the debate with himself about having his wings removed. Cut the problem straight off with a surgeon's knife. At least then he would look normal. It was an argument that was never far from his thoughts. He was sure that there were talented surgeons out there that could do it and getting 'corrective' surgery seemed to be like a national past time these days.

Plastic surgery, once the domain of the rich and the damaged, was now just another consumer item 'must have'. Anything you wanted done or changed was achievable and for sale right there on the high street. It was just another one of the millions of consumer choices available. Surgery was just another fashion house, only it happened to trade in human skin. Bigger boobs, flatter stomachs, lifted faces, pouting lips like the movie stars, pert ripe round butts...wing removal?

As Gabe began to wrap the bandages around himself he thought of how much he would love not to have to go through with this rigmarole every single day.

But so far Gabe had convinced himself to keep his wings, for all sorts of reasons and excuses, but mainly because there was no way that he was going to go showing them to anybody else. Let alone rooms full of doctors, specialists and nurses and God knows who else. No way! And Gabe thought, _What if?_ What if he did have his wings removed, what then? He would look normal but he knew that he could never _be_ normal _._ If he no longer looked the way he did now, what would he be then? Just like one of the masses? Gabe couldn't think of anything worse.

Half bandaged Gabe looked at himself again in the mirror. He was a freak of nature. He'd had no other choice than to become an outcast, a loner even, although he wasn't as keen on that term. Loners are odd in a bad way and besides, Gabe had friends. There were other freaks, other outcasts and they had banded together too and were as much a group in the school dynamics as any other clique. Gabe had Frank, Dave and Johnny. All of them damned.

One of Gabe's favourite tracks came on and he turned the volume up even louder in an attempt to drown out the voices in his head. He closed his eyes and let the music touch his soul. He let the baseline beat with the rhythm of his heart and he felt the melody lift his spirit. Gabe listened to the words being sung, speaking of exactly the way he felt. The music Gabe loved expressed all the things that he identified with deep within himself, but was never able to verbalise so well.

"It's eight darling!" Gina shouted on cue like she did every single weekday, telling him what he already knew. And, as if her voice set off his mobile phone, it vibrated across his bedside table, letting him know that he had another message.

But it could wait.

The daily ritual of the wrapping up of the wings was quite complicated to get exactly right but Gabe was an expert at it now and could do it with his eyes closed. Oil, massage, bandages cut to size and wrapped around, pinned and secured. Scissors. Another length of bandage cut and wound the other way, pinned and secured. Again, another length of bandage cut and wound around to bind the other two together, wrapped, pinned, taped, secured. Done. Then a vest, T-shirt, shirt. Check, double check. Finally, always a heavy jumper to cover the whole lot; whatever the weather, rain or shine.

It was now the end of the last summer term of school that Gabe would ever have and he had been relieved that, so far, it had been a cold damp one. He preferred the cold, well that was not strictly true, but the heat was unbearable dressing the way he did, with all those layers. The fact that he had never peeled off even one item of clothing in his entire school life, even when there had been heat waves, just exacerbated the situation and made the other kids view him even more 'different' than they already did.

Weird mentally, as well as physically, was what they all smugly calculated and whispered even if they weren't the type to shout it at him.

He wasn't stupid. Did people presume that, because of the way he was, that he couldn't hear or be affected by what they were saying? That he didn't notice them all stop and point and nudging their friends who would, unsubtly, turn too and pretended not to stare in his direction?

Perhaps they assumed the weird mental thing meant that he couldn't quite comprehend them delighting in their own disgust or simply, and more than likely, they just didn't care. Judging him made them feel that much better about themselves. Gabe liked to think that he didn't care too, that it sorted the wheat from the chaff. And anyway, he would never be friends with people like that so it did him a favour. He didn't have to bother!

But how was he going to explain it away anyway? There was not a sufficient enough excuse for acting like a weirdo other than being a weirdo.

Gabe sniffed the arm pits of a t-shirt and threw it into the far corner in a make shift, 'needs to go in the wash' pile and he opened his drawer to see if any clean ones had magically appeared in there.

Not that he thought it really mattered if he stank, no one ever got that close to notice. Gabe, like a spare part, had spent his entire school life sat at the back of classrooms on his own, due to his size and the potential obstruction to others visibility of the teacher that his deformity might cause. People didn't seem to know how to communicate with him and in all honesty Gabe had trouble following them. He noticed that people rarely, if ever, looked him in the eye. They might stare from a distance or even clock him in their peripheral vision but not one of them ever really looked Gabe straight in the eye. The ever present paradox of it all was that Gabe's deformity that was so obvious, had also made him disappear.

At least it was all over now. Gabe had hated school. Hated everything about it. The teachers had quenched his desire to learn by their insistence on the forced leaning of irrelevant facts and probably false theories and one-sided debates. And they had miraculously made even the most interesting of subject matter, mundane and stressful. Gabe was sure that it wasn't just him that thought this as all the other students were now hysterically revising for these exams. No one seemed to have actually learnt anything in the two years of sixth form. If they had, surely there would be no need to revise, they would have already learnt it in the lessons and stored it for life in their brains to be easily recalled when needed? But as far as Gabe was working out, nobody had lucked out on this, there was an obvious flaw in the system.

There had to be a better way. Gabe found he learnt more on the internet or even just watching a documentary on the TV. He could learn the words to a song after hearing it only a few times, but when it came to remembering anything he'd been taught in school...it was impossible. Gabe hoped that one day they would realise that. Maybe one day the people who decide these things will figure out that no one really learns without passion and excitement, and to turn great subjects into monotonous tasks was monstrous.

But Gabe had his suspicions that the deal of school was to turn out brainwashed humans behaving like malleable robots that could be easily controlled. Gabe suspected that the main aim of school was for the masses to learn to do as they were told in the pursuit of a civilised society where the rich and powerful didn't have to deal with 'out the box' thinking and creative minds which would only causing rebellion and uprising. If the masses were clued up and free thinking, then those in power would have to share their wealth and everything would change and people might then start to live with nature rather than destroying it, and no big business or current government could survive that. They knew that, as long as you kept people warm, fed and entertained separately, all in their own little box of space then they weren't going to have too many issues with the world outside their front door. The only issues the masses would have would be the ones 'they' let them have. To increase fear and thus consumption of whatever it was 'they' wanted you to consume next. It was all business really. Control, power and money. The three mistresses of the Gods of the modern world. Everything was just clever tools to manipulate the people through their inherent human natures and manufactured human desires. Human beings are easily brainwashed. Gabe was aware of the traps and he didn't want to fall into them.

Gabe tried to do something with his hair, it wasn't short and it wasn't long, he hadn't had it cut in years but it just seemed to grow up and out and not down like it was supposed to. He ran his still oily fingers through it to give it some weight but that only made it look greasier.

He gave up, every day was a bad hair day and Gabe thought that everything would be different in _his_ ideal world.

Gabe had long ago come to the conclusion that he and most, if not all of the other kids in the city were kept at school more as a mass child sitting and brain washing exercise as opposed to anything else. Like an enriching education. School kept them all in one place and off the streets and off their parent's hands, so that they could go to work to pay for it all. School broke their spirit so that they could all be rebuilt, moulded and controlled, so that everybody was pretty much the same as everybody else by the time they left. Gabe thought that this was what everybody strove for; to fit in, to conform, to join the masses. It wasn't for him but he had no doubt that most kids must enjoy school enough; being in an institutional environment, being controlled and instructed what to do and believe every hour of their day. Living by the bell. They must do because most chose to continue to live like it for the rest of their lives.

But Gabe wasn't like everyone else. Gabe would never fit in, he would always be different. To live like other people? It was impossible, even if he had wanted to. But, he didn't want to.

He could have done better in school if he concentrated the teachers had said. But Gabe did concentrate; it was just that he was concentrating on all of the things that interested him, which was not what the teachers were talking about. _Do the maths_ , he thought.

Gabe was concentrating on what was going on outside of the classroom window. Gabe was focused; it just was not on the class but on what was happening out in the car park or on the street beyond or even the park beyond that. Gabe was studying the colour of the light that day, or the way the clouds were rolling across the sky. Sometimes Gabe was observing everything with such a thirst; it was like his eyes were drinking up every little vivid detail. A sweet wrapper discarded, a dog taking a shit, a figure in the distance that could be a ghost, a leaf falling down off a high branch in a swaying Waltz. These were the things that were occupying Gabe's mind.

Mostly though, Gabe just clocked out altogether and went on a mad day dream where he wasn't there in the classroom at all. Gabe could go anywhere for hours in his own head. But more often than not, Gabe was just wishing that he was back home alone in his studio where he could paint and just be, free from the bandages.

He tried to listen to the teachers, he promised himself to focus on the class but his brain wouldn't let him. He might hear the first sentences at the beginning and that would set him to thinking, to questioning, to daydreaming. Gabe was concentrating on all the things that you couldn't necessarily see with the naked eye. Gabe was constantly thinking, analysing and having ideas and fantasies and he couldn't stop doing it as much as he couldn't stop having wings.

He hadn't wanted to go on to the sixth form, he didn't know why he couldn't just work on his art at home and attend The Exhibition, but that was not possible. They 'saw potential' they had said and Gabe hadn't known whether to be offended or take it as a compliment. They had added that he 'needed to get some more guidance with his art and take some 'real subjects' too as a back-up plan for the real world.'

The 'real world'? All Gabe knew about the real world was that people just got into other routines and put their heads into the sand and lived out there lives like robots. And Gabe thought that perhaps it was wise not to take advice off of people that didn't seem to be having great lives themselves. Why should he take advice off anyone who wasn't living the sort of life that he thought he would like to live? If he'd of wanted to be a teacher in this dirty city...then sure. But he didn't, so they could shove it!

But as Gabe had less idea then than he had now, which was still nil, about how he was going to go about living his life and his mum and the teachers had basically insisted with a heavy dose of emotional blackmail. Making it clear he could not attend The Exhibition if he didn't attend the school. What else was he going to do? There weren't any jobs to go to, let alone 'good jobs'. Staying in school would keep him away from his gang of friends and their dodgy ways of making money. And, probably as important as The Exhibition, there was Grace; the girl who Gabe had still not managed to summon the courage to speak to yet. She would be going on to the sixth form, so in the end, Gabe had signed up.

Within the first week, Gabe had a panic attack. He hadn't had one before. Gabe had since come to believe that the panic attack was obviously a warning sign. His body was trying to tell him something. His rational voice had not been listened to, he was doing something that he really didn't want to do and his body had rebelled.

He had been in the long corridor before classes when suddenly, for no obviously apparent reason, he felt like he was choking. What his body usually did without Gabe having to think about, suddenly decided that it wasn't going to do it anymore. Like breath. His throat had just constricted tight shut and his heart had started beating loudly and faster than he thought was possible. The blood and feeling had drained empty in his arms and his legs, from the tips of his fingers and toes up, leaving them cold and numb. And Gabe thought, after a few long seconds, that he was going to die.

This was it! Right here and right now in this hellhole place, in front of all these idiots and strangers would be where he experienced his last moments on this earth. And as he had struggled to breathe and not pass out, when he was sure that his whole life was going to flash before his eyes like he was told it did in your dying moments, various other kids had stopped and had started pointing and whispering behind their hands to each other and looking at him with shocked, repulsed and twisted faces. And as seconds passed in slow motion, Gabe could see that some had begun to dither about whether they should approach him or not. He then had the impounding fear that he was going to be exposed, that someone was going to stroll over 'the hero' and take his jumper and shirt off of him. Someone would inadvertently reveal his secret. Reveal his wings.

Gabe was then more petrified about people trying to save his life for fear that they would see his wings, than of dying! When of course they would have all seen his wings anyway but at least then he would be dead.

Panicking during a panic attack is just about the worst thing you can do. Thinking back to the incident now, Gabe reddened and shook his head at the thought of himself pathetically pleading, somehow through his own blind terror, with the growing crowd not to approach, not call an ambulance. Just on the small off chance that he might live.

The worst thing about the whole incident was that Grace, the Grace that didn't usually notice that Gabe existed, had come up to him. She had told him that everything was going to be OK. She told him to breath, to stay calm. She had touched his arm, told him that it was just a panic attack and that he'd be alright in a minute.

He couldn't look at her, he had to just close his eyes and try to think, to focus on staying alive. Focus on an inner light, on convincing his lungs that it was OK to take in air again.

Soon he was breathing 'sort of' normally and he was embarrassed, mortified, blushing as much out of shame as lack of air. It had passed, everything back to normal like nothing had ever happened. But that fear, that new depth of 'facing death' terror, _that_ had never left him.

Sometimes; when something happened now, like there were too many people in a room encroaching on his personal space or if he was doing something that knew he shouldn't really be doing, which was happening now more so than ever; Gabe felt it again instantly, usually only briefly but almost as intensely as those first few breaths into that panic attack. When everything stops still in suspended animation for a few long lucid seconds and Gabe recognises that different, dry, metallic, pungent taste in his mouth. That now familiar taste of all-consuming fear.

That day, Gabe had learnt two things; one was the knowledge of a new depth and dimension of terror and the other was that he now knew, without an absolute shadow of a doubt, that he would rather die than let anyone know his secret.

And now after two long and laborious years on top of the five he had already spent at secondary school, it was all over. Only, like a caged animal, Gabe was now familiar with his surroundings. And as the day of freedom approached, Gabe was now thinking and beginning to suspect and worry that perhaps he didn't quite know how he would survive out in the wild.

Not that Gabe thought of the school environment as his world, that zoo with the other animals in it. But at least here he knew his place. He had fallen into a role and character. It was not the best one, the leading role, the jock or the girl magnet, it certainly was not a role he would ever have chosen for himself but it was not the worst one either. Gabe was 'the kid with the hump'!

There were certain kids far worse off than Gabe in the school meat market, he knew that. Hell he was best friends with some of them! _Had_ been best friends with them Gabe reminded himself but now his life, future and sanity would be better if he walked away from them too.

# Chapter 3

From the pile of clothes on the floor, Gabe pulled out the first jumper that came to hand and put it on over his shirts, t-shirt, vest and the swathes of bandages. He made a series of last checks to make sure that everything was concealed completely and then he did the finishing adjustments for pain; rearranging himself, trying to get as comfortable as possible. Making sure that not too much of the mottled red rash skin was appearing over the neck line. No visible tell-tale blood spots.

When Gabe was finally content that he was completely, utterly and totally hidden, only then did he feel safe enough to open up the curtains and tilt the blinds to let in some light and reveal the new day.

Gabe peered through the gap in one of the slats so that he could see out to the grey skies and beyond. Everything was still wet with the tail end of last night's storm that was still pissing it down; puddles of water covered every surface and there was not an inch of sun in sight. And Gabe thought that only he could gleam a little delight out of this depressing scene of summer.

Everyone else was always hoping for sun and warmth so that they could throw their clothes off and walk around half naked. One day, Gabe thought, he would like a tan and be able to throw his clothes off with the same carefree abandon like everyone else did. Without a care in the world, walking around enjoying the good weather. It was all anyone ever seemed to go on about. Sunny days, beach holidays, suntans, nice sunny weather. It drove Gabe mad but at the same time he would have given anything to do the simple things that most other people took for granted.

Gabe was so often forced to go against the grain of what everyone else thought was acceptable or enjoyable to do and not because he always wanted to, even though that is what everyone else had to presume and think. Gabe believed he couldn't be more damned if he tried.

Out in the pouring rain it was a day like any other. Grid lock traffic, people busy getting from A to B, living out their routines, their lives. Day after day. The red brick houses topped with grey slated roofs lined up, one after another. The cars, sat bumper to bumper, belching out further plumes of grey. In all of its chaos, it looked static. Day in day out, it looked as if nothing ever really changed.

Looking out of the window, Gabe always had the urge to jump, to fly. If only he could rip off his bandages and open his bedroom window and just fly straight out, he thought. Give today a miss and just fly up high above all this instead and see it all for what it really was, insignificant in the grand scheme of things or all so vitally important? He wasn't sure.

But Gabe couldn't fly, even if he wanted to. His wings were too weak. Gabe was certain that if he just pulled up the blinds, opened the window, stood on the ledge and jumped now, he would only go straight down and hit the ground hard. Possibly breaking both his legs and destroying his mum's flowers in the process and no doubt causing her to worry that he had finally lost the plot.

But that didn't stop him wanting! Gabe really, _really,_ just wanted to soar up into the sky and be free. He wanted to glide around for a bit in the space where there were no other humans, no shops, no cars, no school, no exams. No money so therefore no lack of it. No stress and hassle and pressure. Just the sky and limitless possibilities. The sky, Gabe thought as he looked at the black clouds rolling away, was the greatest canvas of them all. Ever changing, never the same sky twice. The gateway that led on to the rest of the universe, to far further than Gabe could possibly imagine and even when he tried to imagine how far infinity might be, it blew his mind away.

And somewhere inside him, even if he didn't hear it, there was a knowing, deeper whisper that left him yearning. It was telling him what he knew but daren't acknowledge; that he could be there, should be there even. But he wasn't!

Gabe didn't much like his current reality. He seemed to be living in the wrong one. One where he didn't fit. He was square peg in a school of round holes. He knew it was all a miracle; The Big Bang, The Solar System, The World, Evolution, life and being born, being conscious. From the centre of the earth to the very edge of the universe and everything in between, Gabe thought was a miracle. He wanted to know the answers to it all and try and figure some of it out. But it blew his mind. Like the chances of being born as you...'the individual you' were impossible, like winning the lottery over a hundred times over, and the jackpot, not just a tenner. Gabe knew that every day and every little thing and every single person was a mind blowing miracle but reality didn't seem to reflect much of that! No one else seemed to realise or care.

For whatever reason, Gabe saw that people just wanted to get on with their day, their plans, their deadlines, their routines, their lives. And it all looked pretty boring and mundane. Perhaps, if everyone knew how special and unique and lucky they were, what a complete miracle everything was, then they would celebrate every day. Celebrate life, celebrate their similarities and their differences, be kind and friendly and dance down the street. Sing a merry tune. Just be a bit more bloody jolly about the whole situation.

Gabe tried to like people, he tried to like everybody or at least try and see some good. He had read somewhere that the thing that you most disliked about someone was nearly always the thing that you despised most about yourself. Gabe still hadn't figured that one out yet. It could very well be one of those things that needed to go into the psychobabble bin. Or it applied to the masses but not to him, as he often realised. But Gabe found it too hard to see other men and women as his spiritual brothers and sisters when they were invariably so ignorant and boring or just plain unfathomable. It wasn't that he didn't like them, more that he just did not get them.

To Gabe, there was a bit of a vacuum between him and them. That's what it was. Like a vast gulf or a giant valley. It may not have been visible but they all felt it.

Gabe looked out at all the faces in the street and he didn't know why everyone was so miserable. Perhaps it was for the best, the way things had worked out what with all the evil and suffering that was about too. Perhaps if everyone just celebrated and partied all the time, nothing would ever get done. If there was no order and routine, no people in power or government telling people what to do, no laws or rules, would most people just descend into savage like behaviours? Were the majority of people not able to self-govern themselves, with their own high standard human right morals and human kind principles? Would they ever be?

But the way things were now, with everyone always so busy and so stressed out and suffering from this, that and the other, there had to be a better way. Gabe had read that in the sixties they took LSD to open their minds but now, they took Prozac to block out their minds! And Gabe didn't believe much of what he read, Gabe reminded himself that everything was invariably lies and that he had to do his own research before he believed in anything, but Gabe could believe that.

As Gabe watched everyone getting wet in the rain, making themselves ill to go and clock in somewhere for the day, he wondered why it wasn't preferential to have a more simpler life, even if that meant only having what you needed. Would that be such a bad thing? If everyone had just what they needed? And if they weren't so busy, could the masses be trusted with more free time on their hands? Could people be trusted to educate themselves without having to be locked in a class room and forced to learn? Was all this misery optional? Did everyone need to work like slaves just to buy the latest 'must have' bit of stuff? To work their way up some invisible ladder so that other respected them for that rather than for their true qualities. Or was all this a part of the next crucial step in evolution? And did it really matter? And how the hell, thought Gabe, was he going to go about sorting out the whole world's problems when he struggled to cope with his own?

As Gabe looked out between the slats of the blinds of his bedroom window, out to the far reaching grey of the real world going about its business, it cast a dark shadow over his heart and left him with a passionate desire to live out his life another way.

And then there _she_ was. Grace. Like a welcoming ray of golden light and clarity breaking through the grey clouds of dark reality. Grace was secretly the reason behind Gabe's own morning routine. He knew he would see her if he was ready in time. Grace was walking to school at the same time, like clockwork, like she always did, always had done, every school day for years. And now it was the end of the last year and she would probably never walk past his house ever again. Her routine was going to change and she would, in the very near future, be walking another way.

# Chapter 4

Gabe had first met Grace a long time ago. They had been friends in infant school and then for a while in the juniors; then Grace's family had moved house to a better area. Grace had gone to another school and Gabe's life had filled up with the friends he still had now. Gabe might even have totally forgotten about ever having had Grace in his life but Grace had turned up again in the same secondary school. Where now everything was very different. Their eyes and minds had been opened up to all the other stuff in those few years apart.

The name of the game at secondary school was to fit in and be liked and Grace had naturally been absorbed into the crowd of The Beautiful. Gabe had no other option other than to fall into the crowd of The Damned. There were lots of other gangs and cliques and other students but as far as Gabe was concerned, there was Grace and her friends at the top, high and bright, and him and his friends at the other end of the spectrum in the school hierarchy; at the bottom of the heap, as low as you could go without falling off the edge completely and into oblivion. And everyone else, Gabe and his friends just bulked together as being in the middle.

Gabe remembered the first day Grace had turned back up in his life again. A lot was happening that year; Dave's father had been arrested, Frank's mum had died of cancer and Johnny, looking back knowing what he knew now, Gabe knew that he would have certainly already had committed his first crime and perhaps even took his first drug. Everything had already started falling apart.

But when Gabe had set eyes on Grace again, not only was she stunningly beautiful but Gabe had been transported back to the memories of those days of being a little kid again and he had realised that he had felt more like himself then, a himself that he had liked being.

Grace seemed to have remained pure, while Gabe and his friends and their lives were rapidly going downhill to a darker place. They were skidding along rock bottom and they were probably irretrievably damaged already. But not Grace. Grace had appeared like an angel, clean and beautiful and somehow more knowing. She did not appear to have any of the hang-ups or esteem and confidence issues that Gabe had. Gabe thought that Grace must have been born knowing exactly how you went about being a beautiful human being. She was blessed. She was just perfect.

But Gabe never spoke to Grace. He avoided interacting with her in any which way, shape or form. But there was just something about her that had captured his attention and it wouldn't let go. And, he had to admit it to himself, he had become a little obsessed with her.

But it was all a joke really as Gabe knew that he was the last man on earth that Grace would ever look at. She would never like someone like him but that did nothing to stop him feeling like he needed her.

He had stood there in the half dark, most mornings, for the last few years; looking for her, waiting for her and watching her.

Wanting her.

Loving her.

Was it Love? Gabe thought so! The enormity of the feelings that he had for her couldn't be anything else other than love. Or was it infatuation? Could you really love someone that you didn't really know anymore? Someone that you didn't really ever speak to. Someone that was so different to you. Was it all really a bit on the stalker side and should he give it up and get himself a life? Gabe was torn by his heart's absolute desire for Grace and his intellect knowing that it would be absolutely impossible.

Grace was the light to his dark, the genius to his fool, the cool to his awkwardness. She was the beauty to his beast. He knew that he should try and forget her and not torture himself. Wanting something that you can never have is exciting for a while but there comes a point when it is just draining and it becomes wiser to focus instead on the things that make you feel better, that are perhaps slightly more achievable.

But Gabe preferred to torture himself. Grace was like a habit or an addiction that he just couldn't let go of. He had tried to turn his attentions away from her but all that had achieved was cementing his realisation that nothing compared to her.

Grace, Grace, Grace.

Her name had become like mantra to him.

Now that there were only the last few exams left to take, that was the only reason for going to school, unless you wanted to prepare for The Exhibition like Gabe was supposed to be doing. But Grace didn't take Art. She didn't take any of the subjects Gabe did. Grace was all sciences. Grace was the science to his art. Grace was all about facts and Gabe had to rely on fantasies.

Perfect Grace.

Imperfect Gabe.

This morning, probably one of the very last when he would still be able to, Gabe watched Grace walk elegantly past and into the distance and was surprised to see a man join her under her umbrella. Grace usually always walked alone to school in the morning.

The man confidently put his arm around Grace and Gabe saw that the man in question was Alistair. Gabe felt a kick to the stomach and a punch to his heart that knocked him back from the window. Alistair, one of Grace's clique. Another wealthy, beautiful and gifted life member. How could he ever compete? Grace must be dating him or at least Alistair was trying it on with her if he hadn't already. What was he thinking? They were probably going out with each other, doing everything. Fucking. Gabe couldn't help himself instantly picturing the image of Grace and Alistair naked together in a passionate embrace and he tried to block the image from his eyes with his palms of his hands and, for a split second, Gabe wished that he was Alistair.

Then he could do all of the things that he wanted to do with ease. As it was, he would have a hard time doing anything decent. His path would be one of suffering and struggle, as that was the hand that he had been dealt. Gabe had neither the balls nor the self-confidence to even talk to Grace, let alone just go up to her and put his arm around her. She was in a different league and he had to accept that. But it still pissed him off! It should be his arm, it should be him. Gabe caught his disfigured appearance in the mirror. It should be...if it wasn't for the wings.

"Gabe! I've got a client coming first thing darling."

"Ok mum. I'll be down in ten."

Gina, Gabe's mum, was a therapist of sorts. She was into all the new age and old age therapies, the homeopathic and holistic. Massage, meditation, crystals, chakras. When her business had started picking up, they had converted the small office at the front of the house into a therapy room for her and they had converted the garage in the garden into a private art studio for Gabe.

Gina's clients didn't like to think there was a teenager hanging around just as much as Gabe hated bumping in to the various people that came to see his mum. People liked to keep their healing all a bit anonymous and shrouded in a cloak of something. Pride, guilt, denial or whatever. But still, in the past, when they had caught sight of Gabe, their panic soon turned to pity. They had said things like, 'But for the Grace of God', suddenly feeling much more grateful for their own lives and lack of deformity; which was a bit much when they were obviously in need of healing themselves. To make life simpler for all concerned, Gabe kept out the way. He hid in his studio, or went out and walked the streets even when he didn't want to, so as to stay out of the house and avoid the strangers.

Everyone is a stranger, thought Gabe as he looked out of his window again, Grace had disappeared and Gabe looked at all the other people that were out there today. He recognised a few of them, the same faces that he saw everyday even though he had never spoken to them and had no idea who they were. They too, like clockwork, were going about their lives wrapped around a rigid timetable. There were men, women and children and they were all scuttling around like beetles. Gabe thought of all the people that were alive now. There were hundreds of thousands of them that lived in this city, millions and millions more of them beyond what his eyes could see. In other cities, in other countries, all across the world.

Gabe thought of all the billions of different people that were out there now, living their lives. Getting up, going to bed, having sex, fighting, shitting, being born and dying. In all the different cultures, in all the different countries, in all the different time zones. Were they all as sour faced and robotic as the people here in what they had been told was a civilised society?

Gabe wondered if there was anyone else out there just looking out of their window like he was. Was anyone else looking out for someone else, for something more? Someone, something, or someplace more...like them? Was anyone else seeing, searching and not just looking? Was there really no one else out there with wings?

Gabe thought of Grace and how she made him feel. How just a brief glimpse of her caused his heart to jump in his chest, made his breath catch in his solar plexus and how even just expecting to catch sight of her caused the sensation of a hundred butterflies to dance in his abdomen as they headed, fluttering, down towards his groin.

Grace's presence and aura had shifted something in him and awakened parts of his physicality that had not stirred before. Gabe didn't know what it was about her other than something in her chemistry and his chemistry made his biology go haywire. Grace, without even knowing it or trying, made Gabe feel like he touched at those magical and elusive feelings that made everything, somehow alright. That is why he took the torture, for the pleasure it still gave him.

He _had_ to do something _now_ to get her attention.

But he had never even said hello. Even when he had seen her again and again, every day, he still had never made a single move. Why? Shyness, fear, embarrassment? And what was there to lose, Gabe asked himself continuously, by simply saying hello! Compared to what there was potentially to gain, which was what Gabe fantasised about in his wildest dreams. Gabe would work himself up and convince himself in a dozen ways and say to himself 'tomorrow'.

Tomorrow, I will get the courage to speak to Grace, to ask her how she is. To just say hello! To reach out somehow to her and make some sort of contact. But he never did. He was always stopped by something. Some inner voice that told him that it would be too weird, that she would think that he was a creep and too ugly and desperate, or pass some other unfavourable judgement. So Gabe had always, despite all of his plans and promises, done nothing. He had convinced himself that it was better to dream than to try and live that dream.

Gabe thought in his darkest moments that this was exactly what he was, just a collection of dreams that he would never fulfil. All these dreams he had, that kept him going, were just that, dreams! Gabe felt an ever present anxiety, like a cloak of nervousness, that he would never achieve any of his dreams. It would be so easy not to. To just say 'tomorrow' and get into the next routine and watch the time tick by, fast forward, decade by decade. Wake up at sixty, never having achieved anything. Never having felt the elements on his back, on his wings. Never having learnt to fly. Never having sold a painting. Never having made the effort to find out anything about his own father. Never moving out of home even, staying here forever. Isolated, dreaming and trapped. Alone. This was his current path and what was currently looking like his fate in life.

But it had come to the point that the thought of nothing changing from how it was now, the thought of never seeing Grace again, the thought of never being able to paint, the prospect of living all bandaged up like this forever, like an invalid, it was getting too painful, which in turn was forcing Gabe tight in to a corner and the only way out was to see if he could possibly do anything about trying to change his own destiny.

But Gabe didn't know where to start. Gabe couldn't even speak the words to Grace that were on the tip of his tongue. And all of it, the pain of it all, was all making him ill. He was convinced of it. Like a sickness in his soul and heart, the massive difference between his dreams and his reality.

Gabe suspected that life really was just a game and if you lost, you missed out on all the prizes. And if that was the case, that life was a game, a complicated, complex, confusing game with secret rules, then Gabe doubted if he was even taking part. Was life just another team sport that he had failed to get picked for?

All Gabe knew was that the tomorrows were running out. The last tomorrow was looming. Gabe knew it and he suddenly felt it in every atom of his entire being. Time was running out.

Gabe's phone buzzed again, shaking him out of his trance. This time, he picked it up and checked the text messages that had been coming through all morning. All of them were from his friends; Dave, Frank and Johnny. All of the messages saying the same sort of thing, wanting him to come out and meet them as soon as he could as Johnny had a plan. Gabe knew exactly what sort of plans Johnny made. They involved getting rich quick by any means possible, which were by design, blurring the lines of legality.

Johnny's text said to wear dark clothes but as Gabe was already dressed in what he always wore, a combination of multi coloured, paint splattered, heavy and bulky check shirts and an old patterned jumper. And the fact that he had no dark clothes anyway, this would have to do.

As Gabe went to leave his bedroom he instinctively checked himself in the mirror for the very last time before he would be in the arena of the general public and he saw that he was all bent over and stooping. The hump looked worse when he stooped but it was hard not to with the wings buckled up behind him and weighing heavily, folded up tight shut on his back. He tried to stand tall and straight. It was an improvement, but too painful to maintain for long.

Gabe looked at the way that he was dressed and for the first time he realised that it didn't help his cause. The way he looked, the way he dressed, the way he presented himself. He looked like a clown down on his luck. A distorted, well washed, rainbow with holes in it. He looked a state, he looked more like a homeless children's party entertainer than an artist. Talk about looking the freak. He certainly was dressed the part. Gabe didn't mind being an outcast but he did think he minded looking like one. Gabe accepted he was different, he wanted to be different, but he just didn't want to come across as just a weird scruffy bastard anymore.

He had never really figured out how to dress to suit his form, not that he had really given it that much thought. It wasn't exactly easy to find clothes that fitted a hump and outcasts aren't known to follow fashions. But it dawned on Gabe that perhaps now, with The Exhibition coming up, with time running out to get Grace's attention and the prospect of being in the 'real world', he needed to change all that too. What he needed a complete over haul and quick, before it was too late. He needed to change. And he needed to change everything about his whole life.

Another text came in from Johnny.

DRIVER NEEDED. BE HERE 9AM. 1K GUARENTEED.

It seemed like too much money. The higher the price the bigger the risk. But short of a lottery win or finding a bag of notes on the side of the street, this offer, at this precise moment in time, as far as Gabe could see it, was his only option.

Downstairs, Gina was waiting for him like she always did. A chance to connect before their days began. "Last one today Gabe, darling. Are you going to do some revising or..."

"I'm going to go out this morning mum, clear my head. If I don't know it by now I never will." He certainly was not going to revise now. If he hadn't learnt it by now, then he wasn't going to learn it all in half a day. He wasn't going to tell her about what he was really up to either.

"Right you are, do you want to borrow this new meditation CD I've just come across. It's just wonderful, relaxing, affirming..."

"No you're alright mum." His mum was always trying to get him to take up some of her therapies but Gabe was having none of it. Not without a fight anyhow. It might have been great for her and all that but it had been bad enough being a kid that constantly smelt of Nag Champra incense without getting all involved in it too.

But of course he did get involved, it would have been impossible not to. He even burnt incense for himself now. But now was not the time to go and sit and listen to a guided meditation. Gabe had always felt a bit of a fool when he had agreed finally to take, or let Gina practise, some of the therapies that she was into on him. Even if he felt better afterwards, he felt like an idiot for kidding on to what he couldn't believe in intellectually.

Gina had chased him out the house with burning charcoal sticks on the day of his first exam and it would have been funny, if only he hadn't been so consumed by embarrassment. But she believed it all, it was only Gabe knowing what normal people would make of it all that made his rash start to heat up.

"Well you know, if you want to darling, I'll leave it on the kitchen table. Just in case."

"I'll see you later then mum."

"Good luck if I don't see you before darling, and you know, anything you ever want to talk about, I am here for you. I'll make it for The Exhibition I promise."

Gina had been neurotic since the first day she had started seeing clients in the house. Neurotic and guilty that her work and family life balance wasn't right, that she would be in some way neglecting Gabe. She saw how he hid or ran out of the house if she had clients and she couldn't blame him. But Gina couldn't think of any better options and it had got Gabe more into his art and closer to his friends, in a gang even, so she thought she must be doing something right.

"I know mum...err...one thing I have been thinking about recently. You always said you had a photo, you know, of the man. And I always said when I've finished my exams and leave school..."

"The man that got me pregnant?" Neither of them felt it was appropriate to call him dad or father, nor even the man that helped make you. And 'sperm donor' seemed a bit too harsh. Gina, who didn't like saying nor hearing his name, disappeared into her office and came out holding an envelope with the word 'Cassiel' printed on it. The same name now ringing in her head and making her nervous, but she knew it was time.

"He was an artist too you know."

Gabe didn't know. Gabe didn't know anything about this man. He didn't even know if he wanted to open the envelope his mother had just handed him. Instead, he put it in his back pocket like it was merely a shopping list and not, what he hoped, an old photograph of his father.

So his father was an artist too, that made sense. Gabe liked it when things made sense.

Gina had said that she had a photo of him but Gabe had always brushed it off so as not to appear that he needed to know; that he needed more than she was giving him. She had said that she would give it to him when he left school and then he could take it from there. And ever since, Gabe had counted down the days but now, he just couldn't wait or put it off for any longer.

Gina had been waiting for this day to come for a long while too. People can leave physically but there are always the memories of them. Like ghosts, but of the still living but absent.

# Chapter 5

Gabe got to the end of the street, turned towards the direction of school and was a distance away from his house and his mum when he started debating with himself whether he should take a look inside the envelope or not. He had waited so long. He always imagined that he would tear the envelope open immediately and go searching but when it came down to it, there were other pressing questions instead. Like, what was the point? A father who had run away and not made contact perhaps didn't want contacting and what if he looked nothing like Gabe had imagined, totally different to him? A stranger! And what did Gabe have now that made him appealing? All he was, was a kid with dodgy friends, no money and no girlfriend. He hadn't achieved anything yet. And then Gabe had the thought that was almost as secret as his wings. _What if I am just not likable enough to have a father love me?_

Gabe realised he was marching and he tried to relax and slow down a bit, the contents of his pocket, the envelope and its contents, was almost calling him, but something was stopping Gabe from taking it out and opening it.

Like, _why_ had his father left them? Gabe knew that Gina had had somewhat of a complex life before she'd had him. She had been living in a small village just outside of the city, which was not a very good place to be if you were gifted or different, Gina had once said. When she had Gabe and it had become clear that she was going to be a single parent, they had upped sticks and moved to the city.

Gina had been tempted to move to the middle of nowhere and bring Gabe up alone and totally protected from the outside world, and therefore give him the freedom to use his wings more. And then of course she could also have him all to herself, but she had quickly realised that this wasn't fair. Gabe had to have a life too, a life with friends and people, an education and as normal a childhood as possible. She also had to pull herself together and get on with her life, get a career and do all the things that good mothers do. It was a question she often asked herself, "Would a good mother do that?" So they had moved to the city where there were far more different sorts of people with busy and full lives where they could blend in a bit better and with any luck, disappear.

Cassiel, the boyfriend, Gabe's 'father', had only been in the village for a short while, a foreigner in a foreign land, running away from or to something no doubt. He had been very exotic, charming and good looking and he had driven a motorbike, and Gina had fallen head over heels in love with him. She had thought that he had loved her too. But soon enough, his actions had indicated that he obviously hadn't loved her _that_ much. Shortly after she had discovered that she was pregnant with Gabe, he had run off. He went out one day on the pretext of an errand and he just never came back.

Gina had, after repeatedly, frantically calling around all the emergency services, slowly come to realise that he had gone and was not in some hospital or police cell somewhere. Then she had no other option than to just wait. And she had waited. For months she had waited as she grew and changed with the growing baby inside of her, always half expecting the baby's daddy to knock on the door at any moment or to feel his hand slide over the crest of her baby bump. She had waited until it was impossible to wait any longer. Until she had gone through the birth and all that entailed alone. Gina had waited until she had been forced into a corner to make the decision to go. To move forward, to accept that 'the family' was just the two of them and scrap all the dreams she'd that had involved Cassiel and start again.

Gabe always said, almost flippantly whenever asked, that he never missed having a father as he had never known what it was like to have one. He hoped saying this would make Gina feel less bad or guilty, like she always looked like she did anytime this father person had been brought up in conversation. When Gina would turn from her usual, well bright and bubbly self into a pain gripped, lonely looking woman.

Gabe thought if he said it enough it might actually come true. It seemed to make her happy. Little did they realise, the mother and son in trying to keep the other one happy, found themselves resorting to lying to each other for fear of hurting the other one's feelings. Gabe did miss his father. He often wondered what his father might look like, if they had any similar habits or traits. Gabe wondered if he would recognise him instantly if he ever saw him. Gabe looked very different to Gina, he was tall and lean and she was small and petite. Their faces were vaguely similar but Gabe knew that his nose and colouring had come from a different gene pool. A gene pool that he knew nothing about and this fascinated him. Gabe had always dreamed that one day, when he was rich and famous and selling paintings for half a million dollars that his father would read about him or hear about him and contact him with open arms. Then, all the pieces of the jigsaw would fit together and Gabe might be able to understand what it might feel like to feel complete.

But go chasing for him now, even looking at his image? Would that serve to fulfil his dreams or, more than likely, just shatter them?

It was still early and Gabe had plenty of time. No doubt his friends would be at the park already, keen to get out of their own homes for one reason or another. They would already be waiting for him, waiting to elaborately inform him of their plans. Gabe was still not one hundred percent sure if he really should get involved, not at this late stage of the game. He had an exam that afternoon that he couldn't miss. He was so nearly free. Free to go about his own life. Playing with fire now could ruin things, everything, the rest of his life. It might have been OK for them; they wanted to be 'business men', gangsters. They wanted to be a part of _that_ world but Gabe didn't. He couldn't think of anything worse.

Gabe really wanted to be an artist. Everyone told him that this was nearly impossible though, especially if you weren't going to go to one of the big art schools or had no one famous in your family. But seeing as these were not options for Gabe and plus the fact that, as far as Gabe could work out, everyone, especially adults and particularly ones in so called authority, talked the biggest load of rubbish going most of the time. They spoke and dished out advice with plenty of conviction, only it was all bullshit. This made Gabe believe, have a small glimmer of hope, that they were wrong and that he might just be able to sell his paintings. Gabe dreamed that one day he would and the truth of it was that Gabe had to start trying to sell his paintings soon because he had to! He _had_ to earn money _now_. Everything had a cost, even simple living. Just surviving was expensive.

And Gabe felt that he had to draw. Not just because it kept him isolated and because people told him he was good at it but also because it kept him saner than he might possibly be if he didn't. Other people might jog or eat a specific diet to stay healthier and Gabe knew he had to draw and paint and create. To him, it was his medicine. Painting in his studio, isolated and alone without his bandages on, with the air on his skin and a paintbrush in his hand were the closest Gabe ever came to feeling like he recognised himself as he truly was and not as someone with so many masks he had no idea who he was from one day to the next.

"Art is his drug of choice," is how Johnny put it.

The problem was, Gabe knew, that if he didn't start selling his art he would have to almost immediately go and get a job doing something else which would mean that he couldn't hang out in his studio and paint. If he couldn't hang out in his studio, he wouldn't be able to live with his wings out much, if at all, as the job slowly but surely sucked the living hours out of him.

Gabe had to believe that the only reason he had never sold anything yet was simply because he had never tried. Gabe hadn't yet been confident enough to put a price to his paintings let alone get out there and promote himself and his work, and secretly he didn't want to be parted from his painting either as he found himself bonding and getting attached to them. They were, after all, an extension of him, part of him even. There were also the voices in his head that were telling him that he still wasn't good enough but he was trying to get better. Every day he was trying to get better. He pushed himself further everyday with every painting and he doubted if he would ever be satisfied. But, it didn't matter now as the time had come. He was all out of choices because if he didn't start selling his paintings he would have to do something else.

Gabe knew there was only so long he could procrastinate for. There was only so long he could make up excuses and put it off before fate stepped in and made him up another life path. A life path that didn't include fulfilling any of his dreams.

The sun had broken free from the thick grey prison wall of cloud and Gabe felt the heat and light shine down on his face. It felt as if the suns golden rays were filling him up with some sort of spiritual life energy. In the early morning sunlight Gabe let himself relax as the golden yellow glow lit him up. And it was as if the world stood still for a moment and it felt good.

Gabe stopped still on the pavement and he closed his eyes and as the sun started to heat his face, he tried to think things through. The first thought that he had was compelling, it told him that he should turn around and go home. Go back to his studio and start on this sculpture he wanted to do to make a big impact at The Exhibition. He really needed, more than anything, to start detaching from his friends now. He had needed their company and would be properly alone without them but they had drifted apart a lot these last two years. Not actually physically drifted apart, he saw them now as much as ever, it just wasn't the same. They weren't as close. And Gabe really needed to not be with them physically too but he didn't know how he was supposed to go about doing that? Dump them? Avoid them? A big part of him didn't want to. A big part of him liked being with them, that still remembered the days when everything was more innocent, genuine and fun. More honest. But everything had changed and Gabe knew that he had to get out _now_. They weren't bad people, not really, were they? They just did things now that were illegal or worse, what Gabe believed to be bad, or just wrong. It had been OK for a while but it wasn't OK anymore. It wasn't as if they could claim that they didn't know what they were doing. It all played on Gabe's conscience which was exhausting. It wasn't pretend. It was real life and it was his life and Gabe just didn't want this to be his life anymore.

It was time, not just to catch Graces attention, to _maybe_ go looking for his father. It was time to really try and be an artist which meant it was time to leave a lot of his old life behind. They only had a couple of weeks left now. After The Exhibition, Gabe would have to get on with his life and that would mean going in a very different direction to his friends.

The truth of it was, that to open some doors to the future he dreamed of, he would have to slam some others shut. Which was not half as easy as it sounded. At the moment, it felt a kind of impossible. How do you go about walking away from the people who had been your only friends, to save your own skin? How do you refuse an easy way to make money when you are broke?

They had been best friends for years, through everything near enough that life could and did throw at them. All the traumas they had suffered, they had supported each other through. Gabe knew his friends life stories; he thought he knew them inside out. They had shared histories. Shared their childhoods and been the brothers that they never had and, somewhat tragically, at times even the fathers. Gabe thought that he knew absolutely everything about all of them. The truth, however ugly, and the beauty, however slight.

# Chapter 6

Dave's father was in prison doing a pretty long stretch for something that Dave never really revealed, although he told varying tales with different details that changed every time the subject was brought up, which was not very often. His mum was obese. Not just a little bit fat or a lot fat; she was as fat as you can imagine anyone getting and still being able to walk about. Dave was a big man but even he disappeared in her shadow.

Every time Dave's mum put one foot in front of the other she farted. It was like any simple movement or action caused all the trapped wind to leak out. Loud and long. Unmistakable. And you couldn't laugh, which made it worse. You had to pretend like it wasn't really happening, which was impossible, especially when she was always apologising and drawing attention to the fact that she was letting one off. Gabe laughed to himself because the situation made you feel like you had to comfort her and say things like, "Oh no, you're alright! Don't worry about it, I fart all the time. You should hear my mum fart. The dog..." So even though Dave's house was the only one where they would all be guaranteed a meal and be welcome, they avoided hanging out there too.

Dave and his mum lived in one of those cream washed terraced houses that you see everywhere; a council house on a council estate. Only their one was on the roughest estate in the city that they called 'The Ghetto'. 'The Ghetto' was only on the other side of the park but which side of the park you lived on made all the difference. It was like two different worlds separated by no more than three acres of land. One side, clean and neat with pretty flowers planted in all available spaces and houses that had tumble driers, and the other side, bland and tired and messy with cars being worked on all the time, at various stages of disrepair and with the clothes all out on washing lines. Big old grey, baggy pants and ancient flesh coloured bras hung out to dry outside the front of 'The Ghetto' houses like bunting as if to say, "We have no shame here!" And it couldn't be for the fact that they couldn't afford tumble driers as they all had Sky TV and mobile phones. Perhaps they did have tumble driers, they just liked to hang up their underwear in public like flags. As a warning or badge of pride.

Dave was built like a brick shit house and wore a big solid gold chain around his neck that he took off if ever there was trouble brewing. He had been known to swing it around his head like a mad man and had on occasion caused some considerable damage with it. He once told the police he took it off so as not to get strangled by it and then as his form of self-defence when he found it in his hand. The police had let him go. Dave thought he was genius for coming up with this.

Dave also always had a witness. "All you need is witnesses," Dave would say with a wink and Dave always had a queue of people that would be his witness.

For years Dave had been cutting people's hair, shaving fancy shapes into their heads. He created complicated Celtic patterns or peoples names, swirls and stripes; whatever design anyone wanted. Once, a lad had come to Dave to have his hair shaved all cool to be like his mates but what this lad did not know was that he had unwittingly disrespected Dave previously. As revenge, Dave had shaved into the poor lad's head, the image of a human figure squatting, taking a shit. A great big dollop of steaming shit. Apart from being very funny or humiliating, depending on if it was your head or not, it was artistically and technically a brilliant job.

Shaving heads was quick and easy money for Dave, cash in hand. Dave was brilliant at it, far better than anyone else that did the same sort of thing in any one of the barber shops on the high street. Dave should have been rolling in money but he was flash with his cash and he had a bit of a costly cocaine habit. Dave had branched out into piercing people too. It was quicker money, less equipment, less mess. It was a business decision aiming at profit maximisation. Dave was not as stupid as he looked. He had convinced Gabe to have a couple of earrings put in his left ear one dull day when it was threatening to rain and they had nothing better to do. Gabe found it hard to say no to Dave but he had wanted something different done anyway and Dave would never have forgiven him if he had gone and got it done professionally at a piercing place. There had been a lot of pain and blood. Dave was self-taught at everything he did and learnt the only way he knew how, the hard way.

Then there was Frank. Frank's mum had died of cancer and his dad had lost the plot and run off. That was in the third year of secondary school. Frank's dad had disappeared abandoning Frank, leaving him to cope on his own which he had managed to do without anyone in authority realising. Frank did _not_ want to go into care.

Being carted off in the middle if the night either into foster care or into a care home were Frank's worst fears. One of his reoccurring nightmares was of the police, kicking his front door down as the evil social services people ran in with blankets to cover him. They would then pick him up and run him down the stairs and outside and bundle him into the blacked out windowed van that was waiting for him. Sometimes the nightmare ended with Frank in a padded cell, other times the van was driven down a dead end road and set on fire while he was still inside. Frank would watch their manic laughing faces as he was engulfed by flames.

Frank wanted to stay where he was, in his house with all his stuff and memories of his mum. He had wanted to keep going to the same school and be with his mates. His dad sent him cash in an envelope every month but there was never a note, nothing.

Everything that Frank did was about survival. Frank was surviving and all of Frank's other ways, his bizarre self-obsessions, that was the way Frank coped. Gabe thought that Frank's general obsessions about food and healthy eating and Eastern fighting techniques, were the way Frank kept his mind off it all. The mixed martial art scene was a tight knit little community too and Frank was down there more often than not, so as not to get lonely. But there was always something missing.

Frank kept fit and healthy and clean so as to raise no suspicions that he was being neglected. Frank wouldn't have it that he was neglected. But, if you actually have no parents, no guardian, no one looking after you, looking out for you, caring for you, that has to be a severe form of neglect for a young person. But somehow Frank had managed to pull it off. Thinking about it, what you actually had to do daily for yourself, actually cleaning your own clothes and your own self, actually getting up and going to school. Not being late, being on time, feeding yourself, figuring out how to pay bills and rent. Doing everything on your own from the age of fourteen, lying after yet another parents evening or event where no one turned up. Signing everything yourself. Raising no suspicions ever. That was nothing short of genius. Most kids take their parents for granted and wouldn't brush their teeth if they thought they could get around it or cheat it. They would leave plates and plates of food under their beds until they turned green with mould, like Gabe did, and not get out of bed until they were nagged and pushed. Frank had to do all these things because there was no one there telling him that he had to.

Gabe thought that Frank was such a nice kid really, soft and gentle on the inside. Not that anyone in their right mind would initially judge him that way at first sight. Frank looked like a little underweight pit bull, all short and sinewy, twitchy and jumpy. Frank was a nervous wreck, for all the exercise that he did; all that special breathing and cardio and he still was like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Frank said he was glad that his dad had buggered off as it meant that he didn't have to, "Look after his sorry arse too and get the back of his hand for his trouble." But he missed his mum, he hadn't even had the chance to grieve for her, let alone have the freedom to be an angst riddled teenager. The other characters that have to be in that play for Frank to take his part had gone, so Frank had to adopt another role. He was winging it, perhaps not the best way, but the only way he knew how. At the moment it felt like forever but it wouldn't be forever, would it? He was eighteen now, a man. Frank had thought that it would all change the day he turned eighteen but nothing had happened. Social services couldn't kidnap him now and take him away but the anxiety stayed put, it had become a part of him, like he would always be waiting to get caught out.

Frank, like Gabe, had also never had a proper girlfriend but that was purely down to the fact that Frank didn't like girls. Well, not in that way. Frank was probably Gabe's best friend out of the lot of them.

And then there was Johnny. Johnny was the leader really, even though none of them would ever say as much. Johnny was a charmer. Tall, dark, handsome and smooth with it. Johnny was too handsome, the sort of handsome that made people stop and stare or get all coy.

Johnny couldn't read or write, he said that the words just looked all jumbled up to him. He had never told the school this and they hadn't noticed, they just thought Johnny must be cocky and lazy, which he was too. But Johnny could do maths in his head. Like any sum you gave him he could do. Johnny was a numbers whizz kid.

Johnny was also manipulative, sneaky and probably a pathological liar. But what people didn't seem to understand was that there was something about Johnny's brain that was different, it was like something that you were supposed to have was missing because for the part of his brain that was so perceptive and accurate, there was a part that made up stories and saw things other people didn't. And sometimes his personality changed so much it was like there were two Johnnys. Gabe was no expert but he wouldn't have been surprised to find out that Johnny had been diagnosed with something, some identifiable mental illness. Gabe thought he was getting worse but perhaps that was just the dope that Johnny was smoking.

And, if he was going to be honest with himself and call a spade a spade, then Johnny was really just a thief. Hopefully, Gabe thought, just for now, just to get by. Not forever. Just till he had enough to go legit. And if Johnny was good at stealing, he was even better at selling. Johnny could sell you something you didn't even know you wanted, before you even had a chance to think about it.

Johnny's mum had hooked up with a multi-millionaire when Johnny was still really little. The 'multi-millionaire' had made his money in something to do with refurbishing big institutions with all the newest in innovation, technology and computers. Johnny's mum had immediately dumped his dad and their old life, which included Johnny.

Johnny was supposed to live with his mum but he had invariably been left at his dad's, who had had to move into a poky little flat after the divorce. Johnny's mum had never come to pick him up when she was supposed to, she'd be hours late or cancel at the last minute or just not turn up at all. And little Johnny would have been waiting by the front door, all ready with his overnight bag packed, excited about seeing his mummy, just to be told that she'd called and she was actually in Paris for the week shopping down the Champs Elysee or something like that. Stuck for another week in Dubai, in the Swiss Alps; somewhere nicer than here. Somewhere having more fun, having a better time.

Johnny's mum was always out or away, staying in fancy hotels, holidaying on the beach in California or other exotic locations, first class all the way. This millionaire had come along and taken Johnny's mum away and she had gone without so much as a backwards glance at him. She bought Johnny expensive stuff, or rather gave him stuff that her new husband had got through his business; all state of the art Apple laptops and iPhones. Johnny got a lot of his gear that was for sale from this very source.

Johnny had realised early on that these things he was given had a good resale price and as they had no sentimental attachment to him, as he wasn't going to need half a dozen of the same thing, it all made sense. Because that's what she did, she would give him the same thing after another trip, another 'shut up' present. Not a 'guilt present' as she felt no guilt, but it would be the same thing he already had. It was like she had just gone to the store cupboard full of the same item and just picked him out another one. It meant nothing when chosen and given like that. A present given in this way doesn't delight even the most grateful of receivers.

The realisation that this so-called gift was something he might be able to get a couple of hundred quid for, eased the pain a little. And Johnny loved his mum, he would not hear a bad word said against her and he missed her really badly but she was gone. Like a death without a death, a loss without a proper reason to grieve and in some ways worse because she had chosen a man and money and a lifestyle over him. And it wasn't something that you could label, she hadn't chosen drugs, she hadn't beaten him, she had not died or permanently run off. And, to the outside world, how can you possibly be neglected if you got such expensive gifts?

Whether he admitted it to himself or not, Johnny wanted to be like the object of his mum's desire, someone with so much money that it turned heads, believing that money was so powerful it would even turn the head of a mother away from her child. But this was a warped concept of course, as not every woman is like that, even though Johnny's mum definitely was. Maybe deep down, Johnny thought that one day he might even have enough money to buy his mum back.

Johnny's real dad had been kind, talented but now he was broke, depressed, alone and people just treated him like shit, especially Johnny's mother, so Johnny had done the sums and got his answer.

Gradually, almost without them even noticing it, Johnny had started employing the others here and there. Johnny justified everything so well, that at first they didn't even notice the blurring lines as they dipped into criminal activity. But now Johnny was playing with fire big time. Johnny was always so calm and confident about his wheeling and dealing, but the others weren't, however much they tried to pretend that they were, as they were all only too well aware of the potential consequences.

Gabe knew all three of them well and he understood why they did the things that they did and he felt compassion towards them. Gabe knew that they had protected him from the worst of the bullying and in that respect he owed them a lot. But Gabe felt like he had repaid the dues for that now, way over, he didn't have to be indebted forever for their protection. Did he? Perhaps on face value, if he met them now for the first time, he might not even like them, or more than likely be totally petrified of them. But because Gabe knew where they were coming from, everything they did made some sense.

Gabe thought that most people tended to keep the worst of their backgrounds a secret, they only ever exposed the best bits, the highlights. But then, do you ever really know them? Can you ever _really_ love someone if you do not know their frailty, their fragility, their path and their own individual struggle? Gabe knew the good and bad and ugly facts about his friends. They may have thought that they had chosen their paths too, but they, like Gabe, only really had the path there in front of them. There were no other options. Not yet, perhaps never. Their lives were unpredictable, although everyone else just predicted the worse.

Another text message came through and Gabe said a prayer to no one in particular, just a voicing out there into the atmosphere. "Just one last time and I promise never to do anything like this ever again. From now on I will paint and draw and earn what little money I can properly! If you _really_ don't want me to do this, then please give me a sign."

Gabe waited, but there was no sign for him not to go ahead in the direction he was going. There was no instant, sparkling, magical pocket full of money. No raining of one hundred dollar bills, no visible rainbow to chase leading to a pot of gold. There was no divine inspiration whatsoever.

Gabe didn't know why he should feel so torn. Money was money after all, wasn't it? Why was it that he believed that if he was good, then good things might happen to him? And, conversely, that if he was bad then the shit would hit the fan? Something along the lines of karma. Gabe knew that this theory was flawed but it was just the way that he felt and he couldn't change it. Even if this wasn't what happened in the real world and it didn't seem apply to anyone else, as people that did bad things seemed to have great to fabulous lives in the modern world, something still made Gabe believe that it did apply to him. In fact, as far as Gabe could tell the opposite of karma seemed to be true, in the short term at least.

Not only was Gabe cursed with wings, he thought, but he was cursed with some kind of 'good complex' which pissed him off more than anything as it would have been easier to just live without that, like everybody else did.

But mainly, goodness and badness aside, Gabe was just far too inconspicuous to be a criminal, even a petty one. Gabe knew his 'job' in the gang was as a decoy; no one suspected or liked to suspect, a disabled looking young man. But that wouldn't last forever and now it felt more like a game of Russian Roulette. There was now the very real chance that, God forbid, he got the bullet next time. Got himself arrested, strip searched, handled by a stranger! Gabe, who couldn't bear anyone touching him let alone seeing him! No, he couldn't afford to be a criminal on lots of different levels.

"Crime never pays," his mum had always said. But of course that was a lie too, as Gabe noticed that crime actually seemed to pay very well. Much better than most other things did in fact.

# Chapter 7

Gabe turned the corner to the park and sure enough there they all were, standing at the far end under a tree, instantly recognisable. Dave was there, learning against the railing like the thug that he was. Sticking his leg out at opportune moments to trip up Frank, who seemed to be doing some kind of karate moves. Johnny cool and debonair, even from a distance, was laughing and gesturing a lot with one hand whilst he dragged laboriously on a cigarette with the other.

Gabe stopped at the gate to the park for a moment, just to watch them. From a distance, he wanted to see if he could picture them all as just strangers.

"Gabe!" Frank shouted over, way too loudly and slightly too high pitched so that the few other people in the park turned to look. Dave punched Frank in the arm as Gabe waved, signalling he was _the_ 'Gabe' in question as he walked towards sound of the shrill. Everyone else went back about their own business, drinking Special Brew, walking their dog. Only the hard core parkers were out early in the rain.

It was always an odd crowd out during the weekday in this park. It wasn't one of the nicer ones in the city, even if the playground was new. All the people who were usually unwelcome in the nice parks or anywhere by everyone else, made this park theirs for the most part of the day.

This was the park for the occasional young couple looking for somewhere secluded to get it on because they had nowhere else to go. This was the park for the local familiar looking group of drunks that traipsed around, claiming the same bench, before the daily fight broke out. The park bench fight that must always be resolved as they always returned the next day, like nothing had happened. They weren't much welcome anywhere either. And this park was for those that had to walk their dogs for a bit of exercise and a piss and a shit. No one welcomed them, not even the unwelcome.

The Damned always met at this park. It was central to all their needs, it was free. They were rarely asked to leave and from this park Gabe could also, on occasion, if he was lucky, spy on Grace who not only walked to and from school on the road that ran along the side of park but out of school hours, Grace also invariably hung out at the street cafe on the corner of the park with her gang of friends. All sitting on the outdoor benches, under umbrellas with fancy electric over-head heating to keep warm on all the cold days. Grace and her friends had the money to drink white wine and cappuccinos and eat fairy cakes all afternoon. Grace and her friends were living the high life, in the fast track, with plenty of cash in their pockets. Gabe assumed that their main concerns were how they were going to spend all the money they had, which high street shops, spas or wine bars deserved their patronage. Their lives looked like a lot of fun, they were always laughing.

Gabe walked the path down towards his friends, keeping his head down as much to avoid standing in dog shit as to avoid eye contact with the other outcasts.

Gabe hoped he would catch sight of Grace again today. He was always looking out for Grace. It was like his brain was always trying to catch her in his peripheral vision. It was odd but he sort of knew when she was about, it was like he had a sixth sense for her presence. Sometimes, Gabe thought that he really did will her into being, that the intensity of his mental vision of her, combined with the intense feelings he had for her, actually caused her to be there.

It wasn't true of course. Gabe didn't even think it was one of those coincidences his mum liked to talk about. It was just one of those things that happened when you put your attention on something, or the fact that Gabe hung out in places where he thought that she might possibly be.

Gabe thought that Grace never really saw him though. Once in a while she would catch his eye and smile and her friends; her cool, clever and beautiful friends, would laugh. Grace's friends were always laughing and at him he often thought. Laughing at the weirdo, the deformed one. Grace's friends were always so happy, basking in the sun that shone out of their collective arses. But those times that Grace had smiled at him, those times could make him happy for a whole week. Even the thought of it made him smile.

Gabe' _s_ friends were hyper today which brought his mood straight back down.

"Yo! What's up Gabe? You looking like you got the world on your shoulders," laughed Dave, "No offence mate."

"None taken Dave." It was an old joke.

"We all up for having a little party tomorrow? Celebrate your last exam and another little event we are attending to today children?" Johnny swaggered up to Gabe and slipped something in his pocket that Gabe saw was cash.

"What's that for Johnny?"

"Well, do you want to be let into a little secret?" Johnny threw out a line.

"No, no really," Gabe answered truthfully.

"Well we're in this together now mate and if we pull it off it's gonna be happy times ahead for a little while. A little something to get you all through the summer partying rather than McJobbing it."

"Tell him Johnny, Gabe don't know what's good for him half the time. Tell him." Dave was impossible to ignore or defy.

Frank was hopping around with a grin that kept appearing then disappearing. "It's win-win Gabe. Please say yes." Frank said fearfully earnest as ever.

And so Johnny explained the plans. Gabe knew to take anything Johnny said with a huge pinch of salt but this is what he told them.

Johnny was involved in some money laundering. There were three businesses in the city that ran the money from drug dealing and contraband, and fuck knows what else, through their books. Johnny had got in on it all. He was now playing with the big boys. It was the easiest money Johnny had ever come by but he was pissing off a few people. The wrong people. Johnny shot off a list of names, the men that he was having crap off of. Some of the names were familiar, too familiar. Big business names in the city, some even on the council. Fathers of kids that Gabe knew of, even a few names that Gabe recognised to be people in his year at school. Sons and heirs to all this bullshit. Gabe knew some of them as the crowd that Grace hung out with. The Beautiful ones. And, most obviously and importantly, Gabe heard the name, 'Alistair'.

Johnny had set his sights on upsetting Alistair, only the man that Gabe had seen with his arm around Grace that morning. Now if Gabe was into coincidences, he might have just seen this as a sign, an opening for him to act out his revenge. Was this how life worked? Was this part of the game? It felt right. The thought of upsetting Alistair felt very good and tempting indeed. But, Gabe sensed, due to the build-up and the cash involved, this wasn't going to be a case of simply spray painting 'wanker' on the side of his car.

"So what we're going to do is take their takings, what they got last night. I know where it is, I just need you guys to help me. One to drive. One to look out. And one to help me, give me a leg up and help me carry the gear out. We got to do this one kids, alright? Dave's got a van, Gabe can drive it, Frank can wait up the road on look out and Dave can come with me. That way, worse way out, me and Dave take the fall ok? All for one and all that."

Gabe shook his head, "I don't know Johnny."

"Come on Gabe! All those fellas that sniff round Grace, probably sniffing her panties and catching a feel of those pretty little titties. You don't want a bit of that mate? It's time eh, time we did something to address the balance don't you think?"

And Gabe wanted to say, "But you don't even like Grace!" because they hated Grace and her friends and all they stood for, or rather, for all that they had. It always wound him up, the way they went on about how horrible Grace was, when they didn't even know her. They knew that he liked her, liked her a lot, however much they tried to put him off her. But he also knew that they were only doing it for his sake, they knew the score...that Grace was impossibly out of Gabe's league. They were just trying to soften the blow. Being cruel to be kind.

Gabe could really do with the money though. He was broke and his mum was broke. He needed money for everything. Especially now that everything was changing and this was going to be his last time after all wasn't it? Was it better to just do one big risky haul now, rather than dozens of little ones that would end up dominating his summer, if not his life?

Gabe looked at the faces of his friends and wondered if they thought at all and if they did, what were they thinking about? He felt no connection to them. If he did one big haul now he wouldn't have to see them again.

This was something different though, breaking and entering, stealing. Even if he was only going to be driving, this was far bigger than the usual, 'hold onto this for a couple of days for me will you mate' or 'just stand here and shout for me if you see a copper Gabe.'

But, Gabe would love to see the look on Alistair's face when he realised he'd been shafted. Leave him broke for a while so that he couldn't flash his cash at Grace. Yeah, it was mean, even wrong perhaps, but what Alistair was doing was wrong too. And yeah, two wrongs don't make a right, neither do two rights. Nothing made everything alright.

And something in Gabe twisted perversely and it made him smile and feel a bit better, like a brief light wave of pleasure that magically dissolved the worry. This might actually help his cause with Grace.

Gabe had no other grand plans. This was the one that had fallen into his lap. Like a golden opportunity. And even though Gabe knew deep down in his own heart that he should walk away, he had nowhere to walk away to. And time was ticking.

"'Bout time we got their ladies and fancy cars eh boys. About time we had a taste of the high life. We gotta do this or we'll be licking their shoes forever. Licking their butts for our dinner!" Dave said placing his hands up in front of his face, scrunching his fingers like he was holding a bum and licking the air between the back of his hands vigorously with his dark brown furred tongue.

And Gabe thought that however disgusting and funny Dave was, he was right

"The Beautiful are going to find it impossible to fail in life however clever or not they are. Whatever wrong choices they make or opportunities they miss, there will be plenty more that follow. They have been born into other paths, better paths, lucky paths, paths lined with gold. 'Bout time we got a bit of the gold girls." Johnny was convincing.

The Beautiful did always look so perfect. All of their clothes were high end designer. Their clothes bore the names of the fashion designer men and women that the world put on pedestals. Clothes that you had to pay hundreds of pounds for. Gabe knew that labels were just branding and people seemed to love all that. Brands were lifestyle choices or preferences. It was probably some elaborate coded messaging system but Gabe just didn't get it. Brands helped identify you, your place, your people. Brands labelled who you were or who you wanted to be. There just wasn't a brand yet invented that fit Gabe's ideas of his self-image. And there probably never would be, as the brands tended to aim for the masses.

But Gabe had to admit that the expensive clothes that The Beautiful wore did wash better or they got dry cleaned like they were supposed to. Their clothes were never dirty, creased, bobbled or shrunk and well worn. They could afford to follow fashions so that they always looked faultless.

Gabe knew why he and his friend hated them so much, their perfection just highlighted their imperfections. And it wasn't fair. Why shouldn't they have a bit of that too?

And then there was everyone else in between. The Middles. Not as obviously offensive to Gabe and his friends, just a lot more insidiously so. The masses, the ones in the middle. They were middle of the road but they took up the whole damn street. The mass of all the others that when viewed as a 'lump sum', as Gabe and his friends did indeed view them, were just so placid, insipid and mundane. They may all sound different to each other, interesting and exciting even, but Gabe thought that they were all kidding on too, whether they knew it or not.

All branded in every aspect of their lives too. Maybe not with the luxury brands like The Beautiful had, but brands all the same.

Even looking at his friends now as they were pulling on their black gloves and putting up the hoods of their black hoodies, he could see that they were branded. It was everywhere.

Everywhere Gabe looked he saw advertising for brands, on the bus that passed, on the windows of the bus stops, the over flowing bin was even full of branded consumer products. It was everywhere, on every magazine, TV programme and on every webpage worth looking at.

There was plenty to keep The Middles busy, following all the self and socially imposed routines and behaviours and purchases, from the shoes that they wore to the thoughts that they thought. Following false beliefs blindly. Looking at them Gabe imagined that they were all whistling in the dark. Scared as hell but keeping up appearances.

Gabe had a big decision to make and he thought about everybody else generally without exception, and to him they all seemed to be playing dress up and make believe. There seemed to be no substance. Not one of them was real. The Middles, their ways and their lives were so completely alien to Gabe. The Middles were ordered and they knew where they were going. They did all the things that everyone did. They all watched the same things and did the same things and wore the same things.

In the middle, there appeared to be no passion, no real celebration or commiseration, no all good or all bad but everything else that was in the middle and grey. The Middles were just one big wave of the rest, all pretty much indistinguishable from each other. All normal and boring. All keen and eager and pleased to keep up the pretence. Gabe thought they lived with no depth of thought or consciousness. They didn't even know that they were alive. Not really alive! Not really living their one and only lives. They were too busy ticking boxes and toeing the line and pretending to look busy and doing as they were told.

They were all totally brainwashed and ruled by fear so taking the Valium, the heroin of the masses like Ambrosia, and now so addicted to believing in everything that they were told and sold through all medias and advertising that they were always hungry for more, but in this glazed eye state they were oblivious. Gabe thought that they were oblivious to everything.

"Did you hear they caught the flasher? He's only a bloody doctor! See, I told you." And Frank had told them it wouldn't be a weirdo, an obvious weirdo, like them. That it would be one of The Middles. The same people who pointed the finger at The Damned always had three fingers pointing back at them.

The Middles were even oblivious to the fact that they let the real sickos of society hang out among them. Because that was the truth of it, as far as Gabe and the rest of them were figuring it out. Really freaky people; the child abusers, the fraudsters, the wife beaters; these people had to blend in, they had to get close to other people and install trust and earn respect. This was the trick. This was invariably their modus operandi. The way and the only way that they could operate. Authorities and tabloids always blamed the young and the under classes, the punks and the underbelly of modern society. The outcasts and the loners. But if you actually read the headlines, heard the true stories, invariably, in fact almost without exception it was the man next door. The scout leader, the nurse, the bank clerk, the judge, the millionaire, the head of the child protection unit. The unmasked monsters were in reality, the 'you never would have guessed it' man or woman. Nearly always. The ones hidden in the camouflage of a 'nice life' were the ones that committed the crimes from the absurd to the most heinous. Strange people were often blamed as a smoke screen, using their differences to incite a hostility and distrust, while the ones hiding out in the mass of The Middles got on with the real crimes of the day. The Middles were blinded to the obvious.

Rarely was it a complete obvious weirdo. That is why it made such big news when it was, and this is what 'they' wanted everyone to believe; that there were monsters, and bogey men and strange folk hiding in the shadows, ready to pounce on you if you strayed from the flock. If you didn't follow the rules. Stay in the boundaries. Play the game.

But in reality it was here, among The Middles, where the evil hid and they hid well.

It always shocked and amazed Gabe that the real truth of it all was, that for all the world's problems, it was far more likely that you would be killed, hurt, maimed, raped, used and abused by someone that you already knew, usually more often than not, by someone that you actually _loved_. By someone that was supposed to love you. Now how messed up was that? Friends and family members, your nearest and dearest.

Gabe thought the majority of The Middles probably did nothing wrong and there were probably some good, kind intelligent and creative ones among them but they too disappeared in the wave of them all, the sea of them. They were tricked so as not to appear very outstanding at all. That was what The Middles had done to themselves, banished competition and made everyone the same so even their brilliant could not shine. They gave credence and celebrity to the ordinary, to the talentless. Real talent and perhaps even genius had been ignored and had to go and get a job on the till at Tesco or serve happy meals at the McDonalds on the ring road for minimum wage and forced to deal with middle management. All that middle management created by and for The Middles. All those name tags to pin on themselves so that they could pretend that they weren't really just a number.

Gabe got even more despondent thinking about how many potential great scientists, talented artists and free thinkers of the twenty-first century had been overlooked, drugged and trodden down in a misguided attempt to make none of the really average to weak among The Middles feel bad about themselves. They had invented normal and average to wrap themselves up warm in, a one size that fits all, but it was a false blanket, a false crutch. They had bitten off their noses to spite their faces in the grandest of senses.

Gabe and his gang didn't like anyone really and mostly, despite all of their justifications; it was simply because nobody liked them. And that was how these things worked.

I'll like you if you like me. I won't like you if you don't like me. I will hate you if you hate me. Do you love me? Well then I might just love you back. But then again I might not as love rarely follows any kind of rules.

Gabe had realised something that he thought was almost as near to being a truth as it was possible.

Gabe had made up his mind. If no one liked him then, sod the lot of them.

"Are we ready to rock and roll then?" Johnny the natural born leader.

"Yeah let's do it."

# Chapter 8

The van was hidden in Dave's garage. Dave's mum knew better than to ask them what they were up to. She had lived through this sort of activity for so many years that she was an expert at turning a blind eye and a deaf ear. The least she knew the better, even if she always knew perfectly well what was going on. She just noted the time on the clock, just in case an alibi was needed, and she just carried on with what she was doing. Another round of washing to go put on the line before she could have a break and stop for a minute for a cup of tea and some biscuits. She kept her mind busy with looking forward to her Alanon meeting later, where she would have a chance to hear the sound of her own voice.

"Where the fuck did you get this?" Franks eyes nearly popped out.

"Does it matter? Friend of a friend and all that. I got papers, you want to see 'em?" Dave shot back, eyebrows raised.

"No, no. Don't worry Dave." Gabe realised that they were better off not knowing.

There was a radio inside and not much else.

"Ok so this is the plan. Frank goes up on to the walls overlooking the area and Gabe, you just sit in the van with the ignition running ok. If you hear from any of us, just drive ok?"

"Drive where?"

"Erm, drive where? Just come back here ok?"

Gabe was beginning to think that this master plan was not very well thought out at all. He had an exam after lunch and he didn't need this. But it felt a bit too late to back out now. And Gabe also realised that this van would be perfect for transporting his art works down to the school. He did need one last favour.

Johnny told Dave and Frank to get in the back of the van and he jumped into the passenger seat, leant over and opened the driver's door from the inside for Gabe. As he did so the interconnecting door to the kitchen slammed shut with a loud bang that scared the shit out of all of them. As one door opened, another one closed firmly shut.

Sitting in the van in his required spot, with the engine running, Gabe opened the car window and lit a cigarette from the packet Johnny had left in a vain attempt to look a little less conspicuous and obvious. He could see Frank in the distance, squatting up on the wall and vaguely hidden behind the leaves of a tree. Gabe had no idea where the others had disappeared to, somewhere down the back garages of an old run down estate off the ring road.

_What the hell am I doing here?_ The thought kept turning over in Gabe's head. He felt paranoid, he could see a CCTV camera and there were quite a few odd looking people about. Gabe knew he shouldn't be here, he should have said, 'No!' Gabe just had a really bad feeling on him, almost like a premonition that this was all going to end badly. He felt sick to the gills and the tobacco smoke wasn't helping either. Everyone looked like a potential undercover cop or worse. He had promised himself he was going to change but what if it was all too late now, that this was it. Today would be the day that they got caught or that today would be the start of the rest of his life entrapped in the four walls of courts and prison cells. Why was he still with these people? Gabe didn't feel that great being in his own skin today. How had it come to this?

They had surpassed anyone's low hopes for them. For a second, Gabe had a moment of clarity and realised that he was becoming, if he hadn't already, which he felt sitting here as a getaway driver to a robbery that he undoubtedly already was, exactly what all others had thought or said that he was. He was fulfilling all of their doom filled prophecies and not fulfilling any of his own dreams. Not one of them.

Gabe tasted the fear and had to get out and half thought about abandoning the van; here and now was a good a time as any. But he couldn't. He couldn't leave his friends in the lurch. But now the fear of taking responsibility and running his own life was at a level that was below this level of fear he had living this sort of life.

After today he would focus on the sculpture, The Exhibition and nothing else. Gabe knew that the other art students would already be setting up their art work, arguing over their little spaces, unlike Gabe who wouldn't set up until the last minute. He didn't like the idea of leaving his paintings in the school hall, showing off before the big event. There was no need. Gabe also couldn't bear the thought of having to hang around with the others that were exhibiting, banging on about some bullshit or other. Feigning praise that the other exhibitors crap was good, buying into all that installation nonsense. Gabe knew himself well enough to know that, under all the pressure he was under at the moment, it would wind him up so much that he would want to do something dramatic. Something totally out of character, like throw the other artwork, (that was actually just a brick labelled 'mind'), through the other art work, (that was in fact just a plate of glass labelled 'conscience'). Just the thought of it filled him with a satisfaction. But more than likely, he would just suppress these feelings and make himself ill. Or worse, just give up. Take his own paintings down and go home.

He couldn't afford to give up, not now. All he had was his art. He sensed that his art was his only ticket out. The Exhibition, Gabe had decided, believed even, would be the crossroads and the difference between success and failure.

Gabe threw his cigarette out the window. He didn't usually like to litter, but the road he was parked on was like one big open trash can.

Gabe remembered the envelope that Gina had given him this morning and he took it out of his pocket and tapped it on the steering wheel half a dozen times before he just ripped the top off it. Opening it, he realised that there was not just a photo but a folded piece of paper and another scrap of paper.

Gabe held the photo and took a good look at his father for the very first time.

Of course it was his father. It was like looking at a photo of himself but a bit older and in a place he had never been to. The photo looked dated and his father was dressed in all black leather biker gear, but it was Gabe's genes for sure. On the scrap of paper there was an address, an address in this city. His father's address? Maybe? Unfolding the last piece of paper gave Gabe the biggest shock of all. It was a pencil drawing; beautiful, fine, energetic and stunning. But the most shocking thing about it was how uncannily similar it was to the sort of thing that Gabe drew and painted. It was not one of Gabe's drawings, he knew that, but it could have been. He recognised it but at the same time he had never seen it before in his entire life. It was a life drawing of a woman but with wings.

The questions in Gabe's mind came thick and fast. Did he know? Had Gina told him? Had he seen Gabe's art work? Gabe took another look at the photograph and he knew he had to see if he could find him. He needed to go and talk to this man. This stranger that was like looking into a mirror image of himself. It was all so familiar and at the same time, so completely new.

Gabe angled the rear-view mirror to take a look at himself, to compare his own face to the one in the picture. But all he saw and thought was... _You look a mess!_ It was one thing not wanting to fit in, another looking like a total tramp. If they got some money today, he was going to go immediately and buy some new clothes and do something about his hair. Something that made him look better, that suited him a bit more, that would make more of an impact. Something that would help him to change. It was time for action. For Grace, for The Exhibition, for so many things. And now too, for his dad.

Gabe was miles away when sudden, heavy banging on the back doors of the van was the signal he needed to put the van into gear. Johnny and Dave scrambled into the back and Gabe saw Frank stand up from his hiding place on the wall and give a thumb up and disappear. Seconds later, he reappeared around the back of the van almost skipping and he jumped in too.

"Go! Go! Go! GO man!" Dave and Johnny's faces were red and beaming with the thrill. Gabe had to wait for Frank as he tried repeatedly to get the van door to shut properly. It was a farce, thought Gabe and he could have just giggled, if he wasn't so scared. The door was still not shut fully when Frank looked like he'd put his all into it so the others grabbed Frank to sit down with them and finally, Gabe put his foot down on the accelerator and drove off and away from the scene of the crime.

Back at Dave's, the four of them sat in the back of the van going through their loot. It was an alright haul, a few thousand quid and a few easily saleable things, but nothing massive. Enough but not great. The big cardboard box that Johnny had been so excited about just turned out to be a dead weight full of books and old clothes.

"We must have missed the big one but they'll know now that they ain't safe and that's half the war won. When the big boys find out that Alistair can't even keep his own shit safe, they're gonna be coming to me begging." Johnny was chuffed with himself.

"Or guns blazing," Dave said complete with pistol fingers.

"Don't," Frank was looking distraught, "just don't!"

"Take a chill pill Franky boy, I know what I'm doing."

Johnny gave the boys their cash, a grand each; not bad for a morning's work. Easy money they all agreed but Gabe could feel the cash in his pocket and the words banging in his head that he just couldn't ignore were... _Dirty money_. And you couldn't save 'dirty money' you had to get rid of it. You had to spend it as soon as possible.

# Chapter 9

Gabe found himself standing in the middle of a huge shop, the sort of trendy, fashion conscious hip shop that was his worst nightmare. He knew that he didn't have the option of trying anything on, nor the desire to spend the rest of the morning in here when he had an exam to do in a few hours.

He stood in front of a rail of shirts and held each one up to himself, one by one. He had no idea. The fussy and flowery stuff looked awful, the green not so bad and the black looked ok, he thought. _Is this why men shop with women or people do it in groups_? Gabe wondered. _How the hell do you choose from all this?_ Gabe scanned around the store and it just seemed to have racks and racks of clothes. Could they really all be _that_ different? And there were lots of mirrors, enough mirrors for Gabe to see every angle of himself in bright strip light. Gabe remembered why he hated this experience so much. The security guy caught his eye so Gabe picked up a black jacket that was hanging on the rail in front of him, more to look like he was actually here to buy some clothes which he was, than because he liked it. Gabe didn't know what he liked. Gabe laughed to himself at the stoned looking, security guard who now seemed to only have interest in staring at him. _Please_ , Gabe thought. This guy was overweight, old and very unhealthy looking. If he had to make a run for it, Gabe reckoned he would be home with his feet up before this guy reached the end of the road. But Gabe had money, he wasn't going to make a run for it. For once, he was a bona fide customer.

Gabe put the jacket on and zipped it up under his chin. It was black, it had a hood and it had lots of pockets. Fashionable? Gabe had no idea, checking the price tag it seemed a bit pricey but it was comfortable and it accommodated the wings well. A woman walked past, blonde and slim but she must have been least thirty years old and she gave him a wink. Gabe immediately and involuntarily blushed and lowered his head but a voice in his head confirmed, 'Sold!'

He had the cash but not the time nor the privacy to try every damn thing on. He would definitely get the black jacket and then he thought, _Sod it! Why not wear all black?_ Less hassle, more professional, more striking! How much easier would it be to always wear the same colour? No need to ever clash ever again. Genius! And wasn't that what all the designers of all the fabulous clothes wore themselves? Grace only ever wore black clothes and she might even take notice of him if he was a bit more stylish like her. Dressing all in black, there had to be something in that.

The clock was ticking, the security guard was watching and Gabe was feeling hot and bothered so he just grabbed a couple each of everything he needed in black. Black shirts and t-shirts, black socks, jeans and jumpers. Everything black! Done.

Gabe dumped the heap at the till.

The man on the till, that Gabe judged to be about the same age as him and probably a part-time model or something, was wearing almost full make up and had bright blue hair. As he ran Gabe's items through the system he informed Gabe of the must-have, last-minute purchases, the special-offers this week, the buy-one-get-one-free. This week it was hair dye and eye liner for men, in any colour you desired; red, orange, green, pink, blue, white, black.

"You'd suit the black hair dye you would. And your eyes. Wow! They really would pop with a little bit of eyeliner under those lids. If you buy the dye you get the eyeliner free!"

Gabe tried to smile convincingly and felt like he couldn't say no and potentially offend this man's tastes and opinions for the sake of £2.99. And why not? He said he wanted to be different, totally different Why not go the whole hog? It was no time for pussy-footing about it.

"Yeah? Thanks. I'll take them too then."

Gabe just wanted to get out now. He felt light headed but it felt good. Leaving the shop, he felt a sense of achievement that others might feel climbing their own mountain. He had got into a routine. He saw it now. All those years of school and now he was breaking free. He really was putting in some action to change and it felt good. It was one thing thinking about everything, having dreams and ideals, but nothing ever changed without some form of action. Gabe felt as if he had almost entered into another dimension. The sun was shining but it was still cold and the air was clear and fresh. He had no memories in his head from neither this morning nor any thought about the immediate future of the exam this afternoon. Gabe was surrounded by the moment and he felt revived already.

If he went straight home, he could do his hair and change before the exam. There was just about enough time to dye his hair and get dressed in his new clothes. Enough time to make the transformation. And Gabe knew that if he didn't do it right now, he never would.

It would be the last time he saw any of the other students before The Exhibition; it might even get people talking about him and not for the usual reasons. It might even make him feel different to the way he usually felt and that couldn't be anything but better. Gabe smiled to himself and realised, as if for the first time, just how miserable he had been.

*******

The huge school quadrangle was heaving with shrills and hysteria. The morning exam takers were leaving as the afternoon ones were turning up. Ill, pale looking kids were sitting with their heads in their hands. Some were crying, others were jumping up and down on the spot holding on to others doing the same thing, for whatever reason. So much tension and pressure for such young adults that should be running free and enjoying their youth. Yet here they were instead, feeling like they were on deaths row. Someone was sick, someone else fainted.

Gabe realised now how nervous he was. His stomach was doing somersaults and he felt a bit sick for the smell of it and then he felt faint too. He suddenly realised that he hadn't had anything to eat yet today. It was a bit like witnessing some trauma or fiasco except this was all planned and imperative. The authorities were putting them through this. This is what they had signed up for. This was a form of torture. But Gabe felt a protective bubble over him. He didn't even feel like Gabe, dressed the way he was now.

He had to go to the bathroom, just to splash his face with water, to run some cold water over the pressure points of his wrist to cool down. He was not looking forward to the next few hours of sitting in one place with a hundred other sweating, breathing kids.

In the cool, damp, piss stinking room with urinals lining the wall, Gabe stood in front of the row of sinks in the dimly lit boy's loos. He tried to calm himself down, he tried to breathe deeply; get some more oxygen into his system but the air was saturated with the mix of pungent ammonia and bleach. He tried to clock into a place of peace. He had rushed to get here after the transformation and he needed to calm down a bit. Everything was getting too much.

Gabe checked his reflection in the mirror. He took the hood down of his new jacket, so that he could see his now newly dyed black hair. He checked the eyeliner. Dressed and framed all in black, he hardly recognised himself. The change was far more dramatic than he had imagined it would be.

Suddenly, without warning, one of the cubicle doors flung open hard with a crash and in the reflection of the mirror Gabe knew instantly that it was Grace.

She walked over and stood right next to him and turned the taps on full at the sink right next to his one.

"The girl's loos had a massive queue! Isn't that always the way? One day they'll figure out women need more toilets. Or...maybe we'll beat them to it and evolve to have cocks too!"

Gabe replied, "Yeah", in a voice he didn't recognise, in a voice that sounded to him like the voice of a pre-pubescent girl. He smiled and tried to give her a wink like he had practised so many times before in his fantasies but he pulled it off all wrong and Grace just raised her eyebrows and forced a grin as if to say, 'What an idiot!' and before Gabe knew it, the door had slammed and Grace had gone.

Probably the one and only chance he had left of ever being alone in a room with Grace and he had acted like a twat.

"Fail, epic fail."

But then Gabe slowly realised that if Grace was here then there was a good chance that the person who they had just ripped off was here too. Grace and Alistair walking to school this morning, he had seen them. Johnny would have also seen them from the park. Johnny had known that Alistair would have been here this morning. Johnny had planned it all of course. Alistair would have been sitting the exam this morning while they robbed them and no doubt while Gabe was sat here in this exam this afternoon, Alistair and the others would discover the robbery and be out to find whoever did it.

Dread filled Gabe from the inside out. He really did have to get away from Frank, Dave and Johnny. Detach himself. Gabe no longer felt protected by their presence in his life. If anything, they were now pushing him towards his worst nightmare.

And it wasn't as if Gabe had other options, not yet.

He would finish his paintings, create a masterpiece sculpture for The Exhibition by Friday next week, go and check out the address that had come with the picture of his dad. Go and buy his mum something nice. Maybe send her on one of those retreats she always went on about? Search the internet for places to sell his paintings and try and get a job in one of the galleries in town in the hope that they would occasionally let him hang his own works up. He'd work hard, make himself indispensable. Lock himself in his studio in his spare time, keep his head down and hopefully the hard work would pay off.

Gabe didn't want to turn out like his friends, follow them into a life of crime. He might have been in the gutter but that did not stop him looking at the stars.

Gabe put the hood back up on his jacket and took another look in the mirror. He felt so different to everybody else that looking different, in a way, suited him just fine. And this thought sent a tingling up, from the base of his spine that shot down his veins and washed over his skin and cooled down his whole body. And, for a split second, Gabe knew what it felt like to feel comfortable in his own skin.

The hall doors opened and students start filtering in to find their chair and desk where they were alphabetically placed. Some of them noticed something different about Gabe and gave him a second glance but as soon as they were all sat down and whispering they were told to be silent. The clock on the wall ticked and the teacher who had been given the thankless task of exam invigilator, who looked like he would rather be anywhere else but here, held up his hand as the papers were handed out. And even though now it was forbidden for anyone to talk and everyone was trying to be tight lipped, stomachs growled and audible sighs and last minute coughing fits reverberated and echoed around the huge hall. The tension in the room was palpable, thick like a viscose static. The air felt condensed with too little oxygen and everything seemed to be going in slow motion.

When everyone was set and after a few false starts, the invigilator started the stop watch with his thumb as his other hand went down, along with the head of every person in the room. Everyone started reading and re-reading furiously, writing as if their lives depended on it, like they had been told it did.

Gabe kept his head up and watched everyone for a moment, watching them all bent over, he thought that he didn't want to be like them. He didn't want to follow beliefs blindly. He wasn't going to like things, have to have things, do thing, just because everybody else did. Gabe wanted to have his own tastes, his own senses, figure out his own likes and dislikes. Find out his own truth and not take on others truths as his own. He didn't see why people placed value on the worthless and rarely recognised the invaluable. Gabe wanted to find his own way, his own style, his own mind. He didn't understand why everyone else had to be told or sold ideas that were all made up in some corporate or government office somewhere. It seemed that perhaps, the very thought of having your own mind, was a radical idea.

Gabe thought of Alistair making his way back to the lock up. He thought of his friends out there somewhere laughing wickedly over all their dirty cash. He felt his nerves; in his groin, in his thighs, even in his wings. The adrenalin in his blood stream was compelling him to run, to fly, to not follow all the others like he was socially conditioned to do. Gabe caught the eye of the teacher who gave him a look and he knew what he had to do, so he too bowed his head and got on with the questions on the bits of paper in front of him. Hoping against hope, that his passion and love for the subject outweighed his lack of attention in class and zero revision.

The aura of the room was so unnatural that Gabe noticed that his thoughts were dull and slow and lacking in any colour or animation. That was what sitting in a prison like hall, in straight uniform lines like brainwashed flesh covered androids, did to your imagination and passion.

Gabe stared at the papers in front of him and he read, NAME:

"Who are you?" Gabe asked himself.

After two hours of constant writing and fact recall, and a long time spent going off on a tangent from the original question to write an essay on something he knew about instead, Gabe had done as much as he could. Evoking the passion he had felt for the subject before the school had turned them into thankless tasks, had been exhausting. He put his head on the desk and closed his eyes. He was shattered. Mentally, physically and emotionally drained. He tried thinking of something to look forward to but all Gabe could think of was how short the paper trail was from ripping Alistair off this morning. How short was the line that led to him? If Alistair was going to be a proper enemy then Gabe could kiss goodbye to any safe and peaceful feelings for a while and more tragically, to Grace.

Gabe couldn't feel any more wretched if he tried. It was almost as if he let go now he would disintegrate.

Gabe tried to concentrate on his breathing, to take deeper breaths, and in his mind's eye he tried to picture himself new, anew, all in black. He imagined himself as he wanted to be, carefree and happy. He imagined that he was successful, that all his paintings sold for big money and that if people judged him it was favourably. He let himself think about meeting his dad, another artist. Maybe he was successful already or even just waiting for his son to come and find him? Perhaps he was rich and full of love to make up for the lack of it over the past eighteen years? Gabe imagined that in his pocket were tickets to a faraway land where everything would be better.

Then, out of nowhere, a flash of inspiration came. As soon as he had stopped thinking about it and turned his mind to something else, something completely different; no sooner had he let go of the mental torment of trying to figure it all out, the idea for his last piece, the sculpture, so simple and brilliant, just came to him with ease.

# Chapter 10

Gabe got up and out the house early. He just wanted to get on with the sculpture now. Luxuriate in spending a few days alone in his studio, free from the constraints on his wings and everything else.

Gina, with some help, had converted the large garage that was set back from the house, into an art studio for Gabe when he had turned twelve. The studio was not only somewhere for Gabe to go so that he could be out of the house and out of sight, but also as secret sacred place where Gabe could go to and be in absolute privacy, so that he could unravel the tourniquet around his torso and move freely without the fear of being disturbed. As much as it was a place for him and his growing collection of art, equipment and other paraphernalia.

Their back garden was overgrown and secluded. The honeysuckle and ivy and other evergreen shrubs had grown wild, high and wide so that no one could have seen in, even if they had wanted to.

The studio was meant to be a private safe haven for Gabe. The door had bolt locks and the windows had been blacked out so that Gabe could see out but nobody could see in. There were massive skylight windows to let in natural light and to let Gabe look at the sky, which he spent plenty of hours doing.

The studio had electric, running water and was full of Gabe's art, canvases, paints, white spirit, and paint brushes. Gabe had a kettle, sofa, blankets and even a small fridge in there, so that he need never leave. Gabe had spent a lot of time in here over the last six years and it showed. He might even have moved in here permanently if it wasn't for the fact Grace walked past his bedroom window every day.

Here in the studio, Gabe could stretch himself out. He could exercise, jump, dance, paint and have his wings unfurled and proud, yet still hidden from the rest of the world.

And even though this was Gabe's sacred place where no one was allowed to come, even his friends, they did come. Not together as a group but individually, they all had come at one time or other; when they had needed to desperately talk to Gabe about something, to confide in him or just to have him listen to them about something that they had on their minds. When they had each been going through their own personal hell, they had come to Gabe's studio and knocked on the door and waited patiently, or not, as Gabe had finished what he was doing.

What they assumed was some important part of his painting, little knowing that behind the breeze blocks that made up the structure of the garage/studio, Gabe, the Gabe that they thought that they knew, stood there with his wings splendid; furiously trying to pin them down again.

It was one thing bandaging his wings in his room with time on his hands and another task completely, with someone banging on the door like they were going to knock it down. Especially when Gabe could see them standing there through the glass. He never quite believed that they could not see him when they looked in or tried peering closer though their blacked-out side of glass.

Gabe always half expected them to say, "Hey Gabe, what were you doing in there with wings on when I looked in the window?" But they never did. No one knew. Even his friends that came here with their pressing problems and dark secrets of their own, knew nothing of Gabe's big secret. A secret, Gabe thought, far bigger than any that they could and did tell him.

Standing barefoot on the cold morning dewy grass and damp soil before entering the studio, Gabe could hear children walking to school on the street out the front. The whole world was out there now getting on with it just a few feet away. The laughing and screaming kids were on their way to the primary school that Gabe had gone to. The older kids he could hear were going to the same secondary school that Gabe went to. The kids in the primary school would filter up into the secondary school as all the kids in the secondary school had done. The same process, again and again, every year as the years passed. Just like Gabe had done and just like most of the people in Gabe's school had done. All to sit these exams like his year were doing. Then all eventually spat out into the city and the rest of the world to get on with their lives, shaped in a way that might help them to be employable or acceptable members of a supposedly civilised society. Everyone in his school year would be released soon into the wilderness of more mind control and not for the first time, Gabe thought, that although everything changed, at the same time it looked as if nothing really ever did. Only Grace hadn't walked past his house that morning and most probably, never would ever again.

Gabe felt exhausted still and debated on whether he should just to go back to his room and stay in bed for the day. Perhaps he was coming down with something. He was dressed in his all new black clothes and had even put on the black eyeliner, he wondered if he should give the studio and sculpture a miss and go and find his friends and start the party they had planned for later this afternoon a bit earlier? Johnny had given Gabe the money for it, which basically meant that he wanted Gabe to go and buy the booze for them all.

But no, not right now. Right now, Gabe had to go inside the studio, take off his jacket, release his wings and get started on the sculpture. Stay hidden inside, at least until his mum's last client had left for the day and he had the run of the house again. The last thing he wanted to do was meet his friends at any stage today, or any other day for that matter.

As Gabe reached into his pocket for the keys, he noticed that someone had tried to knock the padlock and bolt off. Someone had been here. Gabe immediately guessed at who it might be. Someone looking for their money perhaps? The lock hadn't been totally broken, perhaps they had been disturbed? Perhaps they were inside waiting for him right now? Maybe they had been in and destroyed his paintings, destroyed his future? It would serve him right.

Gabe went and checked the outside windows. All were still intact, shut and secure.

Gabe's heart started racing and his hands were shaking as he let himself into the studio. His mouth was instantly dry with that familiar acrid taste and Gabe found himself battling the onset of a panic attack.

The paintings were all still there, exactly in the same places and positions where he had left them, as was all his mess and collections. Gabe gave a huge sigh of relief. He was being paranoid; paranoia was becoming one of his main personality traits of late. The lock had just been hit by a branch or something. Maybe his mum had knocked it yesterday doing some gardening? _Pull yourself together Gabe_ , he told himself. He was not cut out for this. Not one little bit.

Inside the usual sanctuary of the studio, everything was as he had left it. Still, Gabe couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, of another presence in the room. Gabe triple checked everywhere. He bolted and padlocked the door shut and put a bean bag in front it as an extra precautionary safety measure. And only then could he start to breathe semi normally again. He put some music on and lit a few candles. He couldn't be creative under this much duress.

Finally, when he was convinced that he was alone; totally and utterly alone with no chance of anyone seeing him or even potentially seeing him even if they came to the garden, that there was no one hiding behind the canvases or under the blankets, no one ready to pounce out of the shadows at him; Gabe took off his jacket, T-shirts and loose bandages and he spread his wings out wide.

Gabe could only paint they way he wanted to without his wings all bandaged up. He could only express himself freely if he felt at least physically free of the constraints he put on his wings. The bandages acted like a tourniquet physically and also psychologically. When Gabe unwrapped himself he felt like he could really breathe again. After he had unravelled and exposed his wings, he always took a sharp deep breath in, filling his lungs and lifting his chest as high as it could go, as he unfolded his wings out wide. And then he could feel the release and relax in every one of his muscles, not just the ones connected to his wings.

Gabe tensed his entire being most of the time and the short act of freeing his wings transformed him into a completely different person. From the Gabe who shuffled with his head down, to the Gabe with wings who could stand proud and look the world in the eye. Only he was stood behind the blacked out windows of his hideaway. Gabe may have been trying to look the world in the eye but the world was not looking back at him. The world and its population could not see him, know him or understand him.

And that was it, thought Gabe, no one really knew him because no one knew his secret. No one could possibly understand because he hadn't given them the chance. He was too different, too special. Who could help him? His mum did her best but she had let him go these last few years, given him freedoms, but he instinctively knew not to trust anybody. Even his friends who knew they could trust him, he didn't trust them with this or with much else as they had got older.

Before, Gabe felt like they would have had his back and him theirs but now, now it was all about the money. About the climb. And Gabe suspected that they would climb over him if they had to or if he was in the way. He felt it in their auras and he felt it in their eyes. Sometimes he thought that if he listened carefully enough he actually heard it in their thoughts. Their survival was more imperative to them than his. He understood that and he felt no real malice towards them.

It was just that Gabe dreamed and hoped of a very different life. He dreamed that maybe one day, after he left school and when he started selling his art, he could move right away to somewhere; somewhere perfect. Somewhere he could expose his wings all the time.

Then he would have the freedom to grow strong and muscular and tanned. Ideally, Gabe thought, he would like to go out and live in an exotic and far away land where he could live free with all the different colourful tropical flowers, birds and creatures. Somewhere with soft, white, sandy beaches and crystal clear, blue seas. Somewhere, where there were breath-taking waterfalls and still green lagoons. Tropical forests and local handmade crafts.

Somewhere warm, always warm so that he didn't have to wear many clothes.

Somewhere isolated, so that he didn't have to explain or hide, so that he could live free.

Somewhere he could just paint all day. Able to fly occasionally if he felt like it. Hell, able to fly all the time if he wanted to.

Somewhere where there was no grid lock traffic and exhaust fumes to fill your lungs, no super markets with aisles and aisles of stuff and of choice of things in cellophane and cardboard, disguising the fact that what they contained was invariably a different combination of the same shit. No politics, lies and media control. No power hungry leaders. No miserable faces and grey skies. He imagined being in this far away land and even if the friendly locals found him out they would respect his privacy. The privacy of 'The Strange Winged Man' that could fly and paint.

He fantasised that they would view him as some sort of talented genius creature that created works of art and who was always kind to them. Gabe saw himself bartering with the townsfolk, swapping his art for food and other necessities down at the local, organic and straight from the earth, fragrant markets and backstreets. With no cellophane or sell by dates in site. No tills, no middle management. Gabe daydreamed like this to keep his spirits up.

When things really got on top of him and Gabe felt that life was getting too dark and hard, too hostile and unmanageable, like now. When the reality of the world he currently lived in caused a dark cloud of depressive thoughts to shadow his hopes and the ever present black hole of powerlessness grew so large that it threatened to consume him whole, then he would dream these dreams. And escape.

Gabe, when he remembered, would stop what he was doing and listen to his breathing, in and out, until he was totally relaxed. Breathing out the stresses and tensions that wracked his body and mind and breathing in the hope and beauty of infinite possibility.

Gabe took a few deep breaths in and out and he imagined that all the chattering voices of opinions; all the internal conversations and endless thoughts that were criticising him and telling him in a hundred different ways that he was worthless and ugly and that every other person that he came across on a daily basis was simply self-serving idiot and an ignorant wanker; were all instantly transformed in to fluttering butterflies. Gabe transformed all the unwanted negative thoughts into butterflies that just flew straight out of his consciousness. If they refused to go, even as butterflies, Gabe imagined then that they simply transformed instantly into a colourful dust that fell down and drifted away to nothing.

Then, when Gabe's mind was still, when he had reached that silence that was always there and that was present between all thoughts, Gabe felt free. He felt like himself. The himself that he wanted to be, where anything and everything was possible. This was the place where Gabe knew, felt and understood was where his soul resided.

It was the only place where he could be his true self, where he couldn't be anything but his true self. Here, where there were no worries, no fears, no more mental conversations, just his soul, or whatever it was, his spirit, his light, his birth, his death, his constant, his essence, his 'God' for want of a better word, his higher power.

His ever present and everlasting soul.

Gabe knew that when he could finally be himself revealed, he would feel free. Free of the shame, free of the guilt and free of his self-obsessions. Free to fly.

The freedom to be exactly who he was, wings and all. To accept himself even if others couldn't. Gabe thought that this was perhaps what true freedom was; the gift of expressing your true self without the voices of criticism or false judgements. From yourself or anybody else affecting your natural need to be yourself.

So to do that, Gabe took himself to this, his far away land where he imagined better things and where he touched at the allusive feelings of calm and peace and bliss.

And from this place, Gabe started on the sculpture. From this place post meditation, Gabe found things flowed easily, as if almost subconsciously, letting him express himself without regret, without the weight of worry, without that thief of energy, over analysing or the stronger than gravitational pull of the massive self-doubt that plagued him.

Gabe gathered all the things that littered his studio, that covered the floor and every other surface; in bins, in corners, on walls. Everything that he had collected and accrued over the course of his life so far; concert tickets, fancy bottles, bits of material he had liked but not ever used, labels he had picked off things, bits of jewellery, pieces of paper with scribbled poems on, notes, warning letters from school, posters of bands he had liked, old toys he'd had as a child that he hadn't wanted to throw away. Anything that glittered, that had caught his eye, that he had put in his pocket or bag on his travels and claimed ownership on that had never made it out.

Gabe was going to use up all these things that he had amassed over the last eighteen years of his life to make the final piece. Everything that had interested him, the little things he had picked up as memento's, till receipts, dud lottery tickets, smooth pebbles, twisted branches, all that he had collected on some of the many days that had led to here and to this day, were going to go into making the sculpture that would signify the end.

It would be the full stop that he needed to pass from this point to the next. The detritus from the past would build the sculpture and metaphorical archway through which he needed to pass through into a better life, the rest of his life. Each collected thing was now just a small part of a far larger jigsaw. Every one of the items he was going to use, gave him a memory of that time and all his memories created, in complex combination of his own reaction and reflection on what he had experienced, to who or what he was now.

Gabe lost all sense of time, of place, of ego. He even lost the burden of who he was. Almost trance like he glued and stitched and welded his treasures together. Treasures that were worthless to anybody else. His jewels of the journey. Slowly transforming all that he had collected over his childhood into what he hoped would be his most defining work of art yet. It was like every memory and every life lesson learnt; every day and event that he had lived through had brought him to this moment in time and went into making who he was now. It was like all the individual genes that went to making the unique individual that he was.

No one saw him but if they had, they might have said that he looked possessed. But Gabe was just happy to be back in his studio, creating and free, being his true self for a change.

A deafening shot and crashing noise made Gabe almost jump right out of his skin. A bang, like the sound from a gun, followed by a crash as something landed on the skylight of his studio. Gabe froze, he felt like a stranger, a foreigner in his own land, potentially caught out. Like the Rabbit in the headlights. It was as if, all of a sudden, he was nothing more than a condensed version of himself, heavy and obvious. The spotlight was on him, like an interrogation. Guilty. Where would he run if he couldn't run into his own house where his mother and her clients would be? Nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide.

Gabe could hear people laughing and wondered if he was being targeted again, it had happened before. One year it had been so bad they had doubled all the locks and padlocks from the gate to the studio. But it had been a few years since that phase and he had grown more confident, or just more lazy and more lax with the security. He told himself it was just a car back firing and a branch falling, nothing was broken, nothing had happened.

Gabe felt like he had had a heart attack but it was just nothing. Just somebody, or just nobody. Worse way out, he could run into the house, even if his mum was in there with a client. Gabe didn't know anyone else anymore and he realised that it was true, that he hardly knew anyone in his street anymore. The houses were put up for sale and sold so regularly and apart from some of the old people, Gabe reckoned he and his mum had been here the longest. People downsized, up graded, went over to somewhere nearer or somewhere further from the city. They divorced or had more children than the house could cope with. Property prices had boomed and in this area especially. This area that had once been the domain of artists and writers, of the bohemians and hippies, was now so desirable that investors had just renovated and made a quick buck. There were no evident artists or writers left. Gabe wondered where they had all gone or if they had all become property developers too, as the cash had been just too hard to resist for the penniless painter and Gabe could identify with that. It was a shame but who could blame them? But now, thought Gabe, now it was time, time for the artist to come back again. Time for a revolution. Time to bring the real art back to the people. The Middles could certainly do with it. Gabe knew he needed to change but he also thought everything could do with changing, with getting better.

Here and now, it was not uncommon for Gabe to go years without ever seeing a neighbour. Next door had moved out one day and Gabe realised that he had never even met them before.

'How long did you live here?' Gabe had enquired. Four years! They had lived there four years and Gabe had never even known that they had moved in! They had slept metres from his own body, they had eaten feet away from him, they had lain half naked in their gardens in the summer within holding hand distance and Gabe would not have been able to pick them out in a police line-up. _Maybe I'm not as observant as I thought I was_ , Gabe thought. But then again because of the way he looked they may have even avoided him. Gabe guessed that made things easier for them, if they could deny to themselves that life was anything but perfect, then it was. Or perhaps if they looked at him long enough they might catch something. Or even, it might simply just be their small minded inability to see past the difference and see the boy and now the man behind the unusual appearance.

Gabe had long given up the need to be popular. Or more accurately the belief that it was possible.

Gabe gave out a wish then, a wish to find other artists or even just thinkers like himself. Perhaps they would not judge him, want to frighten him. They would be more like him. If they did exist, Gabe had no idea where they all were. No doubt they were on the internet but that was becoming more like a giant haystack by the day and finding good things more like the proverbial needle.

Gabe read about the places where, in the past, poets and philosophers had gathered, but those places were now just tourist spots. So as well as the dreams of a place where he could be free, Gabe also let himself dream of the people who he could be free with too. And not living on top of each other, all squashed together like sardines like they were here. It freaked Gabe out living so close to other people. The way in cities everyone is in everyone else's personal space. Gabe knew that he slept in a room next to another room where a stranger slept in their bedroom. They might even sleep up against the other side of the same wall, as Gabe lay with his wings out, they might lay and sleep and dream within inches of him, and still be strangers. It was just too weird.

Gabe gave up working on his sculpture. The bang, the fright, had broken the spell and he had been working on it for hours now and it was coming together. Gabe checked the clock, it was six o'clock already. A whole day gone, hidden and alone. Breathing in his own air all day, Gabe felt stifled. He needed to get out.

# Chapter 11

Gabe bandaged himself, pulled on his back t-shirts and he went over to the mirror and was smudging the new eye liner under his lower lashes, when there was a knock on the door. His heart jumped and beat faster, raising his blood pressure, not for the first time today. But Gabe saw that was only Frank and it reminded him to get a new padlock for the gate, otherwise sooner or later someone was going to catch him.

Frank looked like he might burst in to tears. It was cold so Gabe just threw on all the rest of his clothes and his new hooded black jacket. If he zipped up the jacket and put the hood up, Gabe realised he didn't need to bandage the wings as much as they fit snug and nicely without it all. Gabe was growing to like this jacket a lot.

He covered the beginnings of the sculpture with blankets and thought that perhaps it was not a sculpture at all but an installation. What exactly do you call something that you have put together rather than taken from?

It turned out that the others had sent Frank, as the party had been going for hours without Gabe and they were running out of booze.

"I've had enough of fighting and the club, thinking 'bout getting into Yoga instead. I need more peace, more calm. And Gabe, I've been seriously thinking about moving away." Frank went a bit red, shy at his admission but Gabe could tell he was a bit tanked up so didn't take too much notice.

"Me too Frank," Gabe agreed.

But it was true. They both felt it. They needed to get out. Not just right now but for longer and further, get away. Run away if they had to!

If anyone was going to take this breakup of their gang thing bad, it would be Frank thought Gabe. For although Frank probably needed the real world more than anybody else, he had been petrified of it for so long that it had stuck in his psyche. He had pined for the day he would be legally allowed to be doing what he was doing for so long that actually living beyond it was just too much to even contemplate. He had never thought that far.

Frank was not cut out for a life of crime either and Gabe couldn't figure out why Frank had been so up for the robbery yesterday. But then the money had been too tempting he guessed. As part of his martial arts training Frank had studied Buddhism and various other Eastern philosophies and these 'spiritual' ways made Frank feel good about himself, had calmed down his heart and placated his ever present anxiety. And everyone knows that stealing and lying are quite high up the list of 'no-no's' if you want to live like a warrior of light. If anything, Gabe thought that Frank would have been better on the other side of the fence, that he would have made a better copper than a criminal.

"Gabe there is something I need to tell you."

Gabe wasn't in the mood for it. He wasn't going to be here for Frank anymore, he had to start confiding in the others, so as much as he didn't want to Gabe said, "Come on mate, let's go down to the park and meet the others then. Let's go get them this booze they want so desperately. We can walk and talk if you like."

Gabe and Frank met Dave and Johnny, who had already been sitting in the middle of the disused bandstand at the park for a few hours. Dave and Johnny were wearing matching jackets and had been drinking all day by the looks of it, spending their money fast too. Frank still had something to say and he hadn't managed to spit it out to Gabe yet. None of them noticed or mentioned that Gabe looked any different which Gabe just took as another sign of how selfish and self centred they all were.

Dave had just got a tattoo of tribal thing on his calf from his neighbour, who had bought a tattoo gun online, so he was walking around with his jeans rolled up to his knee, with a blood stained white sock. The tattoo was really shit, it looked a mess artistically and medically but Gabe thought that he would still like a tattoo. He didn't like the idea of the pain, even Dave had said that it was agony but Gabe liked the idea of having a permanent reminder of the way he felt now; of the dreams he had now that he didn't want to forget. He even toyed with the idea of becoming a tattoo artist himself, marking people with his art. He knew that skin was different to canvas and that he'd never be able to deal with people all day, bent over working with his wings all bandaged up. Having to do the work that they wanted him to do, it would break his heart. But, if it was the only way, it might be an idea to have a go at least...Even if just to learn another discipline. Gabe made a mental note to check and see if there was an apprenticeship going at a local tattoo studio where he might fit in. He could go round them all first and get an idea of the people in his search for a tattoo.

But Dave had got there first. Dave had already bought a machine from the guy that had done him and he had a bag full of tattoo magazines to help him on his way. Gabe didn't want Dave thinking he copied him, that he wanted to be a tattoo artist as well out of some form of twisted need to be more like Dave. Or for Dave to take it the wrong way because he thought Gabe thought he was a better artist than him.

Dave promised to tattoo all of them. Gabe couldn't think of anything worse than let Dave at him with sharp needles that were going to mark him with ink for the rest of his life. He had no doubt that in a few years, with the right teachers, that Dave could get good but Gabe had been a guinea pig for Dave already one too many times. But the others were all up for it. Frank said they should all get the same one and the others agreed but still Gabe had his doubts. He nodded in agreement; he wasn't in the mood to row about it right now.

And besides, they had shared a significant time in their lives together and tattoos were ancient and tribal too. Perhaps it would be a good thing to do, to mark the end of this time. Something very small and simple and somewhere not too obvious. More than likely they would talk about it for hours and never actually get round to doing it, like they usually did about most things. It would give them a break from talking about money, sex and misdemeanours for a bit and all the other meaningless conversations they had that just seem to go around continuously on a tilted loop on repeat.

They all offered up their ideas on designs and phrases, things like 'all for one and one for all', but they couldn't agree on anything. The tattoo had to mean something, it had to have a purpose, serve as a reminder and it had to convey the way that they all thought now. Something that connected them all but still would not fade with time. Things that they wanted to remember and not to forget, like that they would never conform, that they would never work for the company or the government or 'the man' or be a wage slave. That they would live their lives to the full and not just exist. Live _their_ lives, not the lives anyone else wanted for them or that made them feel like they weren't being true to who they were. And all of their other hundreds of other ideals; never to be a door mat, never be used or abused, never forget to laugh, read comics or watch good films. To always play their music loud, to never give up on the dreams they had now, however much real life jaded them, shat on them or fucked them around. Never take second best, to be the best and mostly, the others agreed, to confirm that they would always have each other. Like a more grown up version of the time when they were twelve and they cut their thumbs with a Swiss army knife one of them, probably Dave, had and declared themselves to be blood brothers by rubbing their thumbs into each other's. Mixing their blood and mixing their souls in a bond they believed would never be broken. Gabe's had got infected and he'd had to go to the doctors and get a tetanus injection. He still had the scar.

Gabe agreed with a lot of what they were saying but at the same time his brain was just saying, 'but yes, the bond is going to be broken!' Did he really want to be reminded of them forever? Being bound together forever is a very long time.

It wasn't turning out to be much of a party and there was a black cloud looming. Gabe promised himself two beers and a bit of vodka and he was going to go home and chill out.

Frank still had something to say and was making a big deal of telling them his secret, building it up and up as some enormous revelation. As the sky got darker and the band stand echoed their voices in reverberations, they all sensed it was something big. But how much worse could it be than what they already knew about him? They were sure he hadn't murdered anyone. He told them he had something to tell them, something huge and then he kept changing his mind and then changing it back again and this went on for an hour as Frank and the others took more and more swigs from the bottles that they were handing around. Trying to talk on other subjects and keep warm as they noticed lightening and waited to hear how long it took before the distant booms of thunder sounded, the seconds shortening as the storm neared. But Frank kept interrupting them and his anxiety was highly contagious. They all wanted him to get on with it as it was getting cold and they wanted to get moving before the storm, Dave and Johnny wanted to go to a new club in the city. And really, after all that they had all been through together over all the years that they had been friends, basically for all of their lives that they could remember, they thought that there was nothing left to shock them. But Frank had wound himself up so much and convinced himself, what with his abandonment issues and all that, that they wouldn't want to be his friend anymore.

"Ay, just get on with it Frank. We love you ok? Nothing is going to change that even if you pull out two dicks ok! Just get on with it! You're giving me gut ache." Dave really had had enough.

They all watched on with baited breath as Frank slipped all of his leather and friendship bracelets that he always wore, off both his wrists and over his hands and as he rolled up his shirt sleeves, to expose a mass of scars. Some were old, some fresh. Scratches and scars went up both of Frank's arms but they were mostly concentrated on his left forearm, like a surreal broken, haphazard ladder. Some rungs were mere grazes while others looked like they should have been stitched. Deep red gashes and high raised white scars, some purple, some healed. Mostly, they were all in the various stages of healing, a few may have been as freshly made as that day. Some looked like they were a good few years old.

They were all shocked and they all gasped involuntarily; their skin was not as thick as they made out.

After a long few seconds Dave managed to speak. "So you're not gay then?"

Dave was so unprepared for this other revelation and wanted to break the silence that was thick with all the unsaid words. None of them knew a way in which to express the things that they each wanted to say. It was like there were no words that fit; the words that they wanted to use had not yet been invented to convey these emotions that lay out of the ordinary. And then they just felt sorry; sorry for Frank, sorry for themselves and sorry for Dave too as what he had said was inappropriate and would have been funny in any other situation but they were too sad to laugh really.

Gabe didn't say anything, he couldn't think of anything. For all the conversations he had held in his head, all the worries and fears that he had expected or invented and had prepared himself for, none of those scenarios had included this one.

"So can I still be your friend. I'm not too weird am I? I am sorry, I am sick. I need help. My life feels like it is falling apart. Will you always be my friends?" Frank looked at all of them with a pleading in his eyes, wide with tears brimming, ready to spill over. He said it had been more a cry, a scream, for help; so that he could feel because sometimes he just felt like he was at the bottom of a well and the sides were too slippery and steep to climb out of and he wanted to get out so badly. He had kept his sleeves long and had always worn a load of leather bracelets to hide the scars. They all took generous swigs from Johnny's vodka bottle.

After a few more, long seconds, as they all had their own thoughts on everything, they looked around their gang; all of them as sick and as weird and as twisted in their own way as each other.

Then Gabe walked up to Frank and gave him a hug and the others followed suit. They all held Frank in a genuine act of caring, which meant everything to Frank as they were rarely affectionate with each other. They all told him that they loved him and that they were there for him and each other. Frank was relieved and burst out crying again. They all cried now, the four of them, they shed the tears that had been ready and waiting to fall. They put their arms around each other and formed a tight knit circle, like the stars do before a performance. This formation had been an integral part to their gang code years back but they did it again now with a special intensity and also so that they could hide their faces in the scrum and cry like they wanted to, without the fear of the others seeing them crack.

Dave then said he had something that he wanted to tell them too. "I am pregnant." He looked dead serious which made the others just want to laugh.

"Honestly, don't laugh fellas. I'm fucked. I really am pregnant."

Johnny, wiping a tear away, said, "I thought you'd put on a bit weight mate, I just didn't want to say anything!"

And even Frank laughed.

But Dave was being serious. A woman he had been sort of seeing, well fucking mostly, was pregnant.

Dave was going to be a daddy.

And something about that realisation, when it hit them, stopped their laughter dead.

"I better tell you then, while we're doing all this Oprah confessional shit, that I shagged your mother Dave." Dave mock attacked Johnny as he knew there was no way on earth that Johnny really had shagged his mum as he would have killed him.

But the others found this so funny because not even Johnny was that stupid or mad or desperate and they found it funny that Dave would be so upset if he knew his mum slept around, when that is what he spent his life doing or boasting that he did. Whether it was true or not... And it seemed that everyone but Dave had heard the rumours about his mum, though not even Johnny was that wicked to have tried to prove the gossips right.

They all couldn't stop laughing through their tears and were glad for the play fighting that ensued so that they could all punch and tussle with each other; human contact was after all, for the usually undemonstrative, still human contact.

But Gabe never said anything about his wings. It crossed his mind that this might be the perfect opportunity, a sign...his cue. But he couldn't. Even amongst his friends that were more special and different than most, with dark deep secrets of their own, suffering from things he didn't know about too, Gabe knew his secret was different.

Gabe thought that they could all be strangers in ten years time. If he wasn't the same person with the same set of friends from when he was eight, who would he be and how would things have changed by the time he was twenty eight, thirty eight. By which time his friends would either be dead, in prison or healed. One thing that Gabe was certain of was that he would always have his wings. They were never going to disappear or heal of their own accord.

No! Gabe was certain that he would never ever reveal his secret, under any circumstances to anybody. He didn't even tell them about his dad.

Johnny's phone buzzed and Johnny passed it around his friends so that they could all read what it said.

I KNOW YOU DID IT. PAYBACK TIME.

"Bring it on," Dave said in defiance but Gabe's heart sank and he felt the blood drain from his face. Looking at Frank he could tell that he was shitting himself too, he looked frightened half to death.

Another message came through.

"Oh my God!" Johnny's face went white as well.

# Chapter 12

Johnny's dad's flat looked like a bomb had gone off. The boys were so used to seeing it neat that seeing it now, was an assault on their senses. It didn't look like it could possibly be the same flat. Johnny's dad had always been a bit OCD for neatness, something that Johnny had inherited, but now everything that should have been in a cupboard or on a shelf was now tipped out over onto the floor. Everything was just everywhere, from the hall to the living room to the kitchen. The TV was smashed and other electrical goods had been pulled out from their sockets so that there were wires everywhere. And it reeked. They couldn't quite place the smell but it was a combination of everything rank that they could think of. It smelt like bad drains by the sea and vomit. Johnny's dad had always taken such great pride in the flat, it was small but he had tried to make it a home for him and his son. Now, the flat was trashed. There was food splattered all over the walls and a lot of what looked like blood too and there was even a syringe on the floor.

"Has anything been taken?"

"Hard to tell. No I don't think so."

"What about all you gear?"

"I don't keep it here, I ain't a fool!" Johnny said it but even he was starting to doubt it.

"Where do you keep it?" Dave wanted to know.

"Like I'm gonna tell you eh! A gentleman in business has to play his cards close to his chest." Gabe gave Johnny a despairing look because really, gentlemen in business didn't find themselves in the position Johnny was in right now.

"What's that noise?" Frank on instinct assumed one of his fight positions.

They all furtively made their way to where the muffled sound was coming from, looking left and right, their nerve endings all now buzzing on the highest frequency. Then they heard what they realised was a ticking sound.

"Fuck me a bomb, that's a bit much," Dave said in all seriousness.

"Shouldn't we make a run for it guys?" Frank implored in a whine.

"Bombs don't fucking tick, this ain't a movie kids!" said Johnny who thought he knew it all.

Gabe figured that the ticking was coming from the clock on the kitchenette wall. The only thing that seemed to still be in the same place it was supposed to be.

Just for dramatic purposes, and fuelled by an afternoon of drinking, Johnny signalled for Dave to kick his dad's bedroom door down.

And there, sat on a basic wooden chair, naked, shaking, bound and gagged in the middle of the room, was Johnny's dad. Crying and stinking of the unmistakable scent of urine.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Johnny's ever present confidence momentarily vanished.

Gabe strode over and tore the gaffer tape from off of Johnny's dad's mouth.

"What the fuck have you done now?" Johnny's dad literally spat. He was, unusually for him but not for the circumstances, understandably angry.

"Nothing dad. Nothing right." Johnny barged past Gabe so that he could untie his dad's hands and ankles. Johnny that was usually so particular about his appearance and disrespectful about his dad, dropped to his knees so that he landed, kneeling in the puddle of piss that the chair was now in the middle of.

"Sorry son, I was just a bit scared there." Johnny's dad started crying again and a huge mass of snot started dribbling down his already saturated face, down over his lips.

"Nothing I can't sort dad, I'll sort this." Johnny released the rope that was binding his father to the chair so that he was now free to stand up. He just about managed to get to his feet unaided, he wouldn't let Johnny touch him. With as much strength and dignity as he could muster, he put one unsteady foot in front of the other and headed in the direction of the bathroom. The boys kept their heads lowered unable to look up and at him until they heard he'd slammed the bathroom door shut behind him.

"Should I clean up?" Frank headed for the kitchen to look for a bucket, bleach and cloths.

"No let's get out of here."

"Lock the door dad!" Johnny shouted back as they ran down the stairs and out the door into a world that seemed the same, despite the horror of what they had just witnessed.

"I'll show those little bastards who is the boss around here. Come on we need to formulate a plan."

They all walked to the park, to the playground because here they could see everywhere, they could see who was coming from a distance. Totally exposed as they were here, it was also the safest place to be. If by some chance someone did appear, they could be spotted immediately and if need be, there were plenty of choices of directions in which to run. Frank, who still had hold of the bag of booze, started to dish a can of beer out to everyone.

But Gabe didn't want to be here. It was getting dark. He had too much to do, he wanted to see if he could go and see his dad now more so than ever and he really needed to get back to the sculpture. Shit he would rather just be sat at home watching television with his mum than getting involved in all this. Gabe didn't get Johnny anymore. He knew that Johnny had been hurt by the way his mum had treated him but Gabe couldn't feel the same compassion for him now that he was treating people in the same way. That didn't make any sense. Johnny was turning into the enemy.

Johnny had sent a message back to Alastair telling him it wasn't him and Frank by now had worked himself in to somewhat of a frenzy, just getting more and more anxious.

"Maybe we can just give him back what he wants Johnny?"

As if on cue another text came through.

JUST GIVE ME THE BOX BACK. FORGET THE CASH. I NEED THAT BOX.

Johnny was trying to figure it all out. There must be something precious in the box, it must be worth more than the cash. It might have some leverage, it was gaining more value to Johnny by Alistair's admittance of needing it so damn desperately. But to admit he had the box would be to admit a whole lot of things.

"Just give him back the box Johnny," Frank begged, traumatised by recent events.

"Ah he's got nothing on me, forget about it. I'll keep pleading innocence. About time my dad had a kick up the arse. Who fancies getting pissed and going and pulling a few birds in town?"

"Count me in bro, still got plenty of cash and could do with getting my leg over." Dave leered and Gabe couldn't help but look at Dave with more than a little disgust in his eyes, especially after what he had told them earlier as well.

It amazed Gabe that Johnny and Dave were just able to get on with their lives, to just drink and fuck it all away.

And they didn't get him, why Gabe didn't go to the clubs and sleep around. They knew he was paranoid about his hump but even ugly kids had sex. Dave, Frank and Johnny didn't know why Gabe just didn't go for one of the girls at a party. When some girls got drunk, some of them would happily 'do' anyone, they had told him. If Gabe put himself in their line of fire he would be on his way to getting laid. Or if he went down to the station of an evening, there were always prostitutes down there and they would help him out, that was their job. They thought Gabe was a good looking boy and the hump wasn't that bad, they didn't know why he made such a fuss about it. But these ideas appalled Gabe.

Of course they didn't realise that Gabe actually had wings, it would have been one thing undressing in front of a stranger and potential lust conquest if they were expecting some kind of deformity, but another altogether to expose the fact that he had wings. Besides, they forgot, he had done things with girls. Not much. It always got round school. Gabe knew that any girl, however drunk or just because they fancied Gabe, would potentially have their own school life ruined for having kissed the monster. Pushing Gabe ever further out from the flock. But the others weren't affected that much by it, of course they weren't as it wasn't actually happening to them. The mockery and upset that had followed after brief past liaisons had only scarred Gabe.

Gabe wanted and realised that the only way he could do _it_ was for _it_ to somehow be more real, more honest. Gabe wanted to experience true love, making love, passion, getting to know someone intimately and being friends. Gabe wanted to embrace the whole thing as a bit more precious than 'a shag' or, as Dave so ineloquently put it, 'getting his leg over'. Compared to what Gabe dreamt it could be like with Grace, his other experiences had fallen way short of his expectations and so now Gabe didn't even bother trying to do it any other way. Gabe was never going to have dozens of notches on his bedpost. It had to be enough to dream that one day, someone would be close and special enough, because the truth was simply that he had no other choice.

Gabe lied to his friends all the time, not just about the hump. And they lied to him too, he knew that. The way they went on about drinking and drugging and how many girls they had slept with and what they had done to them, Gabe knew it was all bollocks. Not one of them was honest about their inner feelings and shames and insecurity about anything, especially about sex. They all had issues with themselves and sex, they had to. It is a human condition and no one is immune to the human conditions, not even them.

They teased Gabe too about him not wanting to get pissed with them, and Gabe never even told them what had happened to him the night he had got drunk. He couldn't. Would he have done if they were real friends? They thought that Gabe was a prude, the really odd one, the one that didn't really even drink even though he had some of the greatest excuses to.

But Gabe had got drunk. One night, when he'd had a few drinks with them at some party, he had gone home to his studio and started painting. He had enjoyed the feeling of painting slightly buzzing and high from the alcohol and he had remembered that he had a bottle of vodka, a birthday present he had never opened, hanging around the studio somewhere. He found it in the corner of his mess and as the drink from the party had started to wear off and as Gabe had wanted to chase and hold on to the feelings of feeling so good and confident and comfortable, with no pain in his wings which was a small miracle, he had opened the bottle of vodka and had just started swigging straight from it. _Is this not how the great artists live? Drinking, drunk and free?_ He had turned his music up louder and painted with greater gusto and emotion. He had felt so confident that he had opened up the doors to his studio, unbolted them and the windows and left them wide open. _Come and see me_ as _I am_ , he had thought.

As Gabe had drunk more and more, he had felt no shame at all, in fact, he felt like he could take on the world. For a while, everything made perfect sense; he would find his dad, he would be friends with Grace again, he would travel the world, he would be free to live with his wings out, he would learn to fly, he would never feel shame ever again. Gabe had continued drinking, chasing the dreams, chasing the feeling of the universe throwing its arms around him in the most wonderfully comforting embrace. He had felt sexy, alive and capable. Capable of absolutely anything.

The next morning, when he awoke, he was naked. Exposed to the world. He had been sick in his sleep, on himself and the floor around him. His paintings were defaced and broken, bottles had been smashed. There were scrawlings on the walls, scrawlings of pain, hatred, fear and of images that could have come straight out of hell itself. Checking his phone he had been so massively worried as he couldn't remember getting undressed or finishing the bottle of vodka. Or any of it! He didn't for a minute even recognise where he was, let alone what he had done, who had seen him or who he might have called.

Then it descended on him like a flock of violent starving seagulls; depression, anxiety, panic and a shame, so intense he thought he was going to die. His body ached worse than it ever had and those feelings had stayed with him all day. He had felt as if everyone knew him, everything about him, saw straight through him and that they detested him for it. It was the worst feeling in the world. Why the hell do people get drunk if that's what it does to you? Perhaps that didn't happen to other people. Gabe loved the feeling of a couple of drinks, the soothing and pain killing effect it had on him, but he realised there was a point in drinking where he couldn't stop and then a point where he would be still functioning but in black out. Doing things that he would never be able to recall, things that he would rather die than do sober. It wasn't worth it. Gabe knew that he could not drink to get drunk, he had to respect it. The consequences of not, were just too awful to think about.

The boys suddenly went quiet, someone was approaching. It was dark now and the figure was blurred by the twilight of the evening. The person walked towards them with conviction, definitely headed their way and they all stopped what they were doing, the adrenalin making the hairs on the back of their necks stand up. By the time Gabe realised who it was, it was too late to do anything. Grace had entered the park and she was walking straight towards them. Gabe assumed, what he thought the others were assuming too. That Alistair must have sent her!

# Chapter 13

The boys just carried on doing what they were doing. After all, she was only a girl. Frank carried on swinging on the swings looking like it was the end of the world and Dave and Johnny were sitting on opposite ends of the see-saw simulating sex. But Gabe just stood there waiting, watching Grace take one step after another, closer and closer to him. Gabe stood tall so as not to appear too humped and he looked at her straight in the eye. Despite his nerves he tried to remain calm and reminded himself never to get involved in any of Johnny's little plans ever again.

Gabe had to remember to breathe; his vision had tunnelled with Grace at the end, the light at the end of the tunnel. He counted to ten in his head.

"1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10."

And there she was, not two feet away from him.

"Do you want to walk with me?" Grace asked.

Gabe couldn't believe what he had just heard and thought that somehow the earth must have shifted and that he had now entered into another dimension. Or that he was now really asleep at home and this was all just a dream and he was sure to wake up soon enough.

"Do you want to walk with me?" she said again and Gabe realised that he was just standing there smiling and doing nothing but enjoying the moment in the dream.

Then the lads started cheering. "Go on Gabe, go on my son. Get in there!" Gabe was mortified at what they were saying. He realised that he had the bottle of vodka in his hand so he stuck it in his jacket pocket quick and pulled his hood up.

"Yeah. OK." Gabe nodded to the park exit and walked with Grace away from the swings and out of the park and up to the path that lead out towards the main road.

"Sorry," he said.

"Sorry for what?"

"Oh you know..." and Gabe thought, _for everything. For Alistair, for the robbery, for my wings, for everything I'm sorry_. But instead he said, "For that bunch of reprobates over there."

As Gabe looked back over at his friends, from where he was standing now with her, with Grace, everything looked different. Everything felt different. Gabe could believe that he didn't even know them anymore, that they were no more than strangers. They could be any old gang of kids, from different years, from different parks.

Gabe turned his back to them and looked at Grace again. Up this close, Grace was more beautiful than he had imagined, if that was possible. Her bleach blonde hair had a curl in it today, that sexy, just got out of bed, look. Her skin looked so soft, her lips so pink and glossy and her eyes had loads of black eye make-up on, more than Gabe had on, and Grace's eyelashes were so long, thick and dark, they were like spiders and she had all this fine iridescent glitter all over her. Gabe caught himself, he was staring.

"Sorry," he said again.

"Will you stop saying you are sorry Gabe!"

"You know my name?"

"Yeah of course I know your name, we have been neighbours and in the same schools for like twelve years or something." She gave him a friendly nudge that felt like an electric shock and Gabe involuntarily pulled back from the touch that he craved.

"Yeah sorry, er, I just thought, no nothing sorry." _More like Alistair sent you._

"There was something I wanted to talk to you about but whenever I see you, you always look the other way."

And Gabe wanted to say sorry, he wanted to say it so much, but he didn't.

Instead of walking in the direction of either of their homes, Gabe and Grace walked towards the river. It was getting dark and Gabe didn't know what to say so he just kept quiet. He'd let her speak so that he could figure out Grace's part in the whole of this drama.

"Do you remember that time you had a birthday party and I came?" Grace broke the silence.

Of course Gabe did, his tenth birthday party. But he wouldn't have thought that Grace would. It was the last thing he was expecting to hear her say so he let her continue.

"We played hide and seek and we went in your mum's room?" Grace paused but still Gabe kept quiet. He remembered and the feelings he'd had that day came flooding back. Pure excitement and exhilaration. It was the year he got his bike, the year he was allowed to start going to the shops on his own.

"Your mum had all these crystals that threw off rainbows in all different directions from the sun coming in through the window and she had said 'don't go in to my room', because she wanted to keep it neat but we went in anyway because I asked you if we could and even though you knew that we shouldn't, you let me in. You wanted to show me the rainbows and the crystals so you let me in and it was amazing. All those crystals spinning, hanging from the ceiling casting colours in all direction. All those semi-precious stones and you knew the names for all of them and told me them and how they were supposed to heal you. And the peacock feathers and all those huge different coloured exotic silk scarves your mum had everywhere. Do you remember that?"

"Yes I do." His mum had known he'd gone in but she had just smiled knowingly. They hadn't made a mess and she knew that Gabe liked Grace, even then.

"I've just been thinking of that time a lot recently Gabe."

Gabe didn't know what to say or where this conversation was leading. What was it that she wanted to know? Grace was talking about something that happened such a long time ago now, like in another life time, a situation that occurred over a maximum of about half an hour and had happened over eight years ago. A long eight years. Gabe was beginning to feel self-conscious, was he a fool for this all in black thing?

"Is your mum a counsellor? Gina isn't it?"

Oh so that was it. It was about his mum, not him, Gabe reasoned as they walk down the cobbled lanes of the city's side streets.

"Sort of...Yes, but not one of those that just listens I don't think. She does healing and things, just caring really. Positive affirmations, relaxation techniques....that sort of thing."

"Like a white witch sort of thing?" Grace wanted to know and Gabe didn't like the way this conversation was heading. Was it all a wind up after all? Her lot. Grace's lot. The Beautiful. Specifically Alistair, her 'boyfriend', knew what they had done and they had retaliated and now it was his mum's turn to get a bit of what Johnny's dad had had done to him? But why his mum? Gabe wasn't part of the gang, not really.

"I better be getting back." Gabe turned around and started to head home, to check on his mum. He'd been an idiot and no money in the world was worth it.

Grace looked at Gabe and realised that something that she had said was very wrong. Gabe was upset and she had upset him.

"Oh no Gabe. I don't mean that in a bad way. I...I...I've got a friend who wants to know..."

"Are you going to tell all your friends? Is that what this is all this about?" Gabe could have cried, instead, he bit his lip as hard as he could as crying in front of Grace was just about the worse thing he could possibly do. But after having had a few drinks on top of the stress and upset of the last couple of days he'd had, it was a battle.

"I'm sorry Gabe, I am so sorry. It is not like that at all!" It was Grace apologising now. "I'm not going to tell anyone, I'm not asking this for anyone else. I was going to say that I was, I was going to tell you that I was asking for a friend but that will just sound bad now and it was a lie anyway and I don't want to lie to you. I'm sorry Gabe I don't know what to say now." Grace's face showed a pain in it despite its beauty and she was holding him, holding his arm to keep him from walking away.

Grace was holding him. Her whole hand grabbed his arm tight so that he would have to use effort to release himself from her grasp. He looked to her hand, so small with its bitten nails and chipped red nail varnish. Gabe was confused.

"Can we start this again Gabe? Please! Let's talk about something else, anything else. What do you want to talk about? You start." She let go of him, but he didn't move.

Gabe didn't know where to start, it was too odd, they had hardly talked a single word to each other since that birthday party. They had liked each other then...and now? And now, look at her, she was beautiful and cool and he wasn't, she knew that he was a freak to be avoided. They had grown up and apart as they had realised things that children are innocent to. They had learnt to judge. They had learnt that you must fall into a clique quick at school if you didn't want to be alone. They had learnt that who you talk to and who you were associated with was a big deal and the difference between a peaceful life and a life of bullying. The difference between a life of popularity and a life of being a misfit and people aim at being popular _not_ at becoming an outcast. Everyone desperately wanted to be popular at school. Popular was the dream, outcast was the nightmare!

Gabe and Grace? The two figures dressed all in black that were now facing each other, were polar opposites. They were too far apart on the world order of things to ever be friends again now. Too much water had passed under the bridge and those bridges had also been burnt. Burnt to charred black splinters. Grace was Gabe's fantasy, not his reality.

"Why would you want to talk to me? We aren't friends. You have lots of friends Grace, why don't you talk to them? There are loads of other people you can talk to."

"Well we used to be friends Gabe, didn't we? And I don't know but I just think back to the past a lot now and I think I'd like to be friends with you again. Those days were good you know Gabe. The best days of my life and I just want a little bit of that back. I think. I don't know Gabe."

Gabe still didn't really understand what she was going on about but he was torn. Of course he _wanted_ to be friends with her. That is what he had wanted, dreamt and bloody yearned for, for so long, since like...forever. It just seemed a little bit too good, too bizarre, to be true.

Gabe would just let her talk and see where it went. He didn't have much to lose and he would keep his guard up. Perhaps it was the all black thing, the clothes, the hair, the eye liner? Maybe she was telling the truth? They kept walking. Neither of them said anything more and it started to get colder and darker and it started to rain.

The only shelter was under the bridge so they ran there to wait for the down pour to abate. As soon as they were safe under the metal structure, the heavens opened and the rain came down in tonnes, it was almost biblical. They retreated deeper into the dark heart of the metal bridge, as far as they could go, until they were where the metal started to grow out from the solid ground and they sat down huddled together in a high corner to try and avoid getting wet from the back splashes of the encroaching puddles and rising river.

Gabe got the vodka bottle out of his pocket and offered Grace a swig and they sat hunched with their knees under their chins and their heads almost touching the underside of bridge as the water from the skies crashed all around them. Everything made louder still by the heavy down pour beating down on the bridge. It was like being surrounded by an out of control orchestra of a million kettle drums, it was deafening. With the thunder and lightning now directly over head, it was frightening and exciting.

They both had a few more slugs of the vodka as they waited for the rain to stop, which it didn't. Gabe couldn't think of anything to say and it was taking all of his strength just trying to get used to the fact that he was sitting so close next to Grace. He could smell her, he could breathe her.

The storm passed over but the rain remained and with the realisation that they might be here for a while, Grace began to make small talk and it didn't take long before they started finding some common ground. Gabe listened mostly and he found Grace captivating. There was always the worry that if he ever got to talk to her that she would be just awful. But she wasn't, she was just an older, wiser, more intelligent and more beautiful version of the little girl he had liked so much. It actually broke his heart a bit that she was actually really nice, really quite funny and quick humoured and she laughed a lot at what Gabe did manage to say. And she was shy, not confident like Gabe had always presumed, she twirled her hair a lot around her finger and she had a slight stutter that Gabe didn't remember her having from when they were kids. If anything, Grace put herself down quite a bit. And she was tactile, always gesturing with her hands and touching him to express a point or share a laugh. Gabe kept sipping from the vodka bottle like it was a prop, something to do to detract from the fact that he was nervous as hell. But Gabe had to ask something, ask something before he started falling deeper in love with her.

"And Alastair? He's your boyfriend, right?" Gabe spoke the words out loud that he needed to say although he didn't really want to hear the answer.

"Alistair?" Grace almost choked on her drink. "You are joking aren't you? You're not. Oh dear Gabe, what are you like. Do you and your friends actually not talk to each other?"

_So she does know_ , thought Gabe, _she bloody knows!_

The look on Gabe's face prompted Grace to elaborate.

"Alistair is actually seeing someone you know but not me. Definitely not me! I thought that you would know."

"I don't know anyone that Alistair knows Grace, far from it." Gabe was taken aback and would have stood up if it had been a choice.

"Really? Well perhaps it is a secret and I shouldn't really say anything. Can you keep a secret Gabe?" and Grace looked him in the eye to see if he could.

Gabe laughed, as he had to be the best person at keeping secrets that there ever was.

"Alistair is seeing Frank! Your friend Frank!"

And Gabe was hit with it like a slap in the face. This was what Frank had wanted to tell him. Lots of things, lots of little things that had happened, that had seemed a bit strange to Gabe at the time did, as the penny dropped, suddenly now make perfect sense.

"Ah...I see. No, I didn't know...not about Alistair. I...I...I've been a bit busy recently."

"Doing what?"

So this was the trap, the bait had been laid and now he was supposed to confide about the crime and lead them to Johnny, to the stash! And really, would it be so bad if he did? If anyone needed a kick up the arse, as Johnny himself had put it, it was Johnny.

"Oh you know, The Exhibition and...my dad. I've never met him but I got a local address yesterday. I've been thinking about finding him."

Grace offered to help find his dad and she sounded genuine but was this all a trap? Get done to the father, he'd never met, the same as what had just happened to Johnny's dad? What was in that box? It had to be something valuable and precious to warrant such a reaction. Or maybe Alastair was just evil but then if Alistair was evil, then weren't his friends as bad if not worse? And if his friends were, then what did that make Gabe?

They had finished the vodka and the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Gabe and Grace made their way out into the wet air from their dry lair and it was like they had come out from the centre of the earth to a different land. The rain had cleared the static and everything though wet, was now fresh and clean.

They walked back along the river in the moon light. The wind was bitter cold and Gabe was too scared to touch Grace or say anything else. He gave her his new jacket to wear, to keep her warm. He figured it was dark enough for her not to see he wasn't bandaged up that great and it would have just been too awful to hear and see her chatter and shake with chill and not offer up his warm jacket. As they walked, Gabe really wanted to reach out and hold her hand, he wanted to reach out and take her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. But he couldn't, he just couldn't.

They walked the long way back even though they knew they would be soaked through by the time they got home as the wet ground soaked up the legs of their jeans. They walked further up the river, stopping to admire the nightscape of the city in the reflection of the water. They walked across the now deserted nice park by the river which was where The Middles and their dog could usually be found in the day and the reason why no one much went down to the park where Gabe usually hung out.

This park was totally different to The Outcasts park where The Damned spent their days. In this park the lawns were manicured and there were a thousand different colourful exotic looking flowers planted every year. People that knew that they were welcome at parks came and felt very welcome here. Gabe didn't usually frequent this park but tonight he thought that it was quite lovely in here really. It almost seemed other worldly as they walked home, just the two of them, not passing or seeing a single other soul. It felt like the rain had washed everything away and that they were now the only two people left alive.

At the wrought iron gates at the park exit, Grace took Gabe's hand. _The next bit of the walk is quite a steep hill_ , thought Gabe _. That is why she wants to hold my hand._ That made sense. So Gabe led her up the hill that took them all the way up to Millionaires Row, right to the top of that hill, back to Graces house.

"Here we are then," he said "I guess this is good night."

Grace took Gabe's other hand in hers so that she now held both his hands and Gabe presumed that she must have just had a bit too much to drink.

Gabe could hear someone shouting from behind the front door of Graces house. _Shit, what was that?_ Gabe thought he might be in some sort of trouble, well probably. They were out late and drunk and she probably might not even be eighteen yet...or allowed to drink. All these worries were going around his head.

"I better go."

"Yeah, me too. Thanks Gabe."

Gabe couldn't quite figure out what he should do next but she let go of his hands and gave him a quick kiss, right on the lips. She slipped off his jacket and gave it back to him, although Gabe had thought he would be happy if she kept it on. He wouldn't have minded if she kept it for a while, if she wanted to. She tapped in the secret code to open the security gates and as they started to open, Grace slipped in past them as soon as they are wide enough for her to fit through. To Gabe she seemed to drift down the long path with its sunken lighting, like an angel or an apparition, down the glowing garden path to her front door. Gabe felt like he was drifting too, suspended, until he saw her shut the door behind herself. Home...safe and sound. Even though he could hardly feel his feet on the ground anymore, Gabe turned and ran. Without the jacket on, Gabe could feel the wind and air through his clothes and on his wings. The ground was wet and Gabe didn't even notice. Gabe ran so fast he felt like he was flying.

_What was all that about?_ Gabe was conscious of a bolt of electric current running around his body and a joy that had not been there before was now present, alive and flowing through his veins. It was exhilaration. It felt a lot like bliss.

Gabe let himself into his studio. He knew he had had too much to drink and he wanted to avoid his mum. He took his wet clothes off and put them by the electric heater and as Gabe warmed back up after coming in from the cold, the full effect of the alcohol he had drunk began to take hold again.

Gabe started to think of the reality of it all as despondency set in. How could he possibly ever be with someone like Grace? How could he ever give her what she wanted? She would want intimacy, affection. Sex. She would want things, need things that he could not buy. They were too young. It would never work. She had just been down and drunk and for all he knew it could all still be a big joke. Gabe sat down opposite his covered sculpture and put his face in his hands. _I bloody hate myself_ , he thought _. I hate myself and these damn bloody growths. I hate my wings and I hate that I am so fucking poor and useless. I'm so ashamed of myself and I hate the fact that I am just not good enough._

_Why am I not normal? Why was I born like this and not born different. Why was I not born as something better, easier, more lovable? No one will ever love me. I am nothing, nothing more than a fucking freak_. Gabe began to cry again, tears he didn't know he was capable of shedding. He let the sadness consume him and he cried with deep self pity, great big sobs that shook the bulk of his body. He let himself think of his friends and losing them, how close they had been, the adventures and personal things that they had shared, how they had been there for each other and how now he didn't know them anymore. He hadn't even known his best mate was cutting himself up and now he had to walk away to purely save his own skin.

Gabe thought of the father that did not love or want him. He thought of his poor mum working all those hours and refusing payment or undercharging most of her clients half the time and the way she had always been there for him, with love and comfort and it seemed that her unconditional love and kindness was still not even enough to be able to save Gabe. This broke his own heart almost as much as it broke hers. But mostly he thought of Grace, of how much he loved her and how impossible it was for her to love him back and this felt like the worst thing in the world, the unique agony of unrequited love.

Gabe felt hollow, spent. He wept into his hands and the tears collected in his palms and started running down his wrists, to his elbows where they collected and dripped off, one by one, onto the floor, leaving a trail of watery, black kohl down his forearms.

There was something about this sight, seeing the dark trails of black make up on his arms that made Gabe suddenly have the need to laugh. Gabe's last sob turned into a half choke half snort, even the sound of it made Gabe want to laugh even more as he croaked back his tears in gulps and wiped the copious amount of snot, phlegm, tears and gunk from his face.

Gabe realised that here he was, a grown man, wearing eyeliner and dressed all in black in some vain attempt to be suave and adult and artistic, crying for the worst possible reasons. Pathetic, self-defeating reasons.

The great fallen dark angel was crying. Trying to be all new and mysterious, mature and independent and here he was sobbing for himself. At this thought, Gabe laughed louder, through his tear and make-up stained face, at how pathetic he was, how piteous and pitiful. All his wretched and vain efforts. _Pull yourself together Gabe_ , he told himself. _Stop being so negative all the time. You're doing your own head in._ It had been a good night. It had actually been an evening like the ones he had fantasised about. Better. One of the wildest dreams he had ever dreamed of happening had just happened. Something he had prayed for, wished and willed for, for half of his life had actually materialised. _Can you not even be happy with tha_ t! _Not even pleased with a miracle, with a dream that actually came true! What the hell is wrong with you, what are you turning in to? What on earth is happening to you man?_ Gabe felt he was getting as weak as his wings, as damaged and as cumbersome.

Really, he thought, it was like living with a least two different people inside his own head. It wasn't even as if there was a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, or even a good cop, bad cop scenario. It was more like a gang of negative critics each whispering in his ear. A troupe of multiple personalities, dominated by the depressive and wind up merchant ones. Was the only voice of reason his own voice or just the one he had to listen to, to keep sane? Gabe needed to build his strength up and not just in his wings and not next week or next year. He needed to do it now!

Gabe picked up his jacket that still smelt of Grace and he took out the black eyeliner that he had been keeping in the inside pocket. He uncovered the sculpture he was working on and, with just the feelings that he had experienced that evening that were good, Gabe got to work; the first piece he stuck onto the sculpture being the black eye liner pencil. Gabe had realised that it just wasn't him.

Gabe physically, mentally, emotionally gave his all to the creation in front of him. He sweated and bled and shed tears. He felt his body hurt in places that he didn't know existed. But it felt good. He worked through the pain barrier. He laughed and he wept. He kept going until he could hardly keep his eyes open anymore and then he collapsed, sated on to the cushioned floor where he slept and dreamt the most vivid and spectacular dreams in the hour before dawn.

# Chapter 14

An ancient nun on a mobility scooter passed Gabe one way as a punk with full spiked rainbow Mohican and studded denim jacket and face, passed him the other way. Gabe had the address and photo of his dad in his hand. He knew of this area of the city but had spent little time here before. This was not the best part of town and it was known locally as 'Worlds' End'. This was where everything got a bit odd and the really obvious drunks and addicts hung out and lived. Anyone here, dressed smart was either lost or after drugs or sexual favours. It was the area where adult shops, cash convertors and all hours booze newsagent could be found. It looked darker and dirtier than the rest of the city, like it was perpetually under a dark cloud expecting a storm.

Gabe had found the block of flats with the same name as on the bit of paper. The flats looked dirtier than the street, if that was at all possible. The grime was thick and the stairwell was dark, dank, damp, dingy and pissy and Gabe was justifying it all to himself, trying to make some order and sense of it. This man, his father, was an artist, a bohemian; he was not going to be middle class was he? He was not going to live on Millionaire's Row, even if he had the money. He'd want to be among the people, the real people on the edge of society. Gabe was nervous, so nervous that he could have puked. Every instinct felt like it was telling him _not_ to do this, but his legs just kept going, one foot in front of the other, despite the protests from the voices in his head.

Up the hard concrete stairwell to the top, seven floors and Gabe stalled, almost beat, on the landing for a moment in hesitation and to get his bearings and his breath back. He looked at the photo and he checked the address for the umpteenth time.

He had arrived and there was potentially something on the other side of that door in front of him. It could be nothing, a stranger could answer with no idea what he was going on about and chase him right back down the stairs or it could, well it could be everything.

Gabe rang on the door bell and waited. He was not quite sure if it worked as he had heard no accompanying bell noise and, more importantly, no one was coming to answer the door. So he knocked, politely and gently at first and he waited again. Still nothing. He banged on the door a few times, as hard as he could, in one last nothing-to-lose way.

After all that stressing out and no one was in anyway. Typical!

As Gabe gave up and turned to leave, his gut told him to stay. Whether one of his senses picked up a low vibration of their particular skill or it was something else, Gabe knew, there was definitely someone in there. Gabe put his ear closer to the crack in the door. He could hear shuffling and walking. He thought he could hear talking too, low constant conversation, a TV or radio perhaps?

"Hello! Hello! Is there anyone in?" Gabe crouched down and shouted through the letter box.

There was more shuffling and noise from behind the closed door, so Gabe peered through the letter box to see if he could see anything. For a moment, he panicked as it looked worse than Johnny's dad's flat had done. Had it been trashed too? Was his own dad in there, tied up and gagged? Is that what he could hear?

Gabe felt that there was no other option left now but to kick down the door. The image of his dad trapped and in pain was now imprinted on his brain so that he could physically see it in detail.

Gabe took a few steps back on the balcony. He could have done with a longer run up but this was as far as the railings would allow. After a few deep breaths, he went for it. He ran, or rather hopped the two steps, and with all his weight behind him, he leapt into the air and aimed his shoulder to the lock on the door like he had seen it done in films.

"And who...the fuck...are you?"

Gabe found himself lying face down on the carpeted floor in the hall of the flat and it stank worse down here than it had in the stairwell.

"Hi! Sorry. I'm Gabe." Gabe strained his neck, from his position on the floor, in the direction of an old man's voice.

"And why are you trying to break into my flat?"

"I wasn't trying to break in...er...Sir." Gabe strained his eyes to see the other man who was now in the door way of the room beyond but Gabe couldn't make out his features as there was an intensely bright lamp glaring from behind him, causing the front of the strangers body to appear in silhouette. All Gabe could figure out was that he was small.

"I ain't got any money boy, if that's what you want." The old man banged a walking stick on the floor, which sounded far more creepy than threatening due to the old man not having much strength.

"Oh no, sorry. No I don't want any money. I was looking for my dad." Gabe gave up and closed his eyes again. This wasn't his dad and Gabe was more disappointed than he imagined he would be.

"What would your dad be doing in my flat?" This old man in the dark said with mirth and sarcasm.

"I...I...I was given this address. I never met him. My mum, Gina, she gave me this envelope yesterday and..." Gabe held out the photograph that he had, in a vain hope to add weight to his story and convince this man he wasn't some kind of thug here to mug him and that there was no need for alarm or to call the police or anything like that. _Another fine mess,_ he thought and his jacket was going to stink now and he didn't want to wash it and lose the scent of Grace.

The old man poked Gabe in the shoulder with his walking stick. "Gina? And you, what did you say your name was?"

"Gabe. My name is Gabe. I live up the road with my mum. I'm just a student, well for the next week or so." Gabe stood up and half-heartedly tried to dust himself down. He couldn't help himself from instinctively smelling his hands, from their contact with the carpet, and wincing in reaction.

"Gabriel!"

The man walked forward and into the darkness of the hall and Gabe saw, this _was_ the man in the picture. He was not small after all he was just bent over, almost at a right angle, propped up on a walking stick.

"Yes, I am Gabriel." Gabe felt a sudden surge of confidence now.

"Well, well, well and what do you want from me then?"

The man gestured Gabe into the living room that was brightly lit by an old fashion standard lamp (similar to the ones Gabe imaged that they used in torture and interrogation rooms) and Gabe was amazed to find hundreds of paintings covering every surface, covering the walls and the floor. Two easels dominated the room and there was that so familiar scent to Gabe. The smell of an artist's studio, the mix of acrylics and oils and turpentine. And on top of that, the scent of body odour, of coffees made and never drunk. There was a hint of Nag Champa even in there too. And, unmistakably, the unique smell that Gabe was very familiar with, the scent of the same blended essential oils that he used for healing. It was all so strange and yet all so eerily familiar.

The man cleared a space on an ancient battered leather sofa for them both to sit down on.

"So, you found me then?"

"Well, as I say, I only really just started looking. I kind of thought that perhaps, seeing as...you know, what with you not really ever getting in touch and everything..." Gabe felt perhaps that he was intruding, he felt awkward and his tongue seemed to be taking on a life of its own.

"What do you want from me boy?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. I was just curious I guess. I had some questions."

"Go on then..." Gabe's father was curt, abrupt and really Gabe thought, quite rude.

"I'm sorry. I seem to have forgotten now." Gabe felt like an idiot and this was so not the impression he dreamed he would give on this occasion.

"She wrote to my mother, saying that you had been born. What she had called you. Let me have a look at you then. Well it's obvious on you isn't it? Still.... My, my, my..." Gabe felt momentarily encouraged as he thought he saw this man soften ever so slightly.

"What's obvious?"

"Well the wings of course. Yours look like they are strong, big strong wings."

Gabe was incredulous. _How did he know? Gina can't of told him, surely, had she?_

Gabe's father patted his son on the shoulder before using him as the leverage he needed to stand up again. Gabe sat there feeling awkward, not sure what to say or do. Should he help this man up again? Should he touch him or not? His father was unsteady on his feet but he managed it without much help from Gabe. He grabbed his walking stick and walked over to the occasional table by the window where he downed whatever it was that was in the glass. He kept his back to Gabe and stared out of the window into the distance. Gabe didn't dare move a muscle, he just watched as he saw the man, still looking out of the window, start to undo his shirt buttons and struggle out of the sleeves. The man then unfastened a very wide and dirty, well used, elastic support bandage that he had wrapped around his back and chest. The whole time his father kept his back to Gabe, he didn't face him, he did not look at him once and when the elastic bandage had fallen to the floor, the man tried to stand tall and straighter, and in doing so he showed Gabe the one thing that Gabe had always thought was completely impossible.

This man, his father, Cassiel, also had wings. But they were not like Gabe's. These wings were old, almost transparent. Parts of the wings looked like those skeleton leaves you sometimes find. But mostly, these wings were scarred and broken looking. They had withered and they looked like they were ready to fall off. They were dead.

"What happened? What happened to your wings?" Gabe wanted to run over but he stayed glued to his seat.

"I hid them. I didn't look after them!" Gabe's father looked to the ground, lost in his own thoughts or shame for a moment. Or maybe he was just relaxing down after the strain of having to stand that bit taller. Gabe couldn't tell for sure.

The man grabbed a paisley dressing gown that was hanging on one of the easels and he put it on, covering himself again. Gabe wanted to ask him exactly what had he done, as these wings showed of more than just a little bit of neglect; they looked destroyed, crashed, abused and then some. Gabe's father swung around and looked at Gabe deep into his eyes as he approached him with a new force and conviction.

"There was not the surgery back then but I would have gone and had them cut off. If you can get yours cut off boy then do. Having them causes nothing but heartache and trouble. Get yourself down to a specialist and bin them. Or you will end up like me! Look at me! I never talk to anyone. I am getting old, feeling more pain, pain that you would not yet think possible. The wings are a curse Gabriel. That's all I can tell you. But you know this already. You came, you saw and now...now you can leave." Exhausted with the exertion he shuffled over to an old cabinet where he leant for support and he downed another glass full of something that Gabe was beginning to assume was whisky and he poured himself another one, straight out the half empty bottle of liquor that was on the shelf.

Gabe tried to take it all in. It was nothing like he had imagined it would be. It hadn't gone very well and Gabe couldn't think of anything that he could say or do now that would turn it all around. Where were the violin players and the dancing girls? Where were the fireworks and the tears of joy?

He never imagined for a start, not in his wildest dreams, that his own father might have wings. It wasn't just Gabe. And Gabe was really trying to like this man, his father, another man with wings, but it was hard and truthfully, Gabe was just getting more pissed off now. He wasn't welcome and he wanted to leave. Now!

"I am sorry for barging in like I did. Thank you for showing me your wings." Gabe got up to leave and one of his father's paintings caught his eye. He stopped and looked at it, the painting held him and he was transfixed. Gabe let the image of the painting wash over him and touch every one of his senses and he felt overwhelmed. Consumed by contortion and torture. The painting spoke to him, invoking strong violent feelings as it reflected on his soul; it was full and bleeding with pain and misery. It was the saddest painting that Gabe had ever seen and he couldn't help himself as he shed one tear that he hoped that this man didn't notice.

"I am sorry Gabriel. I was never father or husband material. Never was, never will be. I am too different. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Yes I think I might understand. Is there anything I can get for you?" But Gabe didn't understand, not yet, because it was so obvious.

"No, I have everything that I need."

Gabe went to leave and turned around one last time. He took a good look at his father now pouring himself another drink. Gabe looked all around the room at the chaos, the dirt, at all the paintings and drawings, brilliant but damaged. And Gabe felt no love. He saw no colour. There was no care. No one cared for this man and he cared for no one. There were no photographs, no flowers, no mirrors, no air in here. It was lifeless and Gabe realised with a gutting sadness, that it was soulless. Just an old man living out his days in his own sweat, piss, mess and misery. Gabe looked at his father again, for what he thought would be the last ever time, and just as he was about to pity him, Gabe saw himself.

Gabe saw with absolute clarity that this was him. This was his future, this was his fate. And this realisation, as painful and shocking and debasing as it was, it was like a gift. If Gabe carried on the way he was going, this here would be his prize. His life. Gabe was staring at his destiny and he didn't like what he saw one bit. In fact, it repulsed him.

The man turned aggressively toward Gabe in a manner that meant he should leave sharpish but Gabe looked into his father's eyes for a moment. He saw that the light that should have been there was out. His father's eyes were dark. His spirit had died a long time ago.

*******

Gabe got to his studio and he locked himself in. His head was swimming with so many things he felt like he was drowning with it. He wanted to scream, to cut himself, get out of his head, he really wanted to. But he just dropped to him knees and prayed. He didn't know what else to do. He wanted to set fire to the studio, to take him mums car out and go speeding. Gabe had the urge to do something really destructive. So he prayed as it felt like the only thing left to do.

Gabe felt there was no one to talk to, not his friends or his mum and he didn't even want to think about Grace. How was she ever going to give him the time of day when his own dad didn't give a shit. Gabe felt wretched. He stayed in his studio listening to music, meditating, thinking and painting. He hid away with his wings out and let them be free, even if he couldn't be. Gabe exercised as much as he could and he added to the sculpture, including the photo, the drawing and the address. All that he had of his dad.

He immersed himself into his solitude and wished that he could just stay here forever and not ever have to deal with another person again. The World and its people were just too fucked up.

Gabe had done all of the finishing touches to the paintings for The Exhibition and they adorned the walls of his studio in the order he had decided to exhibit them. He viewed his work critically now and he debated with himself whether it was better to paint from the heart or really to give in and try and play by some rules with a chance of some commercial success? Was it worth it? Being true and spiritual. Was there actually any such thing as true or spiritual anyway or was he just as brainwashed but in another direction? Was he just fooling himself and making things hard for loads of unnecessary reasons? Were they just reasons that were self-destructing excuses, traps to lead him down dead end roads? They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so was he just skipping happily to hell? It certainly felt like he was. Was he so ashamed of his wings that, deep down he didn't really want any success as that would bring unwanted attention? Or would the revelation, that he wasn't a failure, be too much to handle so he subconsciously just set himself up to always fail? Perhaps he should start 1) enquiring about wing removal and 2) paint for the masses, for The Middles. But Gabe had no idea what the masses would want anyway and it wasn't as if he could really plan what he painted. Gabe always started with an idea but the end product was rarely how he imagined it.

_I'll show them_ , thought Gabe. _My dad will read about me one day and be sorry that he didn't care. I'll make loads of money and they'll all come begging!_

But Gabe had no idea how you made money or ran businesses, Gabe was an artist and the only way he could make money was if he won the lottery. No one understood the art world anymore. It was a scene for billionaires and celebrities that left everyone else totally confused. But if he was not going to be an artist, what would he be? He couldn't live without it.

Gabe wondered if this was a sign of madness, that he lived and thought this way and didn't just go and get a wage and have a structured life. Was he just massively deluded in most aspects of his life, like he thought everyone else was? What were the chances of him being right and everyone else being wrong? But then again the masses had always been the last to catch on. They believed the world was flat. They still believed in all sorts of crazy things. They all wore bloody anoraks for Christ's sake!

Gabe was feeling hungry, angry, lonely and tired. His phone might as well be broken. He had not even got a text message off of any of his friends that he could ignore, and Grace hadn't returned his message either. It had been so liberating having the bandages off all afternoon, being able to move his wings as he liked in accordance to his body, as he painted and as he exercised. Even the fresh air and sunlight touching his usually hidden skin had improved the texture and eased some of the sores a bit already. Gabe swore that he would get himself stronger and fitter, that he wouldn't neglect himself, although the temptation to was great.

_Maybe I'll live my life out in this studio,_ Gabe thought. It was preferable to being in the outside world. It had been such a warm day but, as usual, the evening, monsoon-like, big black cloud was looming and it looked like it was going to chuck it down soon enough like a tropical storm. Gabe turned off the lap top and went around blowing out all the candles and making sure all the incense was extinguished _. Just my luck to burn the whole place down with all the paintings done,_ he thought _, with the sculpture starting to take shape._

In the darkness with only the moon-light shining in to illuminate, Gabe stood in the middle of his studio, and he looked around at his paintings and he thought that they were good. Good enough. The sculpture was big now, even bigger than the paintings and he liked it. It had slowly grown on him and now it was like it was a part of him. He hadn't finished it yet but he recognised it. It was like it had always been there in his head just waiting to be made real.

A black cloud passed over, plunging the studio into complete darkness and Gabe felt like someone was staring at him from behind. He remembered that he hadn't remembered to buy a new padlock and he instinctively turned to look out of the window to put his mind at rest. And there, stood out in the dark under the orange glow of the back door light was Grace.

Or was he just imagining it? Wishful thinking! Was it just a reflection of one of his painting in the glass of the window? Was it just a figment of his imagination? Was he getting a bit psychotic living in here and in his head? Gabe blinked and looked again. She was looking straight back at him. _Could she see him?_ Gabe panicked. Maybe she had been there a while, seen him and his wings?

Even though he knew that he could see out and that no one could see in, Gabe felt the blood drain from his face and he felt faint. He just carried on looking back at her without moving. Time passed, it started to rain a bit and she didn't move. Then it began to pour down in thick sheets and still she didn't move. Gabe had to take a deep breath. He thought that maybe he hadn't been breathing while he'd been staring at her as he had got tunnel vision, with Grace standing at the end. Always Grace, the light at the end of his tunnel.

Gabe threw on his jacket and ran down the garden path bare foot and he was immediately soaked through. "What are you doing?" Gabe had to shout through the crashing rain.

Grace didn't say anything but the way she looked at him, sad, wanting and fragile, made him instinctively put his arm around her and he guided her out of the wet and cold and into the warmth of the house.

# Chapter 15

Gina was in the kitchen reading. The house was cosy and calm and something delicious smelling was cooking in the oven. Gina smiled as if it was the most natural thing in the world for Gabe to be walking a wet woman through the kitchen of an evening and she asked them if they wanted a nice cup of tea and dinner perhaps. She didn't wait for an answer and just let the couple walk right through into the lounge.

Grace sat shivering and soaking wet on the sofa.

"I can't go back Gabe!"

"Go back where?"

"Home!"

"What are you talking about?" Gabe looked at her and realised that her face was bruised. Her eye was swollen and blue around the eyebrow and her usual alabaster cheek was red and her wrists and forearms were scratched. She had blood dripping from her nose and a fresh cut on her bottom lip.

"What's going on Grace?" Grace began to cry and Gabe moved in closer to comfort her but not so close that they actually touched bodies.

"Have you got anything to drink Gabe? I need a bloody drink!" Grace was sobbing now and shaking. She put her hands up to her face and began to rock her upper body. Gabe worried that she was having some kind of breakdown.

He didn't know what to do to. Should he give her a drink or not? What was the right thing to do? She looked so tired and ill and weary. In shock even. Gabe got up and poured them both a large glass of vodka.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on Grace?"

"No, not really Gabe. Can we just leave it for now? Can we just drink? Please, it is too much tonight. I can't bear it. Can't we just talk about something else? Anything else. Can't you just take my mind away from where it is? Please just get drunk with me."

Gina came in with a tray holding a pot of tea and three cups and a warm fluffy towel from the airing cupboard was slung over her arm. She got Grace to take her jumper off and she wrapped the towel around her to try and soak up some of the water in an attempt to warm her up a bit. Gina cleaned some of the blood off Grace with some cotton wool and they all drank some tea and Gina lit a fire in the grate, brought out trays of food for them all and then joined them on the sofa so that they all had to huddle up some more.

They ate some dinner, a roast of chicken and vegetables, roast potatoes and gravy and Grace kept drinking but was very thankful for everything and grateful for the meal which she kept saying was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten, which Gabe thought was a bit of a lie. It wasn't that mum's cooking was bad, it just wasn't _that_ good.

It got later and it was arranged that Grace stay the night, on the sofa. Gina gave her some night clothes and another towel and a glass of water. By now, Grace was fit to pass out; exhausted, drunk, emotional, drained. Gina tucked her up on the sofa and turned the lights out and ushered Gabe up the stairs.

Gabe was starting to get all angsty and upset now that Grace couldn't see him. He was half drunk but too angry to go to sleep. He thought he should be pleased that Grace, bloody Grace, the love, the out of reach girl, was asleep in his house but Gabe was confused, hurt, and a little bit more confused. Who the fuck would hurt Grace? And whoever it was, Gabe wanted to hurt them back.

"Leave it for tonight. She might tell us in the morning darling. You can't force these things. She will tell us when she wants to and if she wants to. She is in a safe place now. Does she have a boyfriend?"

Gabe hadn't even thought of that yet. Grace knew a lot of boys and all the boys knew Grace. She probably did have a boyfriend, of course she must have had a few boyfriends but Gabe didn't really know who in that gang of hers she was seeing or whatever. Maybe she had a serious boyfriend? More than likely. God how depressing. But she'd have to dump him now, after what he'd done to her tonight.

Gabe could feel that the vodka had gone to his head. He felt as if his body was separate to him and his wings felt numb. Life had got a little surreal. Who would have thought that the beautiful Grace would be in his house, in his lounge, staying the night, after spending the evening with him and his mum, eating dinner off trays on their knees on their little sofa?

He thought of something that he had heard once. If you want to see everything, you can either travel the world or stay in one place and watch. Gabe felt that he hadn't done anything but stay in the same place, this was his home but things were getting interesting. He had always dreamt of running away but for the first time he saw a crack in this theory that seemed to be revealing the possibility of having what you wanted where you were now. Right here, right now. But at the same time Grace was in a bad way so that sort of cancelled out everything else.

Gabe assumed that Grace would be gone in the morning, sobered up, humiliated and off. Closing the door softly behind her like she would too of the memory of that evening together.

But he was wrong. By the time he came downstairs, at the time when Grace would, in the past, have usually been walking past his house to school, Grace was with Gina. In his kitchen, smiling over a cup of coffee. They both looked so soft and happy thought Gabe. He felt a little awkward, well more awkward than the normal awkwardness he felt.

Gina had her own ideas on things but was not one to expose these thoughts, especially not to Gabe, who she thought was so obviously in love, infatuated and taken with Grace. She wondered how he was coping with this new development. He had to learn these things, she had to let go and let him learn for himself the way of love. That rocky terrain that although was full of heartache and pain, was also so imprinted to be so appealing that it never failed to lure people to take its path.

Gabe thought he might walk Grace back to her house so she could spend some time recuperating or resting or pampering or whatever it was that she did but Grace said she didn't want to see anyone. She didn't want to go home, she wanted to keep her head down.

The bruising actually looked worse today.

Gabe knew that he needed to finish the sculpture; he needed to get all his art work to school as well at some stage but given the choice, he would pick Grace every time. But if he was with Grace, they couldn't just hang out in the city where they would see people they both knew. Gabe didn't think Grace would find it very interesting spending the day in his studio and it would have felt too weird anyway.

He thought of what Grace might like to do and he could feel his personality morphing to suit her and he checked himself.

_No, I am not going to completely change to suit her. I have got to be me. If she doesn't like it then at least she will find out now. And what have I got to lose?_ Gabe thought. When you do not have much to lose, you can do almost anything. The black clothes thing had been for him firstly, then for her, he wasn't going to pretend to be someone else to trick her into liking him because then she wouldn't really like him. She would be liking Gabe pretending to be someone who he wasn't. If she did really like him, she would want more and Gabe wasn't ready for that either. Better she finds out she doesn't like me and goes off, than pretending to be someone she might like and get myself into a situation. As Gabe was turning this all around in his head, he realised that Grace was laughing at him.

"What you laughing at?"

"Your face, Gabe!"

"Hmm thanks."

"No, I mean it's cute. The way that it changes when you are thinking and you are having this little conversation in your head and your face is getting all involved." Grace had got the giggles.

"Hmm. Yes well, I'll watch that in the future then." As if Gabe wasn't feeling paranoid enough already.

"Hey no it's nice, it's lovely." She tried not to smile and gave him one of her nudges to make it up to him.

No one had said it to him before, that he had these habits. No one noticed because they weren't new to them or they simply just did not notice. Grace must be noticing and she seemed happy enough.

He thought of what his friends might say if they knew. _It's time to grow up so fuck 'em_ , thought Gabe. _Fuck the lot of them!_ He played out their wrong doings in his head and he could feel his face twisting up in frowns and grimaces. _Man I've got to stop thinking like it. If I keep thinking of all the shit and negativity my face is going to end up all twisted and bitter. I've got to think good things, I've got to see good things then life just might be good._ They say you get the face you deserve so Gabe reckoned if he kept thinking crap and bollocks, his face would show that in its lines. He didn't want that. He saw people in the street that looked wrecked with bitter and twisted, downturned grimaces, from years and years of their resentful thoughts shaping their faces. Perhaps their thoughts even shaped their lives, leading them down everlasting paths of misery. Gabe wanted a face that read of peace and happiness and serenity. And he wanted that path too! If it was his thoughts that shaped his face, that shaped his actual whole life, he better sort it out quick.

"Let's go up into the countryside and on to the coast. Get away from it all for a bit. I'll borrow mum's car and we can have a drive around. Maybe take a picnic or something? Go for a walk if the weather's nice up there. Take a flask of tea. How does that sound?" Gabe thought that Grace might laugh and say, 'no way let's go to the pub and get pissed', or something similar instead, but Grace said, 'Yes!'

"Gabe, that sounds like the loveliest thing ever. Perfect." And Grace's face lit up and looked so pretty despite of its damaged appearance.

# Chapter 16

Being in the car gave Gabe and Grace a sort of shell of protection from the outside world and from their own self-consciousness. As they looked ahead, along the road towards the horizon, they couldn't stop talking. They talked about everything and anything. They told brief, edited versions of their life stories. They spoke and discussed their different hopes and fears. They laughed and cried laughing over funny stories. They got on really well and even when they were quiet, it was just peaceful, not awkward or embarrassing. They both just looked out of the window and enjoyed the view and occasionally pointed out a particularly nice looking cloud or landscape view and they drove into the moors until there were no other cars on the road and it was just dirt track after dirt track.

Gabe didn't really know where he was going, he just kept going and turned off roads when it felt right to turn, not worrying too much about getting lost. What did it matter if he was with Grace? Finally, they landed in a place that was just like out of a postcard.

Not far from where the land met the sea, they had found themselves at one of those places that looked like it didn't really exist, not in real-life, only in fantasy, in imagination, in children's picture books. The light here today looked polarised; all the colours were more intense and the scenery couldn't have been more dramatic. There was a stream and a waterfall that glittered and shone like a million diamonds in the sun. Gabe found a place to park, off road so that they would be completely hidden if by chance another car or tractor found its way down here. There was the odd sheep hiding out in the nooks of the rocks and the purple heather stretched as far as the eye could see. The sky seemed vast here. The sun was out almost alone up there but happy, happy in its solitude. It was so warm but with the sea breeze everything felt good and easy. Gabe thought about how things were falling in to place and how that made life so much easier, a pleasure even. Life was usually a damn struggle and a bloody battle, he was always coming up against situations and people that he felt were difficult and wrong. Maybe, if things came easily, then surely that must mean that you were on the right path? Surely this universe and everything in it hadn't been created so that life was always about suffering and strife and obstacles? Life should be full of beauty too. Today life was full of so much beauty and it came effortlessly. It came from every direction without so-much as a thought about it. Maybe it was always there, it just took a shift in your thinking and emotions to see it? Perhaps if you touched beauty then it spread like a passionate fire, lighting everything in its path. Perhaps there would always be friction but if you walked the path with love it smoothed the way.

Gabe took armfuls of blankets and pillows and then the hamper from the boot of the car, he set all their things down half shaded under a tree and they sat and they ate from the basket that Gina had made up for them and drank tea. Everything just felt calm as they were just sitting and listening to the sounds of nature. Listening to the sounds of the light breeze and other sounds they did not instantly recognise, even though they were the sounds that were always there in the background beneath the noises of everyday living. Sounds that could even be coming from the movements of the whispy occasional white clouds up ahead or by the gentle swaying of the grasses and leaves.

The tune of the stream on its long travels over pebbles and rocks. The sound of heat waves rising and radiating, almost visible when you stared for long enough. All the natural sounds that came from the earth. The primordial sounds that were not invented but had always and forever been.

Full and tired, they both lay flat with their backs touching right down on the earth, on the warm ground and, surrounded by the soft blankets and cushions with tiny mirrors sewn in, they looked up to the sky and beyond. They felt their bodies connect with the soil and with the crust of their planet and they realised how good it felt just to do that. And they wondered why didn't they spend more time just doing that? Connecting back with the earth and realising the connection, the life being experienced. Gabe and Grace talked about their ideas on the meaning of life. Of how far space went. Of how small they could think. Of conspiracy theories and scientific thoughts and they thought of other questions that they didn't know the answers to. They talked of evolution and if even that truth was true, about all the missing information and missing links. They spoke of philosophies they had heard of and read about on the internet and discussed them excitedly. They debated if science would indeed have all the answers one day and if everything could be explained with an equation eventually. And how much it might matter, if anything mattered at all, if anyone did eventually figure it all out.

Gabe looked over at Grace as she spoke. She was more beautiful by the day. She was still bruised and there was a scab now on the cut on her lip but she looked better, happier. The more Gabe knew her, and got to know her, the more she spoke; the more beautiful she got. Even bruised and battered, Grace glowed. That was the only way he could describe it. Whether it was the sun that day or the position of the land, or something else all together, Grace looked like an angel or a saint in a stained glass window of a church. She had a glow all around her. A golden aura. Even amongst the beauty and perfection of nature, Grace had an 'other worldly' iridescence about her.

Hours passed as they talked and day dreamed and laughed. Gabe took another blanket out of the car and a bottle of wine and they sat there on the side of the moor by the stream and they watched the sun go down. As if seeing that everyday phenomena for the very first time they noted, in detail, how the colours changed so subtly but greatly. As the sky turned from blue to purple to orange to red and pink and then, when the sun had finally disappeared over the horizon, to where people in another land were watching it go down, the sky turned to the darkest black. When the sun was no longer there, with its bright, life giving fire, shining in the sky, they could then see the stars. Stars that were always there but that they were blinded to during the day and even to most nights of their lives due to being indoors, in their own box. Even if they were to look up to the sky from the city, most of the stars and sky was blocked from view by the high rises and the ever present light pollution of the city's nightscape.

Up here, where there was no city life and no light pollution, Gabe and Grace could really see in the clear night the millions and millions of stars that seemed to fill every spare space up above. The longer they stared, the more stars seemed to be revealed. It was as if they were both falling deeper into the universe; where it was possible to believe what they had heard, that there were more stars in the sky than there were grains of sand on earth. That if the all the grains of sand from all the beaches and all the vast deserts on earth were added up together they were still outnumbered by all the stars in the sky. The same earth's sky that the ancients had seen. Distant relatives and forefathers and mothers who would have all also stared up at the night sky in wonder. Before the invention of TV and radios and video games and the internet. Before they knew what any of it meant and even if people now did know the science behind some of it, it was hard not to believe that really it was something so greatly misunderstood and powerful and wonderful. That witnessing the night sky was so life affirming, humbling and at the same time awe inspiring, that there must be so much more to everything than what they knew or could ever know in this, their life time. That there also had to be that other thing, that thing that people had tried to name, that thing that could be God, or Love, or Mother Nature. The Essence of the Universe. That thing that made them human, that gave them the power of consciousness, the ability to question, to reflect, to imagine, to create. To feel feelings so complex, so strong and so deeply, like the feeling of the absolute awe of it all. This was the biggest miracle perhaps, to be able to witness all the other billions of miracles and ask, why?

Gabe thought of the holidays he had with his mum when he was younger, when they would camp somewhere beautiful and deserted and he could leave his shirt off all summer, and roll around in the dirt and run free. He could use his wings and fly around the hills and up the streams. He could watch the birds and join them as they soared high above the earth, high above any problems or worries. Gabe felt now like he did then. He felt the need to take his shirt off. Undo his bandages, where his wings were, after a day of being stifled in the heat, dripping with sweat. Free them from being imprisoned by layers of material and of shame. The natural and free world was tempting him to join it.

Gabe thought about facing his greatest fear, exposing something that was way beyond intimate. But Grace had fallen asleep. The wine and the soporific effect of the dark starry night after the sun went down, after its gift of such a hot day, had lulled her to her dreams. Exhausted from all of the deep and passionate conversations they had had today and the ultimate feeling of peace here. This place was like the breast of Mother Nature herself, so calming and safe and natural. Gabe guessed the effects of yesterday's drama were still tiring her too. She was still refusing point blank to talk to him about it and Gabe didn't want to push it. Whatever it was, he just wanted her to get better and for it to never happen again. He wished he could lie down next to her and put his arms around her. Hold her, whisper into her hair and tell her that everything was going to be alright. Tell her that he loved her.

Gabe went to the car and got out the tent that his mum had put in the boot, 'just in case'. Gabe's mind wanted to think and obsess over whether his mother was romantic and needed love herself but he battled not to think of that, to concentrate on here and now instead. He was feeling so good and high on life, he didn't want to feel guilt.

Guilt is like a weed, it might start small but as soon as you let it in, it takes over and kills everything else. All the beauty and all the peace, the guilt would eat it all up and devour it without hesitation. Guilt like weeds, block out the light.

There would come a time, and soon, when he wouldn't be a burden to his mum anymore. She would be free do to what she wanted and see who she wanted. She could have her life back, be a woman rather than just a mother. He would make her proud of him. That is the thought Gabe kept in his mind, to keep all the other thoughts away for now.

_I'll make my mum proud! I promise!_ Gabe made the oath to himself and almost believed it.

Gabe paced around the hillock trying to find somewhere perfect to pitch the tent. He assembled it quickly in a sheltered spot that was on mostly flat ground and positioned the door looking out towards the waterfall and the fields beyond. He filled the tent with all the extra blankets and then he lay on the grass next to Grace. So near that he could hear her breathing. As he lay his on his back on the ground and looked out towards what his eyes could not see, Gabe talked to the universe, he meditated with his eyes open. He cut all thoughts out of his head and tried to remain in the quiet point where his ego was not involved in the mental conversation, just leaving the voice of his soul, the universal soul, his spirit. Gabe wanted guidance, he wanted to follow the right path, and he wanted to see signs and coincidences to let him know he was doing the right thing. He loved Grace, he loved her so much it was actually physically painful and if she didn't feel the same, how would he ever cope? Even the thought of her rejecting him made him want his body to shatter into a million pieces.

He tried to concentrate on his breathing, in time with hers, and he tried to turn all his thoughts into butterflies that flew off as soon as they entered his consciousness. He tried to see beyond the stars, he tried to feel his chakras open up and spin. Gabe wanted to feel a higher vibration of life, he wanted something to make sense. Gabe asked for his spirit guide to talk to him, he breathed out all the tensions he was feeling and he waited and waited to get an answer. But the visions, angels, guides and the spirits seemed to have abandoned him and if they had not abandoned him, Gabe thought that perhaps he didn't have any. That in essence he was always alone. At the time he most needed to know what to do, he saw and heard nothing. All he could see was Grace and the stars and all he could hear was the breathing of the earth and nature and the breath of the woman that he loved.

In the early hours Grace woke him, she kissed Gabe on his cheek and he woke up half dreaming with a smile on his face.

"Hey beautiful," he said without thinking.

"Shall we go into the tent Gabe? It's getting a bit cold." Gabe realised that he wasn't dreaming and he wished he hadn't called her beautiful. He began to feel embarrassed. But she had kissed him, right? Hadn't she or was that part of the dream too?

Gabe had already filled the tent with blankets and pillows, more so that they didn't get wet, but now it was a really comfortable space and they both flopped into the tent and lay down among all the cushions.

"You were prepared weren't you Gabe?"

Gabe didn't want Grace to think he did this sort of thing all of the time, with different girls. Not that he did of course, about as far from it as it was possible, but to explain that would that sound odd too.

"Mum keeps some things in the car. We used to go off camping a lot, not so much anymore. She used to have to just get out of the city at weekends, me too. But we just got busy I guess. Didn't one weekend, then the next..."

"She's like a free spirit your mum, isn't she? I hope I'm like her when I'm older."

Gabe laughed as he always assumed that people didn't really look up to his mum, even though he didn't know why they shouldn't. She was the nicest person he knew but people tended to go for the ones who seemed more normal or more high maintenance, with loads of make-up on to make them appear more glamorous.

"Really? Yes, I suppose."

"She is wonderful, don't you think?"

Gabe didn't want to talk about his mum so he playfully squeezed Graces side till she giggled. Still drowsy, she cuddled up next to him, right into his chest and she acted like she was shivering cold and rubbed herself like she was trying to warm up. Gabe reached out and zipped the tent door shut and he pulled the blankets up around them. He laid his head down next to Grace's. Grace was yawning and obviously half asleep but she took his hand and moved it around her waist so that he had her in his arms and he waited for her to fall asleep again. He wondered if she would kiss him again or go any further. How was he going to react? When would she ask about his back? When should he bring up the subject? How would he bring up the subject? In a way, he wished he had already, at least then it would be over and done with and she could run off or do whatever she was going to do. But everything was just so nice as it was and Gabe didn't want to do anything to spoil it. He wrapped his arms around her tight now and cradled her inside the concave of his body and she nuzzled into him and got as close as she could get. She moved her hands around his waist too and he could feel Grace stroking his lower back. He could feel her breath and her breasts on his torso.

Gabe noticed how his body heat warmed her up, enveloped her. He felt their hearts start to beat in rhythm as they slowed right down. He felt their bodies melt to form one being, until they were like one heart, one body, dreaming one dream.

When the sun rose bright and early, Gabe let himself out of the tent without waking Grace and he walked for a while till he got to the cliff's edge. He sat staring out at the distance of the new dawn until he felt Grace sit down beside him as she too looked out towards the rising sun. Everything was new and perfect, it really was a pure morning.

# Chapter 17

The Outcasts park was getting fuller now with all the kids that had nothing to do while they waited all summer for their results to be in from their exams. Gabe and the usual crew met in their corner that they now thought as theirs exclusively. They sat down in a circle and were talking the usual. Gabe needed to ask for help with the transportation of his art for The Exhibition, one last favour. And of course they wanted to help which made Gabe feel bad as he knew that they cared for him really. He guessed that no one had heard about him spending time with Grace as they didn't mention it and Gabe wasn't about to tell them.

Johnny cracked opened a pack of beers and gave everyone a large can and they saluted each other in a cheer.

"To the future!"

"The Exhibition!"

"To life, to love, to laughter. To lessons learn and to going legit."

They all cheered in agreement.

"Which one of you is Gabe?"

A man had appeared in their space as if out of nowhere. He was only short and skinny but seeing as they were all sat down, he towered above them blocking out their sun.

The boys all looked at each other, not knowing what to do. They wouldn't offer up who Gabe was, but most people had it sussed already, as it was pretty easy to tell which one 'Gabe' was even before you had met him. Like if someone had enquired for Dave, people would have said, "You know, the one that shaves hair. The one with the chain!" And they'd go, "Oh yes, I know the one you mean." Or Frank, "The one that's into all that martial art shit. The camp one." Everyone knew Johnny anyway, he needed no explanation. And Gabe. "You know the tall one. The one with the hump."

Everyone knew of the guy with the hump.

"Yeah, I'm Gabe!" Gabe put his can of beer on the ground and stood up.

"Stay away from Grace, you freak! This is not a warning, this is a fucking threat. I am telling you, stay away from her! I do not need to spell it out to you. She is not your type do you get it? She is too good for you! Stay away from her or..." This other skinny man was now shaking and spitting.

Johnny, ever the charmer, stood up too. "Can I help you?"

"Gabe knows what I'm talking about."

Gabe didn't really know how to answer. He thought he should say something brave or funny but his brain had just froze to empty. So instead, he said nothing and tried to keep himself contained.

Gabe put his shoulders back and he tried to remember to stand tall and to look this other man in the eye.

"Fuck off!" Dave said eventually. "Fuck off out of here!" He went to get up whilst starting to take his gold chain necklace off and Frank jumped up quick, into a stance of a warrior preparing to fight, and the other guy backed off two steps in a topple, like he felt the force of Franks energy push him back. And whatever Dave did worked as he seemed a little bit freaked out by it and he turned and scurried away before Dave had even managed to get to his feet.

Gabe sat down, emotionally exhausted. He was confused, angry, hurt and sad. It was all over before it had begun.

"You know who that was don't you? That was Grace's brother, Nathan. Nathaniel! " Frank looked at Gabe accusingly.

" _Her_ brother! Jeez, I thought I recognised him," said Johnny who had been trying to place where he had seen this skinny man on his travels. "He looks different, he looks ill."

"What the fuck was he going on about Gabe?" Frank had got hysterical in record time.

"Nothing!" Gabe looked down at the ground, focusing on the droplets of beer he had spilt as they collected specks of dust and dirt.

"Hmm...yeah... well it didn't sound like nothing. What's going on with Grace and you? Man! You and Grace, how did that happen?" Frank was acting so incredulous that Gabe really wanted to answer him back with the words that were on the tip of his tongue. _How did that happen? Hmm, let me think. Probably similar to the way you and Alistair happened Frank, what do you think?_ But Gabe just answered quietly, almost under his breath.

"It didn't happen. Nothing has happened. Not really, I don't think. I just spent a night camped out with her."

"What!" All the boys shouted at the same time but in different tones, independent of each other's.

"Yeah, well stay away mate. I know she is beautiful, I know you have loved her like forever. We all know that but you can't man, it just can't happen." Dave gave his unwanted and unasked for opinion.

"Man and you fell for it! Alistair's girlfriend and all, give me a break Gabe. Did you tell her about the robbery? Did you tell her I got the box? You chose to blab to her over your own mates?" Johnny spat his little speech with Frank nodding along. Gabe couldn't speak, let alone argue back with the evident grand hypocrisy.

Gabe thought of all the things he knew about Frank, Johnny and Dave that he could throw back in their faces in his own self defence but it seemed like too much effort. It would just devastate Gabe even more and he was too devastated already.

"Bet she's a right goer though eh Gabe. I'll tell you what the girls like..." But Gabe wasn't about to take any advice, let alone advice about women and relationships, off of Dave. And if he carried on talking like that, Gabe felt he would have no other option, other than to smack him in the face.

They were all just totally selfish and the biggest bunch of liars, they lied so much that it seeped out of their pores and coloured everything they did. They were the sick ones, the deluded ones and they obviously didn't give a shit about him. That is why he never told them about the wings! His instincts had always known not to trust them.

Gabe hated them all then. As much as he had ever loved them, he hated them now to the same degree, if not more.

Gabe took a swig of the beer and suddenly felt the need to get seriously drunk.

"You are lovely and all that mate but really, it's like an unwritten rule. There's them and then there's us. End of!" Dave was adamant.

"There are those for who life is just a breeze, one long party. Then there are us and we get the gift of being able to smell the bullshit. They will all walk into good jobs whether they pass their exams or not because they're connected with CEO daddies and daddy's friends in high places. Whatever results we get, we will have to beg and demean ourselves for some shitty job or pray for some kind of miracle. They get to have all the stuff that's in all the adverts and then tell us that we need that stuff too to be happy. So we save our money to buy it and it just makes them richer and keeps us poor. It is a game and they are always the winners. It is the way of the world and you can't mix us, the plebeians and their masters. You can mix a lot of things together Gabe, in fact nowadays you can mix anything you want together, but the suits and the artists?" Johnny spoke like a sage of knowledge. Johnny was planning on being very rich, very rich indeed. One day. Then he would find a nice girl, till then it was all stepping stones.

"I think she does like me." Gabe tried to sound positive but inside he was crestfallen.

"Oh pull the other one Gabe. She, out of all of them, is _nothing_ like us," said Frank with such an evil tone in his voice.

Gabe didn't even know why he was down here. The love had flipped to hatred. What Gabe felt for his friends now was more like disgust than compassion. The feeling he had being here with them, was making him feel sick to the pit of his stomach.

They could say all they liked about Grace but something about that night had told him that there was something there, something special. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking on Gabe's part. Was he just acting like some obsessive who believed that the object of his desire liked him back? Like one of those crazy stalkers that you hear about that stalk the beautiful and famous women thinking, preposterously, that they loved them back. That's probably more what he had, some sort of warped vision of the whole thing.

Gabe felt like his barriers were coming up against her again now. He didn't want to be seen as some sort of head case. He didn't want to be anymore humiliated. One huge personal rejection was just about all he could take this month.

Gabe tried to refocus. He just had to finish up his sculpture, show his work at The Exhibition, pray that someone noticed him, maybe sell some paintings online, maybe do a part time degree, get a job, earn some money for him and his mum. Get out into the real world and grow up a bit. Maybe go travelling in a couple of years and get away from it all. Get away from all this, all this that was just bullshit. Go to that place he had always imagined existed.

Gabe thought about his mum. Would she be ok, when and if, he left? Would she miss him, would she cope? Gabe, for the first time, started seeing things in a new light. His mother had never had any relationships as far as he was aware, no one in her life, and was that because of him? If he left and was responsible and gave her some of her freedom back then maybe she would find someone; when she didn't have to care or worry about him anymore. He was holding her back from living her life to the full. She needed someone to love apart from him. He had to grow up. He had to get on with things, maybe ask another girl out, stay out of the house. Show his mum that he was independent now. Everything was changing. If one door closes another one opens. If Grace never spoke to him again, he had to get on with it. Live his life, move forward, head towards a better future. Pull himself together. What were the other choices? Turn into a sad little man, all twisted and deformed, drinking to get through life, isolated forever? Or what? Kill himself now and have done with it? Gabe had to concentrate on his art. It was his only possible road out to freedom.

"Fuck the lot of you!" Gabe swiped a bottle of vodka out of the plastic bag that was lying sideways on the ground. He left them sat there and he didn't turn back, not even when he got to the exit to see if he could picture them all as strangers because Gabe realised that they already were.

Gabe was already half way home when he accepted that they weren't following him. They didn't care. They would have only run after him if he'd taken all the booze. They didn't give a fuck. Gabe felt the relief wash over him like someone had pushed a stress release button. His body and limbs felt lighter and his chest, which had been puffed out high, released the static air and Gabe felt weak. He had cut the stings of the puppeteers and now he just felt like a boneless rag doll. They were gone now and now he had no one.

"Might as well kill yourself now and have done with it," a voice said in his head, so crystal clear and compellingly that Gabe heard the voice from outside of himself and turned to look who had said it. But of course there was no one there. But that thought, the thought of it all coming to an abrupt end, sent another wave of relief and release through him and if anything, made him feel much more stronger.

There was always a way out. Frank knew it, Dave knew it; they all knew it. There was drink and there were drugs and they made you feel better, if only for a little bit. Then there was cutting yourself...that was a relief. But the ultimate relief from all this pain was so simple it was classic and hadn't many of the heroes gone the same way? Suicide! Gabe had always thought of suicide as somewhat gory, sad and tragic. Selfish even. But from that split second revelation, he now realised that sometimes, it was the only way.

Life could get too difficult, too hard. There was sometimes no way out, when all the doors had been slammed and locked shut. When the burning desire was sometimes too small and too far away, to ever think that you could make it. And sometimes, that light was just extinguished.

Gabe felt that the light burning inside him was extinguished now. Off. Dark. Something within him had died.

When Gabe got home the signs were not good. All the lights were off and the TV was on but with the volume turned down low. Gabe's heart sank even further as he stepped through into the lounge. He knew before he had even seen what was there, he knew what he would find and he braced himself on instinct. But he was still not prepared.

It had been a while, longer than usual. She had been doing so well for a few years now but it had obviously struck again and he hadn't even seen it coming this time. He'd been so wrapped up in his own life, his own problems.

Gabe sat down on the sofa next to his mum, who was still in her dressing gown. Not dressed, not in her office, not in the kitchen cooking or reading. Not out pottering in the garden or even looking out the kitchen window towards the horizon like Gabe noticed she usually did quite a lot.

"You ok mum?"

"Yeah, I'm alright darling." His mum tried half-heartedly to raise a smile.

"Is it back?"

"Hmm...yes...I think so. The old black dog...the cloud. More like a bloody great, big black, storm cloud. I'm so sorry Gabe."

"Don't be sorry mum. It's not your fault."

"But I feel like it is. And why now, right now. What with your exhibition and all that stuff with Grace and also your father. We haven't talked in such a long time Gabe."

'"It's ok mum really. Let's just get you well eh? It's just an exhibition and that's all finished as much as it's ever going to be finished. If I carry on painting now I'll probably just ruin it, so best just leave it. I just need to get it all down to school. I don't even have to go mum, really. Is there anything I can get you?" Gabe realised that there was no way now of getting it all down to the school if he didn't have any friends to help him, it wouldn't fit in his mum's car... He'd have to hire a van, he still had some money left. It was achievable.

"No Gabe, thanks, I don't need anything, except perhaps a magic wand?"

"Yes, I think I could do with one of them too, I've seen the odd one or two lying around over the years. Shall I go and have a look? Cup of tea?" Gabe laid a hand on his mum's knee. He stood up and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Thanks Gabe, you're a good boy you know." Despite her mood, Gina brightened a little at her son's humour.

Gabe didn't feel like a good boy, he felt like he was, must be, kind of bad. That everything that happened to him was some kind of punishment for something.

Gabe tried to think things through but the more he thought, the more confused he got.

"People just want to be listened to and feel loved, respected and appreciated," Gina rambled a bit from the sofa and Gabe wondered if he had been thinking out loud.

"That sounds simple," Gabe replied and then couldn't help adding and then regretting, "If that's the case, why isn't everyone happy?"

"Human nature," his mother said sounding defeated. "The heart, the mind. It is all human nature. We can't help it, my darling. Ah, the complexity of human emotions and relationships. It is the rich tapestry of life."

Gabe thought about it all and realised that if everyone was happy all the time, would it just get on his nerves? If people were happy, would a depth of passion be lost? Passion is love and loss, pleasure and pain. Passion is the full spectrum from one end to the other. Passion is the extreme.

The human instinct of wanting more and the ingrained dissatisfaction with what was received might just be one of the propellers of invention, of advancement, of evolution.

Did Gabe not use his own suffering as a platform for the art he painted? How would anyone know happiness if they didn't know sorrow? How would you know delicious if you didn't know bland?

People lived their lives in the pursuit of an ever alluding and completely unattainable state of constant happiness and fulfilment. In hope. Maybe peace and happiness were allusive for that very reason; for the strive, for the continuation, for the survival. Suffering for not achieving the desired level of goals set, might be one of the fundamental basic facts of human evolution. Create and evolve or be extinguished.

Gabe wondered how the human species would evolve next. All have wings perhaps? And he involuntary laughed out loud, he was clearly going insane with all the stress.

Gabe thought that there was enough in life to be sorrowful about, to grieve over without all the added stress of people being horrible to each other, with being hostile and unfriendly. It could be a lot better world in so many ways, if people just lived with nature rather than against it for a start.

Gabe felt a bit stupid now for taking the vodka, he didn't even want it. He unscrewed the lid and took a sniff of it, foul stuff and he poured the whole bottle down the sink and as the clear liquid ran out Gabe thought it was like a washing away, a symbolic gesture of cutting his friends out of his life for good. Like a little funeral. With an inch of vodka left in the bottle Gabe downed the rest and would have liked to have thrown the bottle across the kitchen in a final flamboyant gesture, but he just put it in the recycling like a good boy. Gabe read the headline of the newspaper on the kitchen top as he waited for the tea to brew. One in every three women on anti depressants. His mum wasn't the only one, everyone was depressed it seemed. For all they had, for all the information, for all the consumer choices, for all the people that could be having meaningful interactions with each other; everyone just wanted to clock out of the experience that was their life.

And why didn't _they_ change? If they were depressed, then why didn't they move, change job, change relationship, change whatever it was that was getting to them. Why didn't he? Because of fear. The fear of taking the leap of faith that a dream might come true was more than the fear of now. Weighing up the pros and cons, it was better to be grateful for what you had, to suffer, to wait and secretly hope that it got painful enough to force you, or that some knight in shining armour would hand it to you. That it would just happen like a miracle. Than to just go out there and try and grab your dreams and live by your own ideals like your heart yearned for.

But Gabe had had enough. It had got painful enough. It had got unbearable.

One way or other, Gabe was going to have to jump.

Looking across to his mum, she looked so sad, devastated and heart broken and he would have given anything just to see her better again. He needed to ring the doctor. The modern world was making her ill but he needed the modern world to get her better again. He was as brainwashed as the next person, Gabe knew that. brainwashing was everywhere and it was completely impossible not to get caught in its spin cycle.

Gabe sat down next to Gina on the sofa and gave her a cup of tea.

"I don't know mum, I really don't know."

"No, me neither Gabe. Sometimes I think I've really got something, grasped it. That I have reached an understanding, only for it to slip through again."

Gina didn't know if she believed in herself or anything anymore.

As Gabe stroked his mum's hair, he thought that the world seemed to have gone mad. Overloaded with greed, with consumerism, with stuff to eat, wear, drink, watch, buy, do and know. It was making some people somewhere very rich but it was making the masses ill. Gabe wondered if they would ever wake up to it. And if they didn't? There was nothing he could do about that. It had to be enough for him to know, to act in accordance to this knowledge. For him to look for answers and seek truths. To go and live with nature and be healthy and be surrounded by loving friends. But, at the same time, Gabe couldn't think of any way of going about this other than by being really rich. Being rich seemed like the only way out of the misery. The only way out would be to have lots of money and to buy yourself out of it. Gabe could only buy a tropical island to live on if he was the richest man in the world. _This_ was the trap and a huge one at that. It seemed to cost a huge amount of money to be free.

Gabe drank his sweet tea and he thought of Grace. He thought that Grace was the only perfect thing and he imagined that her mum didn't suffer. They had money. They had everything that they wanted. They had a perfect daughter and they had holidays and new cars and designer clothes. They could afford anything they wanted so that they never needed for anything, they could afford to go and be with nature and do nothing for a few weeks, do nothing for the rest of their lives if they wanted to no doubt. They could afford freedoms. Gabe couldn't give his mum any of that.

Gina didn't want any of that.

Gina was an anomaly; she went against the grain of almost every other person too and it made her ill; being different in this society with all its judgements and stresses. The Middles wanting you to be like them. And needing to be accepted, but not finding an acceptable place for you to be accepted into. Gina couldn't conform like most people did. She had no desire for material possessions. She couldn't keep up the pretence; she was too honest in a world built on lies.

Though, at the same time Gina thought that her whole life was a lie. In truth Gina had hated the city from day one and pined for the day when she could sell up and move to the countryside again. She could have perhaps made her dream come true quicker if she had been more business minded, more callous. She would have done the same job for free if there were not bills to be paid but it still didn't ever feel right or sit comfortably with her own innate ideals to charge to help people.

By rights, Gina should have been more popular but everyone ignored her mostly out in the street and she, due to patient confidentiality, never connected with a client in the 'real world' unless they connected first, which never happened. If anything, Gina's job led her to be shunned and sometimes Gina wondered if she wasn't much different to a prostitute. Providing the love and service in a private place, denied knowledge of in the outside world, like a dirty little secret. When Gina thought like this, she knew it was time to take up another course or pop another pill.

Gabe often thought that perhaps he should take up his mum's offer on some of her therapies, open up his mind a bit more, as really half the time he did his own head in and wondered sometimes if he were not on the edge of his own depressive illness. When Gabe did rest his mind and stop the internal chatter, he invariably was simply given the answer of what he was looking for without even having to try. It was like it was all already there, waiting for him to just shut up.

And who was to say who was right or wrong? 'The cure' for human nature was a multi-billion dollar industry. There was no shortage of people trying to feel better about themselves, wanting to figure it all out, to fix it, to find some sort of meaning. Wanting to know the future, the choices, the paths available. How to suffer less than they were. There was no shortage of hearts and minds with wallets, wanting all of the answers, and there was no shortage of answers; theories, pretty patterns, experiments, cases, diets, therapies and experts in this, that or the other field. It is just that none of them were right, or were they all right? Gabe hadn't yet decided.

Was life just life? Was it all really just chaos, all of it? And you could fear it or be fascinated by it. But the truth was, that fear dominated Gabe. Fear. Gabe knew all about fear, it was a constant companion of late. FEAR. What drove everyone to keep their heads down and do as they were told. If people weren't already born with fear, society, governments, religion and the media soon bombarded them with it, till it is seeped deep into their every conscious and subconscious action and thought. This was the struggle; the secret silent battle of the internal war with phantom fears.

Gabe left his mum sleeping on the sofa and went to his studio to finally immerse himself in solitude.

The sculpture was life size, it was three dimensional, it was growing and coming together. Gabe just had to do a few last finishing touches. The studio was the tidiest he had ever seen it as everything had made its way from the discarded to the useful in the sculpture. There were still a few recent items he was thinking of adding to it. The vodka bottle label from the night out with Grace. Ideally he would like to add an item of Grace's, something that had her scent; if she gave him something or even if he had to resort to stealing something off her.

Gabe had a lot on his mind and was making a mental list of all the things he had to get done when he felt someone touch his waist from behind.

It was Grace.

# Chapter 18

Gabe couldn't help but smile when he saw her. He had left the door open, thank God he hadn't undressed. A sweeter relief washed over him at the sight of her and for so many reasons.

"You ok Gabe?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm ok Grace. I'm fine, you?"

"Do you know that is supposed to be the world biggest lie, telling someone that you are fine. What is it? F...I...N...E. Freaked-out, Insecure, Neurotic, Every day. WOW, so this is the mysterious sculpture?"

Gabe quickly threw a blanket over it as he didn't want anyone to see it yet, not even Grace. Especially not Grace.

"Do you want to come round to my house for a bit?"

All the thoughts came flashing back of Grace's brother Nathaniel and the warning he gave earlier. Gabe remembered his mum, now asleep on the sofa and the doctors' appointment, great reason why not to and great excuse to get out of it.

"I don't know Grace, I've got so much to do."

"Please Gabe, don't make me beg." Grace said but her eyes were already begging, like a puppy dog.

"Erm, where is your brother?"

"My brother? What, you mean Nathaniel?"

"Yeah, Nathaniel!"

"Did he say something to you Gabe?"

"Er...yeah...sort of..."

"Bloody hell, he's an idiot. Don't listen to a word he says Gabe, he's a drug addict, needs to mind his own business and sort himself out. It's his way of trying to be responsible, be the big older brother. Make up for failing in other areas..."

"A drug addict? _Great!_ I think he wants to kill me."

"Ha ha Gabe, you have seen him? He couldn't kill a lady bird, he'd sell his soul for twenty quid!"

"Oh well I'd better keep a spare note in my pocket in case he comes looking for me again then. Thanks for the heads up on that one Grace!"

"Please come over Gabe, just for a bit? Nathaniel is out with the crowd he's always with as usual. He only ever comes home to sleep when he's run out of friend's sofas to crash on." And she held on to his hand, tight.

Gabe wanted to ask her why she wanted to see him and spend time with him but he was torn again because he was really so over the moon that she even noticed him, let alone wanted him to go around to her house. He could make the doctor's appointment on the way over there and he could bring in some food for them later. Gabe couldn't resist the temptation of Grace.

Gabe knew Grace's house well from the outside. As soon as he was allowed to ride his bike out on his own, he had cycled up here, to where all the nice houses were on the hill. From the river, the houses got bigger and bigger as you went up the incline. Big, fancy security gates, that got more ornate with each increasing house number, till the houses no longer had numbers but graduated, due to their splendour, to have proper names instead. Some properties had guard dogs that barked and went crazy the whole time. Others had security cameras that moved in the direction of anything out of the ordinary.

The cars parked outside were all pristine and top end models. Gabe thought it looked like a paradise up here, a heaven that he would never enter.

This was not his world. He sometimes dreamed that one day it would be but Gabe didn't say anything of this to Grace. He didn't want Grace to think that he liked her because of all this. He liked her for everything else and he knew they would all think it was for the money, but it wasn't.

Gabe told himself to be cool, calm and confident as the big black wrought iron gates swung open silently. They walked up the driveway that was sandwich by manicured lawns and flowers of all colours in full bloom, it was like a show garden. It could have almost been plastic, with a huge rockery and a water feature. Gabe wanted to say it was beautiful but he knew it would sound wrong somehow.

He stopped at the huge polished wood, double front doors and Grace let herself in and stood in the big porch that lead, past the huge glass interior doors, through to a grand hall and she beckoned him in.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes of course Gabe! Just come in would you?" Gabe was dazzled by the huge brass multi-tiered, light fitting on the ceiling and the antique looking furniture standing proud everywhere he looked.

It was like the inside of one of the stately homes or manor houses he had seen on school trips or with his mum on days out when they still did that sort of thing. It was like stepping out into of one of those posh glossy magazines for homes and gardens. Everything looked clean, lush, soft, and shiny. Expensive. Everything was the complete opposite to the way Gabe looked and felt.

Gabe caught himself and wondered if his eyes had gone like saucers so he tried to rein himself in a bit and be a little bit more 'cool' about the whole situation, after all, they were friends, right? Also, her brother hated him and no doubt her parents did too, so at any minute he might have to make a run for it. They might even think that it was him that beat her up that time!

Oh my God, Gabe hadn't thought of that, of course. Not only was he poor and had a hippie for a mum and the hump, they might have thought or presumed that it was him that did that to her! That beat her black and blue and split her lip!

Gabe was just about to bring this up with Grace when he saw something that got all the words stuck in his throat. It was not because the kitchen was huge, the size of his whole house, both top and bottom put together, or that the vast kitchen led through to a games room, mini-gym (but still with half a dozen or so machines) and a huge indoor heated swimming pool. It was because there was a middle-aged woman, lying on her front in the middle of the tiled floor of the kitchen. And not just lying, she seemed to be out cold. Dead even!

"What the hell!" Gabe managed to utter.

"What?" Grace saw that Gabe was pointing at her mother. "Oh mum, don't worry about that."

"What do you mean _don't worry?"_

"Just step over her or go around."

"Is she alright?"

"Yes she is fine Gabe, except she's left the bloody oven on jeez!" Grace opened the oven door and smoke came billowing out, filling the room with the scent of burnt pizza and setting off the fire alarm.

It was just about the loudest fire alarm, or any alarm, that Gabe had ever heard. It was like a scream in the highest pitch possible before your ear drums burst and the windows shattered. It was deafening. Grace grabbed a broom and frantically tried knocking the alarm off the ceiling. Gabe went and opened the back door and then came back and reached up to the alarm 'off' button for Grace, immediately stopping the piercing shrill white noise and leaving an echoing deafness and an unnerving silence in its place.

Grace's mum didn't budge. Didn't so much as twitch. Gabe noticed then that Grace's mum was holding a cigarette between her fingers and it had burnt down, past her fingers to the stub, leaving an almost whole cigarette of ash. She must of hit the deck not long after she had lit it and then slept right through as it had burnt and blistered the skin on her fingers.

Gabe bent down to feel the pulse on Grace's mum's neck and as he did so, the woman let out a deep, loud snore and frightened Gabe half to death. He also realised now that the woman stank. She reeked of booze and, what Gabe would not mention as he felt so bad about it for all involved, was that the mother also smelt of piss. She had wet herself in her sleep, or what Gabe was coming to realise, her drunken stupor! The booze smelt strong, aniseed booze and then Gabe's gaze landed on the pint glass and the Sambuca bottle on the kitchen counter.

Grace was getting two tumblers out of the pristine cupboards that house every sort and size of glass, cut with the same diamond patterns and she filled them one each from the offending bottle.

"You want a drink?"

Gabe knew he should say 'no' for all sorts of reasons but his nerves were shot to bits now and he reckoned he needed it.

"How long has your mum been like this Grace?"

"Like what?" Gabe got confused, which must have shown in his face because Grace extended her question. "Do you mean today or in years wise?"

"Erm, both I guess."

"Well she's hitting it bad at the moment. Obviously! She thinks my dad is having an affair, which he strenuously denies. He says she's just mad but really she's been like this for as long as I can remember. Not always this bad but always pretty bad. When I think back to the first time she got like this, I remember a time when I was like nine, carrying her home from the pub and then I remember something else and I am younger and as I get older and think about it, I realise what I didn't know then, that she wasn't perhaps sleeping or having a funny reaction to medication or 'ill' as such. What was normal then, was it actually normal? I don't know." Grace smiled a sad smile. Her face was looking better, the bruises had gone down and were yellowing, no lasting damage.

"And don't think that I don't care Gabe but it is every day. This is our normal. If I wake her up she will only want a fight or start crying and wailing. She's best off passed out. I can't get her upstairs anyway. She'll wake up soon enough, go on a hunt for booze and make her way to the sofa or her bed and then start drinking all over again. If I hide the drink, she'll only take the car out or call a cab and get herself into trouble outside the house. At least if she is here, I know where she is."

"And where is your dad?"

"Busy. He's always, always very busy. Making lots of money, doing deals, catching flights . Whatever."

"And who hit you that time, you know?"

"Do you really want to know Gabe?"

"Yeah I do, I kind of think your family might think it was me and I kind of want to look after you as well and if it's someone at school, I don't know...I might be able to help or something."

"Gabe, it was my dad!"

"What! Your dad?" The words didn't really sink in, Gabe didn't understand.

Gabe had thought that this was paradise. He had presumed that Grace was so perfect and that her life was so easy and carefree. He had been convinced that she must live like a princess. Gabe had thought and assumed so many things. He had made up all these judgements and ideals about her.

He had made up her whole life and he could not have been further from the truth. You really do not know what goes on behind closed doors and that counts for everyone, every damn last fucking one. Gabe was confused because he had thought that money was the solution, he had honestly believed that if you lived here you would be so happy. He'd even thought that living here meant that you must be lucky!

Gabe was slowly realising that this was hell. This was hell and worse because its veneer was heaven. It told everyone it was heaven and it was hell. He had never seen or heard anything like it, not even in a movie. This life was worse than a bad movie and it did feel like a movie as his mind couldn't quite take it all in as a 'true life' thing happening. It all seemed to be happening somewhere outside himself as though in scenes, each one worse than the next and getting worse only there was no way of pressing the stop button.

Grace poured them both another big tumbler of Sambuca. She told him that you were supposed to have it in a little shaped glass and put coffee beans on the top and set fire to it, then after a minute, blow out the blue flame and drink the warm drink.

Grace looked so sad and brave and Gabe loved her even more then. No wonder she drank the way she did, he understood that now, but that had to stop. This was not good, this was no life, it was insane.

He didn't want Grace to get drunk or like him because she was in such a shit place, or pissed, ill and desperate, even though she was all these things.

"So, now you know. I told you about myself before and most things really but this is the rest mostly. 'The big secret'. And the drinking, I guess you got that figured out by now too. I drink at least a bottle of wine before I leave the house in the morning. I hardly eat, there are no family dinners happening round here. And you know Gabe, what my darkest thoughts are and sometimes the only way I can relax? I imagine myself hanging." Grace downed her glass of alcohol in one swift gulp and screwed her face up, wincing as it hit her.

"So don't you worry about your hump Gabe and your mum and what other people might say. You give me some light in my life. You are the only good thing, the only kind thing. You are the first bit of genuine gentleness I've had in a long time." As she spoke the words, tears rolled down her face.

Gabe could have cried too. And what now? They were friends in her hour of need, did she love him? Was he a fool? Should he take his shirt off and reveal his secret? Was that the idea? Was that the next obvious move to make? Surely she didn't stage all this? No way, this was all true, it was too fucked up to be a lie.

Grace leant over and kissed Gabe and her lips were wet with the aniseed alcohol and she was so soft and delicious that Gabe just couldn't help himself from kissing her back. The room span and his mind cleared of any thought. She moved closer towards him until she was sat straddled on his lap. Gabe felt himself get hard and so aroused he felt like he was preparing to fly, his wings were twitching madly under the bandages. Grace must have noticed and she broke off the kiss and was smiling and curious. She looked at Gabe in the eyes and stayed staring for a long time. Gabe stared deep into her eyes too and they both saw deeper and deeper until it felt like a place that needed no words. There were no words.

"You know I don't care Gabe, about your back. You are so handsome and beautiful and I think that you are gorgeous and kind and loving and I don't care, you know, what it looks like. I've thought about it. Even if it is the worst thing, I don't mind. I want to see it Gabe, I want to see all of you."

Gabe had thought that one day, this day might come but he hadn't thought it would be today. He was so wound up, it would have been so easy just to undress and make love to her now and for everything to go on in the direction that it was heading, speeding. But something was stopping him. It was not supposed to be like this. Not in this kitchen with her paralytic mother on the floor sparko, not even in her bed of this crazy place. He wanted to take her somewhere nice, make her a meal. Have bloody soft candle light or something.

"No Grace!" Gabe had to push her away.

"Don't you like me Gabe, is that it? Do you really find me that repulsive? Did you kiss me because you feel sorry for me?" Grace lent over to refill her glass.

"No Grace. It is not like that at all, God man, I have loved you forever..." and he'd said the words again and it was too late to take them back. Grace didn't say anything. "But not here Grace, not like this! Soon, I promise. Let's get out of here, it's giving me the creeps. My mum's not well. Come over to mine." Gabe would have rather that she didn't see his mum the way she was and hoped that his mum didn't mind either but he was all out of choices again. His life was on a path that he couldn't get off of. If there were other choices, Gabe couldn't quite see them now. He felt like he was in a dense forest and the only path out was really narrow and dimly lit and it also might not be a path out at all, just part of a greater maze and Gabe was lost.

# Chapter 19

Gina had already been to the doctors and got herself on some different medication, it usually knocked her out, dulled her emotions so that there was no longer happy nor sad but just existing on a cloud of nothing-really-matters-at-all. It was the only way for now.

Gabe ran up to the chip shop and fetched them all some dinner and some wine. By the time he got back, the girls had made up a candle lit table, set for two.

"I'm off to bed love." Gina gave him a wink and took herself upstairs. Gabe noticed that she was looking happier already.

"You know she suffers, you know, with depression?"

"Yeah she told me Gabe and you know she is dealing with it. Looking after herself and you looking after her and everything. At least she admits that there is something wrong. All the denial round mine, it's going to kill us."

Gabe took Grace in his arms and kissed her again. He kissed her face and her cheeks and her neck and then her eyes and again he felt himself getting aroused again. Grace was pushing her breasts hard up against him and guiding his hands under her shirt and Gabe thought about how lovely and natural it would be to just carry on like this and get lost in this feeling and the actions the feelings dictated. But then, what if she got to his wings and got completely freaked out? It was one thing finding a hump and another all together to realise that he was a bigger freak that she could have ever possibly imagined.

"Come on, our chips are getting cold and I'm guessing you want a drink?"

"Aha you know this girl well."

Gabe thought that he did but that perhaps she didn't really know him at all. Not the real him and this was where he was holding back. Things were kind of going the way that he had always dreamed and now that it was all here, he was afraid that it was all going to shatter to dust. That it was all going to blow up in his face and who could he turn to in all this? Gina would say, "Just show her Gabe, school's nearly out. What's the worst that can happen?" And Gabe thought of his dad, all hidden. Even if Gabe could not predict his own future, he could see where running away and hiding would get him.

"Why you looking so sad Gabe?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking. I'm not sad."

"So? Is now the right time?"

"You're never going to give up on this are you?"

"No, why should I eh? We've come this far."

It was now or never thought Gabe. Shall I drag this on for weeks? Even make love to her in my bandages? But that was not the love he wanted, he wanted it to be true. He had to show her and what was the worst that could happen? She ran away, she told everyone, the newspapers found out? What? He was a man now, what could they do? He could deny it, it would all die down, he could handle it. He could even move away, go to Europe for a couple of years. There were solutions to any problems. She could hate him for it but that was the risk he would have to take. He had to try and steer away from his father's fate, from committing the same sins as his father. If Grace hated him for it, then...then she would have to hate him for it and Gabe would have to learn to live with that. With having at least made an attempt to live the dream, rather than having never tried at all. Yes, tonight was going to be the night. Gabe had made the decision. From now on, it was inevitable.

"Soon, very soon." Gabe whispered.

"Tonight?"

"Yes tonight. But first we must eat and we must drink and we must kiss a little more beautiful girl." Grace couldn't help but giggle and she reached out and held his hand and let him twirl her around.

"I love you," he said again when Grace had twirled into his chest so that their faces almost touched, but Grace still didn't say it back.

So they got a little bit drunk for courage, to melt away some of the inhibitions and they watched a movie and they cuddled up on the sofa and Grace told him some more stories about her family that all sounded even worse than what Gabe had heard already. How did she cope with all that? She had walked around all those years with a smile on her face, mixing with the others, doing well at school, going home to that hostile hell hole. She was as neglected as Frank, if not more!

Just as he thought that she was falling asleep in his arms on the sofa, wrapped in one of the big blankets, Grace asked him again.

"Gabe can I see you?"

"Do you really want to Grace, what if you are freaked out?"

"Well if I am then I am and I am sorry for that but give me a chance to get used to it."

"And will you run to your friends and laugh about it?"

"Gabe you are my only friend. Those other people are not my friends, how many times do I have to tell you? I don't talk like this with them, like we do. We don't really talk about anything. We just talk about people and gossip. We don't talk about ideas or feelings any deeper than what we think everyone wants to hear. I don't even think that they really know me. And they don't make me feel good about myself or even help me even feel like myself. I don't actually recognise my own self when I am with them."

Gabe took a deep breath in and exhaled noisily. He could have made the same speech himself. She really was his soul mate.

"Come on then, let's do this."

Grace leapt off the sofa excitedly and readied herself.

"But not here, let's go to my studio."

# Chapter 20

Gabe made sure to bolt and lock the doors and check the windows. He turned on his music and he lit some candles and some incense, so that the room was dimly lit by the flickers of the flames that encouraged them to draw together. The sweet smoke filled the air and Gabe stood before Grace as the first beats to the song played out.

Gabe undid his shirt buttons, slowly revealing the bandages that wrapped tightly around him. He removed his shirt and he unlocked the safely pins and began to unravel himself.

Gabe closed his eyes and cleared his mind, he was on a path again, a journey but one that he was sure would end soon, it had to end. How it would end? He couldn't predict, he had no idea. So he turned on to automatic pilot and undressed himself as he had done every night of his entire life. Slowly he revealed his torso; lean, muscular and not so pale from having worked in his studio on and off for the last couple of weeks. Then he revealed the parts of his wings that poked out from beneath the remaining bandage.

Around and around, he unravelled the bandages. Gabe revealed himself and at the same time unravelled and revealed everything about himself that he had even hidden. The secret was out.

Gabe let the bandages fall to the floor along with his fear and his shame. He opened his eyes, half surprised to see Grace still standing there.

Grace's face changed but she did not say a word. Gabe took a deep breath in, counted to ten and stretched his wings out. He lifted and stretched his wings as far as they would go, farther than if he held his arms out wide, and then he settled them back down in to a comfortable place again.

"Gabe, you've got wings!" Grace reached out now, cautiously, to touch them gently and delicately. She stoked him as she made her way around him slowly, taking in everything.

"Look at you" she said laughing.

"Hey you, a bit less of the laughing if you don't mind, this is a big moment for me."

"They're amazing Gabe, they are bloody wonderful!" Grace stroked and caressed them again and they felt soft and smooth.

Gabe felt his shoulders relax and he realised that they had been tight up against his ears.

"So you're not too freaked out?"

"Well yeah I'm freaked out Gabe but in a good way. I can't believe it! Why were you hiding these? Everyone would think you were some kind of God or Superhero if they knew."

"Exactly! Or a freak Grace. And I should make it clear too that I am no God or Superhero!"

"Ha, well you are my hero!"

"So you don't mind?"

"Hey shut up! I love them. Can you fly?"

"Well maybe, I'm not really sure anymore. I could a bit when I was younger but I haven't tried in a while. Not had much need to really and I didn't want to get shot down or anything."

"Gabe you could be famous for these."

"Erm, somehow I don't think I want to be famous for these. Famous for something else perhaps, some great art work or saving lives or souls but not as a freak of nature Grace."

"Yes, I see what you're saying, jeez man. I was prepared for the worst but I never even imagined..." Grace had walked all the way around him, touching him again as she walked. She came back to face him and she smiled. Her eyes lit up and she kissed him.

"Let's go to bed Gabe, it's been a long day."

That night, Grace and Gabe made love. They made love to the music that held the rhythm for them in their actions. They felt the songs in them, directing them and at some points they wondered if it was in fact them creating and directing the music. They made love all night between sleeping. Gabe worked a little on the sculpture and when Grace woke she joined him in creating his masterpiece, naked they worked on it together for as long as they could without falling into each other again. They didn't need or want for anything. The whole world seemed to revolve around them.

There were no inhibitions, no embarrassments left and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. There were no books to tell you how to do this, or words sufficient enough in which to describe how it felt exactly, as it could only be achieved between the magical combinations of the chemistry of two people.

There was something deeply meaningful and instinctual, spiritual and all-knowing occurring. Making love took them to a different place, a place where they felt more alive and more at one with the universe. And they wondered why 'this' was not spoken about more.

'This' was not the sex that they had heard about or been taught about. This was nothing like pornography, copulation, baby making or fucking or any of the other ways they had been sold sex. Was this a secret? This felt clean and magical, not dirty, diseased or debauched. Gabe and Grace felt high, with each orgasm, they felt bliss.

The truth was, they both said it, when they made love to each other, when they let go of themselves into each other, they felt like they were flying.

Gabe and Grace could not keep the smiles off their faces, they were in a world of their own, high on pheromones and endorphins and love.

Gina could obviously see that Gabe was not wearing his bandages under his shirt this morning and she could see his wings. Gina knew that Grace must now know too and although this had been a big event for Gabe, in its own way it is just as big a deal for Gina. All the years that she had shielded him from people and bandaged him from teachers and other kids and other parents. All the worry and fretting about her actions and then Gabe carrying it on, carrying his secret alone, when he got too old for her to do it for him anymore. And now, here he was with a girl and not just any girl, with Grace. And everything seemed ok, more than ok, great in fact.

Gina realised that she had been brave for Gabe and for herself and for her clients for so long that she had forgotten and lost sight of who she actually was. Gina had taken double her medication today so she felt like she was a bit out of it but she had a lot to be happy about. She had to keep an eye on herself, she knew that she could get manic as well as down and it was hard to tell sometimes, if being ecstatically joyful was a high or just joy; real life joy of living when things finally seemed to be going well. Or was it just the medication kicking in? Did it matter? Did you have to have lows in order to feel the highs, was there a payback for everything or was possible to be happy most if not all of the time? Especially if good things happened.

Gina had a day full of clients, the ones she'd had to cancel yesterday wanting next available spaces as soon as possible, on top of the people she already had booked in today. People to help, people to feel compassion for, people that others thought had perfect lives on the outside who were suffering terrible things. Gina realised that she had been doing this job every day now for years and there were still people coming, it was a never ending well, a black hole of broken hearts that wanted more love to heal.

Yet Gina felt that she couldn't talk about herself to anyone. Lately, she often wondered if this really was the job for her, being the ear for all this information and the shoulder for all this emotional pain. Maybe she couldn't take it anymore, the gift and gratitude for being able to help people was now being outweighed. Maybe, she thought, she was even sicker than they were. What if what she offered never helped anyone, that however much she tried, at the end of the day, it was always up to the individual to get themselves better. To make the changes. Perhaps she was doing nothing more than putting a sticky plaster on a far greater wound that needed the person inflicted to stop the cause, the root problem, usually the one thing that they never mentioned. Gina needed to get away. The economies of the world had gone into free fall and she thought that hackers were probably coming to take over the world and she hoped that this was for a force for good. She didn't know anything anymore and wondered if she ever had. She could either let that send her mad or accept that this might be true. You could play by the rules and do all the right things and still end up in a bad place wondering why you just didn't follow your heart in the first instance. Gina had dreamed of a life as different to this one as it was possible but it wasn't too late was it? To go chasing dreams. Chasing rainbows. Gina was realising that there was as much to lose by doing the right thing, as there was by doing what your real passions were.

"Hey mum, you look a million miles away."

"Just day dreaming Gabe, just dancing with my wild imagination."

"Hmm, sounds familiar. Sounds to me like you need to meditate."

Gina laughed as that was what she always said to Gabe.

Gabe knew he had to be out of the house all day today and that it was going to be a scorcher but he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to take Grace to the seaside.

# Chapter 21

As Gabe and Grace saw the sea coming into view on the horizon, they both whooped for joy in excitement. The sun was on fire and it lit up the car in a white halo glow, everything felt warm and glittery. Time slowed down and it was like everything was brand new as the colours were so bright and vivid.

They walked down to the beach, hand in hand like lovers. They breathed in the salt air and noticed all the different people packing out the seafront; the old people on deck chairs, the little kids making sand castles and the other teenagers surfing and flirting and drinking cans of beer. There were lots of proper drunks too, chavs and punks, bikers and travellers, and other 'end of the land' people. People that ran away from their lives and got as far as they could go, till the vast oceans were all that stopped them going any further. The mixture of people at the shores was the mix of hope, of dreams in fruition and of despair where dreams no longer dwelled.

The seaside always made Gabe nervous and excited in equal measure and being with Grace on top of these emotions, Gabe was buzzing.

They headed for the promenade of arcades, fish and chip shops and candy floss decorated stalls. They stopped at the first flashing red and yellow light bulbs that framed the huge arcades and Grace disappeared deep into the labyrinth of the mechanical game stations and got herself a small plastic container of 2ps from the dispensing machine, thrilled already with the sound of money crashing down, like she had already won something. They both felt it, that they had won something already, the jackpot.

Gabe wanted to go and win Grace some teddies.

"You not going to watch me?"

"Gabe, I am not going to watch you like some silly little girl watching her boyfriend. Oohing and aahing." Grace gave him a wink and turned her attention to the flashing strobes of colourful lights and the mixed melodies of the chiming and ringing of the addictive arcade games.

Her boyfriend, she had said her boyfriend. Gabe was a boyfriend, Grace's boyfriend. It took all Gabe's strength not to do a little dance of joy.

Gabe won three teddies and ran out of change so he went to find Grace. He couldn't find her, she wasn't by the 2p machines or the 10p machines or even by the over eighteen roped off section.

Gabe looked in the next door arcade. There was no sign of Grace, she was nowhere. He waited outside the ladies toilets while keeping an eye on the gents. Ten minutes passed, nothing. Gabe was staring to get a little bit panic stricken, where the fuck had she gone? Had she left him? Had she been taken? Had she had second thoughts and run away, got the train home?

Gabe ran out onto the street and was about to shout her name when he caught sight of her on the other side of the road by the entrance to the beach. She was talking to a group of people. Gabe strained to see who it was and his heart sank and his stomach rose to his throat to form a lump as he realised it was her brother. It was Nathaniel and with him were some guys from school. And then there he was, unmistakable. It was Alistair.

Grace didn't look over. She was talking to them and moving her hands around a lot. Then Nathaniel pushed her and Grace shook her head and patted her pockets.

Should he go over there? _But what the fuck to do_ , thought Gabe. _Get beaten up? Get Grace into trouble? Even more trouble!_

Grace turned and caught his eye and subtly signalled to him to cross the road up ahead. Gabe walked up the road without taking his eyes off her and crossed, jaywalking, dodging the cars that hooted at him but he didn't care. Gabe was getting so pumped full of adrenalin he felt like he could lift the bloody cars off the road.

Gabe waited by the railings, out of sight, until Nathaniel, Alistair and the rest left. As they walked off, Nathaniel pushed Grace on his way past and Gabe wanted to run over and whip the little tossers arse. Instead, he waited for Grace to walk towards him and as she got closer he could see that she was crying.

"You ok?"

"No, not really."

"What did he want?"

"Money, same old thing. Money. They were going on about some old box or something. I don't know Gabe. They were looking for your friends."

"I am so sorry Grace. I didn't know what to do."

"It's not your fault Gabe."

"But I think it might be Grace."

As Gabe looked over his shoulder, to make sure he could see the back of the other group disappearing up the road, Nathaniel turned around and locked on at Gabe looking at him. Gabe, with one arm around Grace and the other still holding all the teddies. Nathaniel shouted something and all the other men with him, jumped around and clocked Gabe too. Before he knew it, they had all started running towards him and Grace, shouting.

"Grace run!"

The gang behind them were catching up fast. They were faster and they far out-numbered the two of them.

Gabe could let go of Grace's hand and let her run up ahead and he could stand there and face them. He could also run quicker if he took off some of his clothes, hell he could fly. This was one of those moments when having the ability to fly would have come in really handy. The one time he could have the opportunity to act like a hero. But he wasn't. Gabe realised that he was just going to have to get beaten up. He was going to have to take it. Hopefully they would keep him clothed and keep it quick. Surely, with all these people about, the beating wouldn't last long. Surely someone would call 999 and ask for the police or an ambulance and it would all be over. All those men, against just him not offering any form of self defence, it would be all over in less than a second.

So Gabe let go of Graces hand.

"Run Grace! Get out of here!" Gabe stopped running and he turned around to face the impending storm that was heading towards him.

He took a quick estimation that there were seven or eight of them, he didn't stand a chance. He had no money on him, he didn't know where his friends were, let alone the box. He had nothing to barter with. So Gabe just stood there tall and still and he opened his arms out wide, as if to say, "Here I am, just do what you have to do!"

Gabe closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

But nothing happened. Gabe was thinking it had all gone a bit too quiet. Had the onslaught been so quick and efficient that although he was lying somewhere unconscious, his mind still thought it was waiting?

Gabe opened his eyes to see the threatening gang before him but at his sides were none other than Dave, Frank and Johnny.

"You alright mate?" Dave offered casually.

"Day at the seaside with the missus?" Johnny nodded behind them to where Grace was standing.

"Yeah, that's right, me and Grace." Gabe stared Johnny down with a look of so many words. Yes him and Grace, after everything they'd said to him.

"See you're still good at winning the teddies? Ha ha! At least you got someone to give them to now. Sorry Gabe!" Frank smiled at Gabe and Gabe knew that even if that didn't make everything alright, they were there for him now, when he needed them.

"So boys how do you want to play this?" Dave took off his thick gold linked necklace, Frank predictably jumped into one of his warrior poses and Johnny puffed himself up taller, wider and bigger and he looked at everyone in the threatening gang with a face that read like a man who took no prisoners.

"Relax kids will you. We're just here to give Alistair back his box." But Frank and Dave stayed in position, mirroring their enemy.

Alistair walked forward from his gang with a big rolled up bundle of twenty pound notes in his hand. "You're a bit late."

"Better late than never eh! Tell me Alistair, what's in the box that is so bloody important to you?" Johnny tried to use his words carefully.

"Does it matter?" Alistair looked like he was going to cry and the group of people now in battle stance, ready to fight, were not quite sure if what they were seeing was true and if it was, what to do with themselves.

"No not really, I just can't imagine what is more important than money to you Alistair." Gabe looked at Johnny and wondered if he realised that he would be wise to listen to his own words.

"That is because you don't know me Johnny. And you Frank, why are you standing like that against me? What the fuck is that all about? Do you hate me now?"

Frank stood up straight and did actually cry. "No, of course not. I love you."

"What the fuck!" Dave and Johnny said simultaneously, suddenly more aware of why Frank had been so adamant they gave the box back even before Alistair had made them the cash offer Johnny couldn't refuse.

Alistair continued to explain himself. "That box that you took. Inside that box are my good memories. My mum moved away, divorced my dad about eight years ago. She got remarried and she wanted me to live with her but I stayed with my dad, for the money, for the lifestyle. This new guy had nothing, not a pot to piss in. I thought they were idiots.

My mum had a stroke, a year ago. She's in a home. My dad doesn't care but her husband is lovely to her. He sits and he looks after her, does everything when she can't do anything for herself. He truly loves her. I saw that love. She's not going to make it, my mum. And...and... _that_ love, the love he gives her, the love she gave me as a kid...that is what _is_ worth everything. And I fucked it up. I treated her like shit so that I could have nice stuff. Now all I've got that is genuine true love is in that box, the stuff from being a kid, photos, things she knitted, reminders of my mum's love for me." Alistair broke down. He broke down as much as any of them had ever witnessed a man break down. He was broken, so broken that he no longer cared if all those people that looked up to him, saw him cry. He knew it didn't matter anymore.

And for some reason, to each of them for different reasons, the story broke their hearts. They had thought that Alastair was someone else, they hadn't for one moment thought that his life was anything but perfect.

"You can have the box back mate, I'm sorry, I didn't know." Johnny looked and sounded broken too, his posture had completely changed and he was acting in a way that Gabe had never seen in him before, or not for a long while anyway. What had life done to them?

"Look Johnny, I'm out the game now. I've not really wanted to be in it for a while. I was just working for my dad for the summer to save up some money. I thought I'd move nearer my mum after school but then I met Frank. I just don't want what you want anymore Johnny. I don't want money above all else, I don't want to fuck people up any more than I have done. I'm sorry what the guys did to your dad, that wasn't supposed to happen, they got carried away, high on drugs, pretending to be movie stars. Like I taught them to be. I've been selfish and it's made me so unhappy. I just want to get on with my life now and rebuild it if that is at all possible. Clean slate, make my mum proud of me, even if she will never perhaps know or be able to tell me."

Frank ran over to Alastair and threw his arms around him.

Alistair had never even truly admitted to himself his own feelings, let alone to anyone else. He had wanted to tell Frank but had only succeeded in pushing him away instead.

Alistair threw the wad of noted at Johnny.

"Have it Johnny, buy whatever you want, whatever you think will make you happy. Get all the quick fixes you need, I'm done with them."

Gabe took hold of Grace's hand and they walked away from their people. They walked until they were out of view, and then they ran. They ran as fast as they could, up stairs and up roads and past shops and down alleyways until they couldn't run any longer and they collapsed into one another against the old walls of some unused alley way. A dark and quiet space away from the bustle of the seaside town. Grace was weeping and gulping for breath.

"Damn! I dropped my teddies!" Gabe realised and Grace had to laugh a little at the craziness of it all.

Up this close Gabe couldn't help but start kissing her again, gently at first. Through Grace's laughter and tears, Gabe kissed her wet mouth and he kissed her tears away from her face and he kissed the tears that followed as soon as they left her eyes. And she laughed as he kissed the sides of her mouth.

Gabe couldn't help himself and he pushed her against the wall with the full force of his body and she let out a moan, a moan not of pain, but of pleasure. She held on tight to him, so tight that Gabe felt like he could breathe her in. Gabe wished he could just melt her into him so that she could never leave him and would always be a part of him.

They stayed here in the quiet of the back streets in a safe haven from the crowds of pedestrians and holiday makers, kissing and necking and touching each other until they had no more energy.

"Do you want to go home or shall we camp out at our special place? We could go to a supermarket and get some food and stuff?"

"Oh Gabe, as if that is even a question!" Grace smiled at him but her eyes were so full of sorrow.

"Are you still sad?"

"Of course. Are you not sad Gabe? Are you not upset that life is so shitty? Everything is fucked up. Everyone is fucked up. No one knows what the hell they are doing. Everyone is so brainwashed and unfriendly, life is not celebrated as it should be. There is such inequality when there is more than enough for everyone. You can paint but yet you steal! And I know why, I understand. No fucker wants original quality art as they're too busy wanking on the internet or getting pissed. You've got these lovely wings and yet you have had to walk around all bandaged up and everything. In pain, sweating, uncomfortable like constant self-flagellation. Everyone has all their values mixed up and kids don't stand a chance as the people in charge of them, telling them what to do, are doing it all wrong themselves! It makes me sad and angry Gabe. It's alright for you, you can do something, you got a talent and you can travel and do what you want and I have to marry some rich guy and look pretty, smiling all day. Spend the rest of my life not feeling quite good or beautiful enough. Not allowed to have any real ambitions of my own. And my parents? I might as well be an orphan. I've nursed mum for years; wiped her arse, fed her, kept up all the lies. You've got a mum Gabe, you don't know what it is like. You think your bloody wings are a burden? Ha, you don't know the half of it. Try pretending to be the perfect family whilst drinking all the time just to cope with the everyday life nightmare of the reality of it. Are you not angry Gabe?"

"I am angry Grace, I am. You do not know how angry I am. But I'm not when I'm with you. Hell, I'm the happiest man alive when I am with you. And that's a start eh! We can be angry, shit me I have been angry everyday for as long as I can remember and look where it got me? And what do we want to see in the world? Harmony, love, respect, integrity, honesty, kindness...For people to support each other rather than pull each other down. Truths over possessions. Everyone living with peace in nature instead of having all this whimsical want for tat! We can go on in just anger or we can...or we can try and spread the love. Be the change we want to see in the world. Or, I don't know, we can just fly high up above all the others and see the pretty patterns they make from a distance and say to ourselves how sorry we are for them that they live their lives out that way." Gabe took her hand and he started skipping, out of their hiding place and up the road.

"Hey everyone! Look at me! I am the happiest man alive. I'm Grace's boyfriend. Are you feeling alive today?" Grace couldn't help but laugh at Gabe. A smile spread across her face and she skipped with him.

"Come on Gabe, let's go. Let's get out of this freaky town, full of its staring people that think we are mad."

"We're the sane ones. It's you lot that are insane. Hands up if you are happy and free!" Gabe shouted out at the top of his voice at the throng of shoppers and the people that just seemed to be hanging about.

The looks of ignorance, feigned shock, confusion and denial that cracked the general public's social masks, the faces that they put on when they left the house, amused Gabe today. Made him want to strip off naked on the pedestrian precinct and do cartwheels. Gabe felt alive and in this state he truly believed that most of the evil and traumas were optional. That life gave us many that could not be avoided, but all of the man made ones were unnecessary added extras.

Grace and Gabe ran up the road holding hands with their arms outstretched like a pair of birds flying up the walkways, scattering the seagulls in their path. Past the sherbet sellers and plastic windmill merchants and all The Middles that pulled contorted faces at the young lover's act of breaking the veneer of socially acceptable order of their day.

# Chapter 22

Grace wanted a drink, vodka or wine and wasn't too fussed about food but Gabe had bought brie, salami, bread and olives and some salad anyway. He made her a plate of something to eat as she poured them both large tumblers of white wine. Grace drank hers down straight and immediately poured another. For such a hot day, the temperature had dropped right down or they had caught too much sun as they both shivered cold up on the hills where they were going to spend the night.

"I didn't know about Alistair's mum. It was going to be the last time I did anything like that. I'm sorry." Gabe knew that he had lied to Grace, well had not told her the truth. She knew the most secret thing about him but he had kept his illegal actions to himself.

"I wonder if we ever really know anyone or everything about them." Grace had made the comment wistfully but Gabe thought that it was the truest thing that he had ever heard.

Grace could see that sometimes it took something shocking, something really bad had to happen before people really started to change for the better. Alistair losing that box had probably been the best thing to have happened to him, to all of them, in the long run. No one knows what they have got until it is gone, to realise that before it was too late was the greatest gift.

"Grace, why did you dad hit you?"

"Because he doesn't want me to run away. He wants me to stay and be part of what he calls, 'his regime'. But it is impossible, he makes up all these rules while he breaks them all himself. And he changes the parameters and lies so much, it's hard to even figure out what he wants. Even if I do reach a goal, there is no prize. He says he will send us mad like Pavlov's dogs!"

Gabe thought it all made less sense as it was making more sense, so he just proposed a toast.

"To us and...to the future." At this precise moment Gabe felt, perhaps due to the little wars that had been fought and won, that he could do anything. His mind was clear to all the possibilities laid out in front of him. He could paint and sell his paintings online or get a market stall and he could reach the world from his bedroom via the internet. Europe, America, Los Angeles, San Francisco. He could set up a website or join one of those that had everyone's work on it. There was a huge amount of competition. But so what? Even better. He would just have to be the best.

Gabe felt now that he could be the best, he could be up there with the greats. Anything was possible, he could taste it, feel it. Gabe could smell it in the air. He felt lucky and suddenly grateful.

He needed to be strong, to save Grace from all the crap, from the living hell that was her life.

He could even teach art and travel. The world seemed to be opening up to him. His mum would be ok. He would make her proud of him. Gabe felt strong enough to take on the world.

"Hey Gabe, what are you thinking about?"

"Oh you know, the future...taking on the world."

"Oh yeah and what do you see in the future Gabe?"

"Ah, the future...me and you in some little house with big glass windows in the woods, in a warm county mind, not sure where yet. But still somewhere with lots of greens and flowers. Somewhere tropical. Somewhere I can paint, with my wings out. Eating delicious foods and searching for the truths of life. And you doing all the things you love and being famous and celebrated for them. And some nice dinner in the oven. And a dog, a black dog."

"Ha, you are funny Gabe. But it does sound nice. Perfect."

"Do you think people will talk about us? You know...being together."

"Of course not Gabe. Not for long anyway. Hell, everyone's far too concerned about their own little orbit and gossiping about things that aren't true to really see what's going on with anyone or anything true for that matter. Everyone feels like the paranoid central nucleus of their own universe with everyone else looking at them."

"Do they?"

Grace poured herself some vodka. "Yes! Now that they have all been trained to have a low boredom thresholds, even if they do look up from their game stations or computer monitors, which they won't as they are so addicted they are in a mass consciousness of denial that will take nothing short of a major disaster to break, it will all be forgotten in a week. It is a crazy world." Grace finished her drink in one gulp.

"You know you don't have to drink so much Grace."

"I know Gabe but it is like my medicine for now. I don't know if I will actually be able to function without it, if that makes sense. When you feel like you are swimming upstream alone, it's nice to feel you have company."

"But you've got me now Grace, you don't have to drink. You're so beautiful and funny and clever and talented. The world is your oyster, you can do anything that you want to but the alcohol will steal all that away from you. I hate to say it Grace but we can break the cycle, you know. We don't have to end up like our parents! We can find a better way. A way that we think we might have preferred."

"You're right Gabe, completely. But just for tonight Gabe, just for tonight...I want to get a little drunk. I want to dance naked on these hills and sleep with you in the middle of nowhere like we are the only two people left on this damned planet. I want to watch the sun set and rise and feel like I own the horizon. Just for one night Gabe. I want everything to be just mine and perfect."

"Well, when you put it like that..." Gabe couldn't help but smile at Grace. "Your wish is my command, my lady. But first, you must eat this meal I've made for you. I'll feed you myself if you like!" Gabe found the torch and turned it on and left it in the middle of the blankets so that the beam from it illuminated Grace in the twilight.

And as Grace watched him, Gabe walked around picking up branches, logs and twigs and he dug a hole in the ground and piled the kindling and wood logs in to a circle and he lit them a fire. The fire instantly burned and flamed bright and warmed them up and made them both feel more relaxed and comfortable. The orange, red, yellow and blue flames danced and rose and flickered unpredictably, with no thought. And it looked beautiful, perfect in its imperfection.

The fire was entrancing and hypnotic, warming and magical, it brought their attentions and their thoughts back to the here and now, to the simple things in life. No technology, no stress, no demands, just the warmth, the healing, the connection to the most simple and at the same time to the most powerful, to the fire. To each other.

"I think I could live like this forever Gabe. No need for the house in the woods, just me and you, some peace and quiet, a nice log fire, close to nature and enough to keep us going without starving." Grace let herself fantasise about if everyone could live like that, live in harmony, with each other and with their planet. What a wonderful world it would be.

Gabe took her plate of food and started to feed her. He fed her olives and then thin circles of salami between the kisses he gave her, until he had fed her the whole plate of food.

"I could eat forever with you feeding me like that Gabe."

"The sea air makes you hungry."

"You make me hungry Gabe."

They lay on the ground with Grace's head resting on his chest, for what could have been minutes or eternities.

"Do you think that dreams do come true, Gabe?"

"Yeah I do Grace. Some of them have come true already. I really believe it sometimes, that it is possible, that anything is possible. If you put your mind to it! Dreams and all that, maybe they can all come true."

"I think that they can, we're living proof!" Grace snuggled up to him so close, like she couldn't get close enough and Gabe put his arm around her and held her tight. He looked down at her face, lying on his chest and he was in no doubt that dreams could and did come true; only he was a little scared of admitting it for fear that in doing so, some kind of spell would be broken.

"I don't know Grace, maybe if you want something enough then the universe will bring it to you. Or if the want is enough, then nothing will get in your way. There will be no hurdles that can't be overcome, if you want something that badly. If you want something enough, when there are no other choices left to you... _that,_ I suppose, becomes your fate. If you want it enough, above all else...then it is your destiny."

"Like me and you?"

"Yeah, just like me and you. So whatever it is that I want I can have!"

"I suppose you better be careful what you wish for then Gabe but just in case you are right, I would like to pass my exams with good grades."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you want babe. You know that's going to happen anyway, you wanted that. You went to school, you studied in your spare time, you took the exams, I think you want it enough that it will come true."

"And maybe a little house somewhere. With a little garden where we can grow vegetables so that we can try and live quite self-sufficiently."

"Ok. Done! Anything else on your lists of wants you'd like me to ask the universe?"

"Ha ha, I could go on. I wish for so many things my head hurts. You with your wings out like it's the most normal and natural thing to do. And not forgetting World Peace and harmony and healthy families. Recovery from alcoholism, recovery from domestic violence, drug abuse and general all round suffering. Heal the world, heal the people to love again. So that they can love themselves and love each other. Or just tolerate each other, maybe love is asking for a bit too much, even from the universe. But for a fairer world, a better world where everyone is far more happy and content and loving. Can love heal everything?"

"Well, maybe not the whole world. That is the big question Grace. But if it just heals us that would be a start. We'll have to just want these things and see what happens. At least we can try and be part of the solution rather than part of the problem."

They lay for a while longer, reflecting, contemplating, fantasising, philosophising and dreaming and wondering of a world of love and of kindness and of freedom. Of a future full of log fires, laughter, love and lazy sunny days on deserted hill tops. The future of them both, the two of them...together.

"Do you think you are the only one with wings Gabe?" Grace turned onto her side to look at Gabe who was staring up into the black night with the fire lighting his features.

Gabe knew now that he wasn't but he hadn't even had the chance to tell Grace about his father yet. Gabe was still trying to absorb and make sense of all that himself.

"I know now that I am not the only one Grace. I thought that by the time I grew up that maybe loads of people would have come out as having wings, you know, so by the time I was an adult no one would be particularly bothered by it."

"But that hasn't happened! What makes you think then that you aren't the only one?"

"Ha! You and your big questions. I met my dad last week, he's got wings too."

"You never said."

"There's been a lot going on Grace."

"But apart from your dad then."

"Maybe it would be nice to be unique but then it might also be nice to be part of a group connected somehow by our differences. It can get a bit lonely thinking that you're so different."

"Hey come on and take your shirt off, all this talk of wings!"

Gabe rearranged himself and took off his jacket so that Grace could reach his shirt. Grace gently leant over to him and she undid the buttons, one by one. Gabe freed the shirt from his arms and Grace started on the bandages, slowing unwinding them for him, around and around. It was a weird sensation for Gabe, having someone else do his undressing for him.

Gabe stretched out his wings wide and tried to ease the pain of the cramps from keeping them bound up, they felt extra tense today, no doubt caused by the earlier confrontation. But, despite all that, they were stronger and healthier than they had been in a long time.

Gabe and Grace just stared at each other for a while. That was enough. Everything, for a moment, felt perfect. They sat looking out at the starry night, drinking and eating occasionally at their midnight picnic. Gabe felt the drink go straight to his head tonight and the thoughts that were going around his head had, obviously to him, lost their inhibitions. He was tempted to do things that he would not normally dream of doing sober.

He wanted to undress Grace and he imagined pulling her jumper off her gently and unzipping her dress. He imagined undoing her bra and gently freeing her of her knickers. He imagined her naked and unashamed. He started to imagine her undoing his flies and reaching for him beneath his underwear.

"Gabe, why don't you try to fly?"

"What?" Gabe's train of thought was interrupted and he felt slightly paranoid that she had been reading his mind. He struggled to catch what she was going on about.

"You know, here and now."

"Fly?"

"Yes fly! Well you do have wings and you said that you used to be able to..."

"Well sort of used to be able to. It was more running around and doing bigger jumps and gliding a bit. It was a long time ago now, I don't know if it would be possible."

"But now, can you fly now? Can we try Gabe, please?"

"I don't know Grace, probably not. Look at them, I have not used them in years and they've gone all weak." Gabe had built up some strength in the last couple of weeks but he had not actually flown in years. His proportions had all changed and he suspected that it was too late to start again. And besides, what was the point? Where and when was he going to fly? And if the muscles got big and the wings got strong, his hump would just get bigger. Any bigger and he thought that he would no longer be able to find any clothes that fit or be able to leave the house due to being so hugely deformed.

"They don't look weak to me Gabe, they look magnificent. Why don't you try? Come on Gabe..." Grace jumped up and stood with her arms out stretched, palms wide facing the night sky.

Gabe stood up too, slowly, and he went over to her. He took hold of her jumper and he lifted it over her head. Grace smiled at him, so he continued. He unzipped her dress and it fell to the floor, leaving her standing there in her underwear. Gabe turned her around slowly so that he could admire every part of her; her breasts, her legs, her arms, her back, her shoulders, her neck. All the parts of her that he wanted to study and could just stare at for hours and hours. All the parts that he had imagined. Gabe loved her even more. He fell deeper and kept falling, nothing was catching him or holding him back. He kissed her and undid her bra and as he did so, she undid his flies, hooked her thumbs into his belt loops and tugged his jeans down so that they were both now standing in their underwear.

Gabe took his boxer shorts off as Grace took off her underwear. Naked, they held hands and again they ran and skipped and they shouted out to the world from under the stars, shouting in the way that you can when you know that no one can hear you and tell you to shut up. They ran and danced until they were sweating. Gabe held on to Grace's hand tight, afraid that she might fall over as she swung wildly about, around the heather bushes and down towards the stream. He tried to extend his wings, to lift the tips of them up and he felt invigorated as he felt the air and wind beneath his wings.

Gabe felt his wings growing large, strong and proud and, for a moment, towards the bottom of the hill before they reached the stream in the dark, with only the moonlight and its reflection guiding them, they could have sworn that for a few seconds, their feet had not touched the ground. For the last few metres in their run, it was like they were flying; at the stream's edge, the glided down, skimming the rock pools before coming down to rest softly in the shallow waters.

It seemed so natural now just to carry on going into the stream, to swim free in the wild. They were so close to nature that they breathed it, felt it and tasted it. It washed over their bodies and washed away their fears.

They swam together as if they were the stream, changing and flowing yet tranquil. They were part of the bigger plan, the consciousness of it all, the meaning, the things that no one could quantify or name, a feeling of pure bliss and awareness enveloped them. They both felt a connection with all things; and yet with nothing.

The feeling was that each tiny moment was an intense place to be. Here and now, just to be. Here and now, was all that mattered, was all that there ever was or will be. All and everything that they had now, was all that they would ever need or ever want. There was something about simply now that felt enough. More than enough, there was nothing else but the now.

Gabe realised he was always wishing his life away, thinking of the future, regretting the past, but now he wished he could just slow time right down and stay in these moments for as long as possible. Hold on to this electricity, this magic, this vibe of wellbeing and serenity.

Gabe and Grace naked, entwined and holding onto each other tight, locked into a moment that they wished could last forever.

"I love you Grace!" They kissed and became embroiled in their embrace, lost in a passion, unaware of their actions, just moving on pure instinct.

They made it to the bank of the river, to the soft sand and they made love again. Washing over each other, in a ritualistic dance with one another that came from a pure unlearned source, a carnal knowledge.

It was a dance of love to the rhythm of life.

They felt as if they had been blasted into the sky, far into space by a rocket and were now slowly drifting and swaying back down to earth. Complete, satisfied, with the discovery of a moment that came close to feeling like the meaning of it all.

Gabe wrapped Grace in a blanket and they sat warming up by the fire, drinking and drinking and looking up at the sky and feeling the ground beneath them. They were there in a place that was timeless, a place that had been there for millennia and would probably be there for another. This was a place where the feet of ancient people had walked and where the feet on people in the far off future would also walk. But in this moment in time, they were there. Grace and Gabe looking up at the stars that had been there since the beginning and would be there till the end. The same stars that all the people that had ever lived had seen and all the people that would ever live would look up at and wonder about too. The sky that was there before anything, before people, before science, before religion. The sky that had witnessed it all and held all the secrets.

"I love you Grace," and she smiled at him, with her mouth and with her eyes.

"I know Gabe."

As Gabe lay there, he realised that he had to believe that good triumphed over evil in the end, in the grand scheme of things. That light eventually won over dark. That love would conquer over everything. That love was the cure. Gabe had to believe that. That was the world that Gabe wanted to live in.

He felt good. Being here felt like Heaven on Earth. Heaven on Earth, Hell on Earth. Gabe was starting to understand things he had heard or read numerous times in the past that he thought he had understood, but he hadn't at all. Maybe nothing you saw or were told was ever really truly understood by you until the penny finally dropped in your own mind. Not until you learnt the lesson for yourself, experienced the truths first hand. Or the synapses of your brain finally made the right connections so that things started to make sense where they hadn't before. Or whatever it was. Increased stage of personal evolution, unlocking the potential of you genes, who knows? Gabe didn't think he knew anything, if anything, the more he figured out, the more he realised that he knew absolutely nothing at all, other than it was all a miracle.

In the morning, Grace and Gabe woke up in time to walk down to the cliff's edge to watch the sun rise up from the distant horizon. They were both tired and scruffy and unwashed but in those very early hours, they were alive, conscious and grateful of just being alive.

Then Grace's phone started ringing and shocked them both as they had quickly got used to just hearing the sounds of nature; and such a modern day noise was so out of place here, it was almost offensive to the eardrums.

Grace answered her phone and Gabe could see that she was panicking and getting irate. Something was being said, on the other end of the line, that was upsetting her and Gabe was desperate to know what it was. It is rarely good news when someone calls in the small hours.

"I've got to go home Gabe."

"What's the matter?"

"Mum and dad have been having a big fight all night. He's torn all her clothes off of her and thrown her out into the street. She is wandering around, out of it, with no money and nowhere to go. That was Nathaniel, he's there now but he won't be for long. I've got to go back and sort it out."

Grace looked strained and all peace was lost from her features.

Gabe drove her back as fast as he could. Grace told him to drop her off at the bottom of the road, not to drive up to the house.

"Please don't come up Gabe, please don't get involved."

So he didn't.

"Ok Grace, just go home and I'll ring you ok. Or ring me, I'll be right here. Ok Grace and I love you."

"Thanks Gabe!" She hugged him tight and firm like she didn't want to let go, even though she had to, and then Grace ran up the hill as fast as she could.

# Chapter 23

As Gabe always did when he had a lot on his mind, he isolated himself. He didn't feel like he had much choice. He kept his phone on him constantly, waiting for a message from Grace but every time he looked it was only one of The Damned trying to get his attention. Gabe didn't even read the messages from them. They had made their peace and he really did need to borrow the van to move his gear down to The Exhibition. But he didn't want to hang out with them, not today, not ever. He didn't want to get involved in their next drama that was for sure.

Gabe didn't even want to hang out with them in the heat down the park, talking shit. He wanted to just think and dwell on the last couple of nights he had spent with Grace, to think of nothing else. But he was worried. Grace had not rung and he didn't know if he should go and find her. He wanted to but she had told him not to. He was stuck, caught, so he created furiously. He opened up the sky lights to let the sun beam's keep him company and warm his skin. He painted and glued and built up his sculpture until he had no more energy and needed to rest; needed to go back into the house and sit with his mum and eat and get his strength and senses together. There was no point in falling apart, Grace needed him. He needed to be strong for her, not go to pieces now. And The Exhibition tomorrow, what would he wear? How would be present himself? The black dye was washing out and looked a mess now but he was going to stick with the all black thing. Things seemed to have picked up since he'd started wearing all black and also his mum had gone into his room during one of her 'episodes' and cleared out all his other clothes and bought him a few more black pieces, so really he had no other choice.

Gabe got his phone out of his pocket and was about to check for a message from Grace, in the hope that he had somehow failed to hear or feel it come through, when there was a knock at the window of his studio.

And there they all were; Frank, Dave and Johnny. All waiting out in the garden for Gabe to let them in.

"Come on mate, let us in." Frank looked like the sun was shining right out of his eyes he was that happy.

"Dave's got the tattoo gun." Johnny offered as he held up Dave's hand, which was holding a bag as some kind of proof.

Gabe stood there in his locked studio, surrounded by his paintings that were ready to exhibit and with the sculpture now basically finished, with his own wings out. His instinct kicked into gear and he went to immediately reach for the bandages abandoned on the floor but he stopped himself.

Grace knew about the wings now and his friends? Was it their turn? Did he not owe it to them, these guys that had been there for everything? What if it ever did get out in a few years and they looked back at their time together and he hadn't told them, after everything they had told him? Would it somehow kill anything good they had ever had between them? Would Gabe's secret, his lie, just serve to blacken any good memory of any experience that they had shared? Would he be a hypocrite for not telling them, worse than they could ever be? For all he went on about their bullshit, when he was the one telling the biggest lie. Gabe realised that he had to tell them, he had to tell them now, it was time. And the best way to do it, to show them his wings, was to simply open the door.

Gabe's friends were happy just to be let into his sanctuary and for a chance to see his paintings and sculpture for The Exhibition. As they fell into the studio and took in all the art work that dominated the walls that was bright and bold and shocking in its energy and vibrancy, it was a good minute before they all started to turn to look at Gabe properly. Dave noticed first and just stared.

"Oh my fucking God!"

The others looked to the oil and acrylic paintings, that were huge and full of images that could garner that statement, then they looked to the sculpture that was even bigger and even more stunning and erotic than the paintings, and then they turned to Gabe to see what Dave was really referring to.

"Where's your hump Gabe?" Frank asked incredulously.

"This is my hump," was all Gabe could reply.

"Wings!" Johnny said with a nod and look of approval.

And then they all jumped on him like he had scored a goal, the goal to win the championship. They were elated to realise he had wings and this made Gabe in turn, feel more elated too.

"You are one crazy dude," was all Dave managed to say.

They all sat down on the cushions on the now tidy and clean floor of the studio.

"My dad is out of prison," Dave started as he set up the tattoo machine. The others were taken aback as Dave never spoke about his dad being released.

"He knocked over a lad drink driving. The lad is alright, now, but my dad will never forgive himself. He's never touched a drop since. He's helping young adults in the area with the same sort of issues as he's got. He doesn't want me doing the things he used to do. And you know, what with the baby on the way and everything, well, I've pawned my gold necklace."

Dave had never told them any of this before, not a hint of it.

Then it was Frank's turn. "I'm moving out of the house. I didn't realise but it's in my name, I got it when I turned eighteen, so can sell it if I want. I'm going to go on a Yoga retreat for the summer and maybe get a job in the area when I get back. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Alistair, I never thought that he would really like me, love me. But...he does. I wanted to get back at him for keeping me at a distance. I thought that he had used me. I believed what I knew about him already and thought he must be using me and was going to leave me after what I thought I'd sacrificed to be with him...you guys. But I knew when we got the box what is was. I didn't hate him that much. I just wanted to punish him because I love him." This time, Frank didn't cry, he just gave a wide grin.

The three men then turned to Johnny. If Johnny had any secrets, anything to confess, then now was the time to share. But all Johnny said was, "So are we all going to get a tattoo now then?"

Dave had drawn a design and the others all explained the reasoning behind it as Dave got out some tiny ink holders and filled them with black ink and he showed them where he had drawn the tattoo on his own inner wrist. He said he would tattoo himself first. He had been practising and he had, by his own admission, got very good. He turned on the electric and they all got excited as the buzzing hum of the tattoo machine spun into action.

They had to get the tattoo now.

They had decided on something, something that was quite simple. On the inside of their left wrists they were all going to get a tattoo of an eye, stylised in a simplistic form, with three simple lines underneath. They were going to get their matching tattoos put where all the veins were visible, raised and blue, where it was easy to slit and end it all. But they wouldn't. Not today. Not ever now, if what they had come to believe stayed true, if they stayed true to the truths that had been revealed. The eye was to represent what is the window to the soul, to a knowing, to a higher consciousness and the eye was a reminder to keep their eyes open. To question everything in search of their truth. And the lines beneath were to represent each other, the individual one of them would always have the other three even if they weren't there, wherever they were in the world, they would be there for each other; a line each like the letter 'l' to also represent all the words that they thought embodied everything that they wanted to convey in the simple message. Live, life, laugh, learn, loss, love. lll

They had to live their one and only life and laugh and learn, educate themselves, accept there would be loss and learn from that too and most importantly they had to love.

Three lines, three friends, three elements. Heart, mind, soul.

And really, Dave could hardly fuck up a stylised eye and lll.

They were beginning to realise that good things could happen to them, not only was it possible, it was already happening. They were not beyond or below dreaming, they had to dream. Their childhoods were over; what should have been the best times of their lives. But they had learnt some important lessons and they had more mistakes and lessons to learn. And they thought that day, in Gabe's studio, with their fresh well done tattoos, that something important had been recognised...that they had survived.

Life had taught them that nothing is ever as it seems. That it was better to love and be honest than to fight and that the truth could set them free from their own bullshit built prisons. It had begun to show them what love was and what love wasn't. Not to take anything for granted. That everyone has secrets. And mostly, that anything was possible.

The four boys were now in the arena of men and they studied their new wounds, their new tattoos. It didn't hurt that much even though Johnny was happy to provide some anaesthetic in the form of vodka.

"I propose a toast then girls." Johnny stood up and held his left hand in a fist and then he held it high in the air.

"Fuck money and breaking balls to get it," Johnny's voice was steady and normal, although the words didn't seem like his. "I've been doing these deals and making money now for years and I'm no happier. I was treating my dad like shit and he gave up his life for me. He never once dumped me on anyone. He was always there for me. Did all the things a mum should do. He stayed with me while I cried myself to sleep, night after night. Changed my bed sheets even when I was still pissing the bed up in to my early teens. Always kind to me. He could have got a good job, spent loads of time out the house and had loads of girlfriends but he didn't, he did everything with my best interests at heart. Even though, I know now, he must have felt as bad as I did, if not worse when mum pissed off. It just all hit home when Alistair said what he did, when I looked around, when I started to see people in love. And I thought, who would love me when I lie and put money first? Do I really want someone to love me for the flash lifestyle I could provide or do I want someone to love me for something more? What is the word they use for it Gabe, spiritual, loving? You know, all those really precious things that money don't buy. Like true friendship and true love. Why would I want to put anyone through what my mum did to me? I guess it was part of the grieving process but...I'm sorry guys. I still want to work and to work hard but no more crime, no more getting my poor old man tied up. I've lived with the fear of a tap on my shoulder for too long. I feel like I've been living in a straightjacket and I want to be free of it."

"Truth. Freedom to be ourselves!" Frank stood up too and raised his left fist in a sign of solidarity and acceptance, Gabe and Dave rose to their feet too.

They all held their left arms straight out in front of them, they touched knuckles with each other. And as they all looked at the formation they had made and looked into each other's eyes, it was enough. This was the meaning. They all knew somewhere, without words being used, what the other one meant.

Dave had also bought his shaving kit and he shaved all their hair short too, a grade 1. It was a time for fresh beginnings and new starts and they wanted to feel clean and new. Then Gabe had an idea. So each of them took a lock of their hair and glued it to the part of the sculpture that they wanted to, not only helping to clean the floor but also adding their genes, their individual personalities, their personal unique coded DNA that had also gone into making Gabe who he was.

# Chapter 24

The banging on the door was violent and urgent, it shook the house and caused Gabe and Gina to jump and be immediately on edge. Gabe stood up and put his jacket on and Gina went to their front door, it was late and she wasn't expecting anyone but she opened it anyway. A man who declared himself to be Grace's father was at their door, all red faced and angry, shouting and screaming and obviously drunk.

Gina courteously invited him in before she had really thought about it, her instinct to be loving and trusting and to see the good in everyone and not be suspicious, meant that she was not always as guarded and prepared as sometimes it was preferable and safe to be.

Gina was conscious that she needed to harden and toughen herself up a bit more, she should have learnt by now. She had come across so many bad situations so many times but still, when she was confronted with the same situation, she always reverted to her natural way of being, submissive. Gina cursed herself for it, especially when this situation also involved her son. She should have found the strength to be more confident, or rude, or whatever it was that would have enable her to just say, 'Fuck off' and slam the door.

Grace's father entered their home, their usually peaceful home, and he didn't bother with niceties, he just started shouting obscenities at them. He shouted so much and so loudly that it was hard for them to recall all of it afterwards.

He screamed at Gabe that he was dirty and deformed and ugly and poor, and all sorts of other things along the same lines. He said that he knew who had targeted him with the bullying all those years back, he seemed to know everything, but it was all interspersed with lies. All the shouted and screamed words became a blur after a while and Gina and Gabe just stood in the same spot; in fear, in shock, not really knowing what to do, thinking that it was perhaps them that were going mad.

The situation was so surreal to them and out of the ordinary that it was as if time stood still as this foreign object like a monster was storming around, spitting out this tirade of words in a way that neither of them had experienced in this space that they called their home.

Gabe had often wondered and mentally prepared himself for the day when he might be mugged or attacked, but when it came down to it, he just froze. It was not at all like he imagined it would be or how he would react. The flight or fight adrenalin reaction did in fact just render him immobile.

Finally, after what could have been minutes or an hour, Grace's father grabbed Gabe by the throat and he smashed him up against the living room wall with the full force of his drunken rage, knocking a painting of Ganesha on to the floor. Gabe did not resist, he just looked down at Ganesha staring back up him through the shattered glass, as if to say, 'This is all a bit odd but stay calm.'

Then, it was all over and Grace's dad just turned around and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him, leaving the house tainted and static with fear, upset and confusion.

# Chapter 25

The doorbell must have been ringing for a while as Gabe heard it in his dreams first before he realised that it was his own front door. Why was no one answering it? He didn't have enough time to bandage himself up so he just threw on his dressing gown.

Gabe threw open the door to stop the source of the shrilling and found it was Nathaniel stood there. At first, Gabe was taken aback, then the pent up rage started shooting through his veins, igniting Gabe's nerve endings and senses. The memories of the night before came flashing back and Gabe was now furious.

"Gabe." Nathaniel was standing in the door way looking somehow smaller and sicker and weaker than usual.

"Gabe, its Grace. They've taken her by ambulance up to the hospital." Nathaniel looked from side to side and Gabe followed his gaze but there was no one there.

"What? What's wrong with Grace?" Gabe's anger turning now to mild panic.

"I couldn't wake her up. She said she was going to get away, run away. Mum's gone and dad said he'd been over here and beaten up you and your mum. He said he'd trashed your house. And...and...Gabe, I don't know what to do." Nathaniel was jumpy, still repeatedly looking one way and then another again and scratching his face and arms.

"You know it was him that hit Grace? Your own dad beat up your sister! Has he bloody hit her again?"

"No Gabe it's not that." Now Nathaniel was crying and obviously in a right state. "Grace said she was going to run away with you and so dad came over here, said he was going to kill you. I think she was drinking and she took some pills Gabe. I think she may have even taken some of my stuff Gabe, the heroin."

"You what?' Gabe couldn't quite believe what was going on. Everything flashed before him, every option of what Nathaniel might say next.

Gabe had the singular thought that winded him, that kicked him in the stomach as hard as any horse would. _Grace is dead!_ Gabe felt the words hanging in the air, ready, so that the next words to come out of Nathaniel's mouth would be just that. Grace is dead. Gabe didn't want to ask the question that would give him the answer that he couldn't bear to hear. The answer that would kill him on the spot. But he had to.

"Is she alright? Nathaniel, is she fucking alright?"

"I don't know Gabe. I didn't go to the hospital. They took her in the ambulance and the sirens and the lights were going and they rushed her to the hospital."

"Who went with her then? Who is with Grace?"

"No one Gabe. Mum's just disappeared and dad came home last night and trashed our house, broke every single bit of china and glass. Everything. Smashed the whole place up and then he left. And it was just me and Grace and we just wanted to forget it all and get drunk and then when I came round I couldn't wake her up and I called 999."

Gabe thought of Grace's father's words that still echoed in his head and around this room where the only physical evidence left of the drama the night before was the smashed glass Ganesha picture now resting on the side table in the lounge. All those words and accusations that Gabe was no good for Grace! In what position had this man been in to tell Gabe, Gabe who loved Grace, properly loved her, would die for her, who saw and felt her pain? And these people, her own blood. Her own family. They did not care at all. There was no love there for her. Poor Grace. Poor little rich girl who was so unloved and who everyone thought had everything. It left Gabe feeling hollow with grief for her.

"Have you got any money Gabe?"

But Gabe just slammed the door in his face.

Gabe knew he had to get to the hospital. He had The Exhibition this afternoon but it didn't matter, it didn't matter at all anymore. Nothing else mattered. Gabe was focused and all he knew was that he had to be with Grace. He had to go and find her immediately. He had to find out if she was ok. Or not!

He didn't have the time to go and oil and wrap himself up, he needed to be with Grace as soon as possible. He put on his black jeans and black boots and threw on two tight black t-shirts, a big black jumper and his jacket. That would have to do. What did it matter now anyway, in comparison to this, what did his wings matter? If exposing his wings would bring Grace back then it was a small price to pay. Nothing came close to mattering as much as Grace mattered.

Gabe ran as fast as he could across town to the hospital. Sweating and in pain, he ran through the traffic, through the throngs of shoppers and through the crowds of people just hanging about. Everyone else seemed to be on a go slow. Why isn't everyone running? That is what Gabe wanted to know. Why wasn't everyone realising that he was in a hurry and that they had to get out of the fucking way. People seemed to be blocking and stopping him on purpose, creating hurdles. But Gabe would not give up or slow down, or stop to catch his breath. Gabe ran with the urgency of life or death.

It had to be the hottest day of the year so far and Gabe was baking hot and sweating profusely; over-heating with the stress and sprinting on top of sweltering heat of the sun beating down on him. It was unbearable, so without stopping, Gabe took his jacket then his jumper off, put the jumper in a public bin that he passed and put the jacket back on again without breaking his stride.

At the hospital front desk, there was a massive queue and the people in the front were asking all sorts of inane questions and chatting away like they had all the time in the world. Gabe needed to find out where Grace was but they were taking forever.

He had no patience for it, not one bit in the circumstances. Sweat was dripping down his face and his jacket was soaked, he felt wet and sticky from the sweat pouring off him and he felt on the edge of punching someone in the face. Gabe couldn't wait any longer and so he just walked swiftly past the desk and ran down the cool corridor, turning round corners and past wards, shouting out for her. He ran past doors that contained rows of sick people in bed, the smell of excrement and dying flesh overpowering even his own body odour. He looked behind curtains and behind shut doors, apologising as he went and shouting with more and more desperation in his voice for Grace.

"Grace! Grace! GRACE!"

Gabe's heart beat so hard, he felt it in his chest and heard it loud in his ears. Grace, Grace, Grace. And then, at the end of the corridor, with nowhere else left to go, Gabe looked into a single room and there she was.

Grace was lying there totally still with a white sheet covering her. Gabe called out her name again now but softly and still she didn't move. She was surrounded by all the hospital room paraphernalia, machines and flashing lights, wires and liquids and whirling noises. She was on a drip. Gabe could see the long thick I.V. needle that went in through the crease in her arm and up into to her vein.

Gabe touched her and she just lay there so pale that she was almost translucent. Her face looked ghostly, her eye sockets and cheeks were sunken and dark purple, almost black. She looked awful and Gabe's heart that had been racing so fast felt like it had stopped as still as the room.

Grace looked dead but she couldn't be. The lights were still going on the machines. The screen was showing a picture that showed that her heart still beat like a mountain range. In this sterile place that looked so barren, with so many unnatural straight lines everywhere that it was almost goading the heart's beat and rhythm to flat line, to keep in line with the decor. But her heart rebelled and it beat and the lines went straight up and down, against the grain. Grace was alive.

"Oh Grace what have you done?"

Gabe collapsed at the side of her bed and wept into the sheets next to her cold, unmoving, unconscious body.

A doctor had followed Gabe into the room.

"What's all the shouting about?"

Gabe was crying, sobbing like his heart was breaking in two. He felt his heart physically tearing itself apart with the most excruciating pain he had ever felt.

"She's my girlfriend," Gabe whispered in the only voice he could find even though in his mind he was shouting louder than he could have thought possible. His head was filled with a silent scream for Grace.

The doctor had thought that he had seen it all and that he was hardened to all sorts by now but there was something about this young man and his love for this girl who had so nearly died this morning and been alone ever since.

"She is going to be ok but she was very lucky. Poor thing."

"Oh Grace, please get better. I'll never leave you. You'll never have to go back to that place." Gabe's frustration and anger were overtaking now. He felt like he could throttle someone. After all her dad had said and done last night and not only to him and his mum but to his own home and family. Grace here all alone, Grace who could have even died alone, because of them, and they didn't even care. And still didn't. She could have been lying dead for hours in some room alone and not one of her family would even know yet. Gabe's heart was so full to bursting with love for Grace that it tore some more in abject agony for her.

And then that was it. Gabe made up his mind. He had to take drastic action. They _had_ to get away. Things _had_ to change.

They had to get away fast, run away, whatever it took. They could not stay here any longer. What were the choices now? Death! That was the only other option now if they did nothing. Grace had been so stressed with the pressure of exams and doing well and Gabe with The Exhibition and his paintings and the sculpture! Now what did any of it really mean anyway in the long run? Or if you were dead?

Gabe felt like his blood was running cold. He had worried before, what people thought, if her parents and brother would like him. If her friends would like him or just accept him. Where the hell were they all now when it did matter? Why had he ever worried about what they thought? They were the ones that should have the worry about what people thought about them, for fucks sake. Everything was the wrong way round.

But he was here and Grace was here and she was alive. All Gabe needed now was another miracle.

"Can I come back later tonight?" Gabe had to go, if he needed a miracle he was going to have to put in some action to get one going.

"You can come back whenever you want. Ok?"

"Does she need anything? Should I bring anything?"

"Yes, that's a good idea. She wasn't brought in with anything. She'll need a night dress or two and some wash things, some fruit and maybe some flowers too, eh! I know what us men can be like sometimes." The doctor was so kind to Gabe that he could have cried even more but he knew he had to pull himself together. If he had thought that things were serious before, he was mistaken. This was as serious as life could get. He had to pull himself together and get through today. He had to take responsibility.

Staring death in the face changes you forever.

You can worry about exams and about money and your place in society, you can worry about your parents, your children; about strangers in your street and in foreign lands. You can worry about wars and the state of the economy and everything else that you are conditioned to worry and fret about. But life is short and precious and nothing compares to the realisation that you might lose forever someone that you love.

It put everything into sharp focus. It put the big things that didn't really matter into their right place and the little things just evaporated. Gabe felt crystal clear and he knew what he had to do. Nothing else mattered.

The doctor touched Gabe on his shoulder and then on the top of his wing, that had worked itself lose from his T-shirts as his jacket had now slipped down to his elbows, half way down his arms.

"Ah, you have wings!"

"Err no..." Gabe quickly looked to his side and saw what the doctor had seen.

"Don't worry. It's more common than you think. Rare, of course, but there have always been fables and stories in the medical profession of it happening. But I assume that these people don't like to make a fuss about it. I never saw it before though myself, well not till now. Amazing."

So they weren't the only ones, Gabe and his dad. There were others. Others that hid it too.

"I'll be back later I promise. I just need to sort a few things out."

Even the thing that Gabe had always thought of being his biggest problem, the wings, seemed petty in comparison to the woman you loved lying in some hospital bed so close to death.

Even though he was not alone, there was no accompanying 'Eureka' moment like Gabe had always imagined there would be if he ever found out there were others. He was not jumping for joy with a tear in his eye, relieved and fixed. The things that he thought would fix him only went to highlight, and if anything exacerbate, the things that were breaking him apart. He felt selfish; selfish and self-obsessed about his wings. When people, his friends even, the people he loved, they all suffered, as bad if not worse than what Gabe had to suffer daily. He felt like he had been a fool. He had wasted so much time.

_First things first_ , thought Gabe. _Just take one step at a time today_. If he ran and everything went smoothly he could get to the opening of The Exhibition. He had not prepared a speech or anything and he had no time to even worry about it now. He would be glad when it was all over and he could go and pick up some stuff for Grace and see where his mum was and come back to the hospital. He could bring his mum too, Grace would like that. And her family? Fuck them, what had they ever done for her? Fancy house and expensive clothes but it all meant nothing. Without love and care it was worthless.

Gabe was going to save her. He was going to make her dreams come true. Love her, hold her and talk to her so that the comfort was real and not alcohol induced. Gabe had heard that you had to love yourself before anyone could love you but Gabe didn't believe it. Grace's love had made him love himself, his love could make her come to love herself too. Love herself enough not to want to kill herself or drink or starve herself to death. He was good enough for her. Gabe believed that now. Her father had been talking complete bullshit. He didn't even know or love his own daughter. It was him that beat her, him that drove her to want to end it all. Her mother, completely unavailable, unsupportive, incapable. They would be free of it.

Gabe would give Grace her wings like she was giving his back to him.

# Chapter 26

Gabe got to The Exhibition. He had run all the way, stopping only to catch his breath and text his friends. Dave and Frank had picked up his art work and Johnny had just finished hanging the paintings in Gabe's exhibition space. They were all unloading the heavily wrapped sculpture as Gabe arrived.

Gabe was so happy to see them, so grateful to them for everything that he threw his arms around them and hugged them close and tight and he really wanted to cry again but he held it together, even though it took the small bit of strength he had left in him to maintain any kind of composure.

The Exhibition was heaving. Everyone was there, his friends and the rest of the school, parents, teachers and even some of the city gallery owners that Gabe recognised. A few semi-famous names too, ex pupils doing their bit, cool at long last so strutting around the place like peacocks. Some of the students were filming and everyone else who was exhibiting were milling around their own space with fixed grins.

Gabe was so hot now after the running and all the emotion that he had to take his jacket off, it was unbearable and what did it matter? He thought he would pass out if he got any hotter.

"What on earth..." Someone realised immediately what they had just thought they had seen and had jumped back in shock.

"What you got on there? Is this part of the act? Hey, genius man."

"Hey guys, look over here, this guy and his paintings."

Gabe realised that his wings had come free. Just the top parts. _What the hell_ , thought Gabe, _Really, what the hell!_ What was the worst that could happen and was it going to be any worse than what he had already been through today? _No_! Gabe took off his shirts and let his wings out. He thought twice about it, but he had come this far, so Gabe took a deep breath in and out and as he inhaled again, he stretched his wings out wide. Wide, proud and stunning.

"Cool man."

It was like everyone in the room's attention was drawn to where Gabe was standing.

"What a great idea, they're just like in your paintings, classic."

And they were right.

Gabe's paintings were all of men and women with wings. Fallen angels. Men and woman, old and young. From every corner and bend in the world, from the gutter and from the heavens. People dominated in all of his paintings and they all had wings. Men and women all they were all revealing their true colours amid the backdrop of a world hostile and in turmoil. In Gabe's paintings the Worlds cities, high rise buildings, businesses and economies crashed and burned while the people rose up and took control again from those who had enslaved their minds. The people were celebrating and having revolutions of love and kindness, of being alive rather than a cog in a machine to make money for the faceless few. Free from brainwashing and control. Free to be creative. Free to be themselves. Free to fly.

Even the great sculpture of all his childhood junk and collections was complete with wings. But what Gabe only just saw, and it took him as much by shock as it did everybody else, was that it was him. A self-portrait. A man with wings, exactly the same as Gabe, except this man was embracing a woman, lifting her up and away with him and she had wings too.

"Man they look so real, they're bloody brilliant." Gabe sensed that he had started to draw a crowd. He was attracting a large fuss and throng of followers, totally pissing off all the other artists who were wishing that they had thought of something like this instead of hanging around The Exhibition hall for the last few weeks. They had been slagging off Gabe for not hanging his work up till the last minute and now they were all feeling a little bit gutted.

The attention and cheers and back slapping, was all getting out of hand, crazy and a bit too much for Gabe. He wanted to leave now, he had had enough. He had got there, done what he had to do and now he wanted, needed, just had to leave.

Gabe had too much stress and worry already to really have the surplus effort required to think about the consequences of what he has just done. What if people thought they were real? Well, they were real. The people that matter the most knew the truth and that was all that mattered. Gabe needed to get home, get back up to the hospital, even if Grace was going to be unconscious for the rest of the day. Gabe still wanted to be by her side.

The speeches had started and Gabe's name was called but Gabe thought that he had already made quite a bit of an impact and words now would not match up or they would feel a little empty in comparison. Besides he had no idea what he was going to say and to get up on stage with his wings out would be a bit foolish.

The headmaster was calling him up but Gabe made his way through the masses back out towards the exit. Then he caught sight of his mum, out there in the crowd smiling at him, so full of pride. Seeing her son with his wings out in front of everyone and not being bullied but being cheered and applauded.

Then Gabe saw his father, now standing in Gabe's exhibition space, looking at him with that same pride his mother had. Gabe could feel their pride lifting him up as it shone straight out of their eyes. His father had his internal light switched back on again.

Gabe decided he had to give the speech. He was not going to be the man that ran away.

His name was being chanted, at first by a few and then, as others joined in and the chanting got louder, it felt as if everyone in the hall was calling his name.

"Gabe! Gabe! Gabe!"

He was so close now to the double doors out and freedom but other students blocked the exit and pushed him back towards the stage. Gabe felt overwhelmed and compelled; he would have to do it. What would he say? He would tell them the truth.

When he got to the stairs leading up to the stage Gabe leapt up them with what looked like confidence and the cheering stopped as everyone now had him in their view, up on the platform. For a moment, Gabe just stood there.

"Er...thank you. I really do not know what is the right thing to say, other than what I feel I have to say. So, I'll just say it as it comes. My art is in my soul and I have waited for this day for years. I thought it was the most important thing in the world to me, to exhibit my art and reach out to the world with it. But compared to what is going on in my life right now, what to me is more important than me being here right now, more important to me than even all of this, is my girlfriend. It's complicated, you all know who she is, Grace. She nearly died this morning."

Gabe paused as the whole audience took in a collective gasp.

"Everyone thinks that Grace is perfect and she is, but not like in the way everyone thinks that she is. Behind her beauty there is real pain and behind that pain lays her true beauty. All I know is that I love her and I can't do anything now other than follow my heart and listen to my instincts. Face my own fears. For the fear of living my life the way I was, being all hidden and hunched and keeping myself and my art and everything a secret from everyone, was killing me too. So here it is, here is all of me. And you can love it or hate it. You can judge it all you like. But this is it, this is all I have to offer, this is all I've got. I am me and it has to be good enough that I can just be me and express who I am. Not a better or worse version. Just me. It sounds so simple, I've been so consumed with hiding who I am, when really I should have just been myself. And the funny thing is...is that I thought that was me. That the shame was who I was.

These are my wings. You probably know me for my hump but I was hiding a secret. I have wings. That's it! I thought it was a big deal but it doesn't really matter anymore. And you might have secrets you hide too, secrets that make you think you can't achieve your dreams but you know I am finding out that our secrets are who we are. Don't hide them, don't think you are defective. Those defects of character that you have, your shame, your secrets, reveal them and you will see that you have strengths too. Life is too short or too long to hide. Don't let life make you ill, make you sad or make you hurt another human being. We are all unique and that's ok. Live life people, I mean it, you got to live your lives how you were meant to , not how you are told to or how you think you should to please others. Be yourselves. Be yourself and live your one true life the best you damn well can. And love. Not just what you are told to love, entertainment things, celebrities, brands and possessions, but your family, your friends, animals, strangers even. It makes you feel better and if most of us lived like it I think it would be a far better world and existence for all of us. Break free from all of the brainwashing that surrounds you. Question everything and search for the truth. But don't believe me, question everything I say too! Use your own brain, come to your own decisions. And be kind to each other and the planet. If evil is necessary, it would be nice to keep it to a minimum. Go home and talk and listen to your family and friends, ask them how they are. Don't neglect the ones closest to you without even realising it. I am beginning to realise that these are the true treasures of life. Not the stuff you can buy. Not at all. For all the people in power we put on pedestals to tell us all what to do, we're miserable, too busy to love fully. Time to wake up! Make changes. Time for action. Love is the only thing that makes any sense."

Finished, Gabe stumbled off the stage and into the stunned crowd. He could run now and he did, straight past his friends who had started to clap. As Gabe left the building he realised that everyone was clapping now and cheering and feet stomped as people were getting up off of their chairs and standing up. Gabe had got a standing ovation.

# Chapter 27

Gabe got home and started looking for all the things he needed to take up to Grace and his mum got home not long after to find him running around.

"Well, Gabe," was all Gina could say. She was astonished, proud and still a bit mixed up with the turn of events. It had not all sunk in yet.

"Mum, I know, but Grace is ill. We've got to get her some stuff and we have to get back and sit with her. She's up there on her own mum." So his mum started to run around, swapping the things Gabe had packed for some things that were a bit nicer.

She wanted to tell him that everything was going to be ok, even though she was unsure herself that it would be. Before they left the house, she stopped Gabe and gave him a present, a necklace made of semi-precious stones.

"I got one for Grace too. Each stone has a different healing property. I was going to give them to you this afternoon, after...but..."

"Mum..."

"Yes darling."

"Thanks I...I love you."

"Thanks darling and you know I love you too but the way you said it, it sounds like you are saying goodbye."

Gabe threw his arms around his mum and held on to her as tight as he could.

"It's for your chakras, for healing properties, for courage, for luck, for love, for everything that you are going to need love," Gina said through her tears, choked up on all the intense emotions today.

For a moment, Gabe, thought that he understood. That we all need to believe that we have superpowers sometimes.

Gabe and Gina stayed with Grace till late and no one else turned up. Grace just lay there asleep and it looked like she was hardly breathing and Gabe kept checking to make sure she was. She was heavily sedated in order to detox, he knew that, but it didn't stop him worrying that she would never wake up.

Gina had put on one of the CD's she had bought for Grace and had opened some jasmine essential oils to make the room smell sweeter and bring some calm to this area where they were surrounded by the smell of hospital cleaning fluids and of sickness.

Visiting time was over, it was late and despite Gabe wanting to stay here the night he knew he had to sleep. Gabe stopped pacing for a minute and sat down next to Grace and, as she was still asleep, he wrote her a letter in case she woke up and he wasn't there.

"Are you sure her family know she is here Gabe?"

"Yes, absolutely sure. But I had a feeling they wouldn't turn up."

"Weren't you scared the dad might, after last night and..."

"No, not anymore mum. They can't hurt me anymore than they have done. What are they going to do? My worst fears have already materialised so there is nothing left to fear. If I had lost her mum..." Gabe couldn't finish his own sentence, it was too painful and he didn't need to anyway.

"It's ok Gabe. Cry, it's alright."

"I feel like such a stupid big kid. So out of my depth. So damn powerless."

"Gabe, crying is a good and natural thing to do. Especially with all this emotion. Don't bottle it up. That's what makes people ill."

"I love her mum, I really love her and I'm so scared and frightened that really I do not know how to do the right thing. How I can fix all this?"

Through his sobs, Gabe realised that Grace had opened her eyes and was smiling at him.

"What's wrong Gabe?" Grace spoke softly, calmly and quietly.

"Nothing, Grace. Nothing. Everything is alright. Everything is going to be alright." Gabe dropped to his knees beside her and held her in his arms.

"Am I alive?"

"Yes babe, you are. You're in the hospital but you are going to be alright. I am going to get you better."

"Ha! Is that a promise?"

"Yes it bloody well is Grace. Remember my dreams, our dreams, everything we spoke about? Well they can come true eh, you believe that?"

"You know I do Gabe, more than anything. I have to." Grace was crying, tears that she had not shed, the emotions that had been bottled up for so long that they had hardened, were now dissolved and flowing freely in escape of the years of repression.

"Well they're going to come true and not in five years or ten years. Now! Ok? I'm going to make it happen now, this year, soon. As soon as humanly possible. OK?"

"Ok Gabe. I believe in you. I believe in you more than I have ever believed in anything in the whole of my life. You loving me..." Grace began to cry so much that she could not speak another word. Her actions, her raw emotion spoke volumes. Too weak to cover or hide her face, Grace just let the tears well up and over and down her cheeks, the tears rolled down her face in streams.

"Please don't ever do that to yourself again," said Gabe, even though he didn't know if Grace could promise him that.

A nurse knocked politely, happy to see Grace awake and informed them that her mother had been but unfortunately she had been inebriated and a bottle of vodka had been found on her, so she had to be escorted off the premises and could only come back once she had sobered up or was accompanied.

An emptiness filled the room but quickly came to an abrupt halt, when Grace's father crashed into the room like a dark cloud of thunder, with his voice booming. Why had she been so fucking stupid? What a fucking idiot she was. How ugly and spotty she looked.

Grace's dad was obviously pissed but they did not stop him from coming in because he did not turn weak with the drink. He became even more powerful and instinctively people did not stand in his way. If anyone did, he knew that all he had to do was peel one of the fifty pound notes from his heavy wallet to silence anyone into submission. Most people's silence could be bought for very little. And why not? That money could be used to buy something nicer to eat for dinner for them and their children or for new school shoes. Was it worth it to get involved? No, it wasn't.

"Your mother is out of the picture now, I will finance a nice flat for her in the city and it will just be the three of us at the house from now on. And you can get yourself a job within a week of getting out of here or you can be out as well!" The veins in his neck bulged bright red to maroon with the strain of shouting while keeping the volume down.

"Just us three? So you are not having an affair?" Grace whispered but she knew that he was, the 'other woman' had been calling her mum for months and revealing the secrets of their affair in graphic detail whenever the two of them had had a row.

"Affair, how dare you! Your mother is a bloody liar! The woman is hostile, I never saw her give you or your brother any affection. Not that it bothered me she was unaffectionate. But for your information, I do have a girlfriend and she will be moving in. And she is a damn sight more attractive and together than you are or probably ever will be. Look at the state of you. My girlfriend wouldn't leave her bedroom in the morning unless she was fully made up, hair and nails done perfectly. Not like you who can't even be bothered to brush her hair and with all those spots on your fat face. And what's that smell? You need a good bath with a couple of bottles of disinfectant thrown in!"

Grace tried to sit up in some vain attempt to make herself look more presentable, prettier but she was too weak and she just started weeping.

Gina and Gabe were just too shocked to believe that what they were hearing was actually true.

"Lulu," her father said the name with a gentleness that he had not afforded Grace. "Lulu is pregnant."

"Mum will never survive on her own, she'll kill herself!" Grace had been thinking of her mum and all that other stuff he had said about her, all that awful shit and crap and lies and bullshit he had said, she had just taken. Accepted as true.

Gabe didn't know what to say and for a moment he thought that perhaps he had no place here. If it was up to him he would say, 'Never have anything to do with your family ever again! Walk away! Run away! Leave them!'

"Come on Grace, let's just worry about you for now eh! We are all adults ok? They have their lives to live and you have yours, ok? You can't save anyone."

"But you can Gabe. You are saving me."

"And you are saving me Grace." But this was different. They loved each other. Real love. True love. Soul love.

"I don't know Grace, I don't know how it works. Maybe because we both want to be saved, I don't know."

Grace's father picked up the dressing gown and pyjamas Gabe had brought for Grace and he threw them in the direction of Gina so that he could sit down.

"Oh for Christ's sake will you listen to it! You can leave now I'm here," Grace's father said mockingly and so sternly that Gabe half thought he should do what he was told, until he caught himself.

Gabe took in a deep breath and he replied to the older man. "We're not going anywhere. Why don't you leave?"

Gabe tried to be polite, this man was older, richer, successful; all the things that demanded respect. But Gabe was torn as he also knew that this man was cruel, evil, unbalanced and massively dysfunctional.

"Look boy, what are you going to do? House and feed her? No! Put her through university? No! You couldn't even afford her mobile phone bill. You are a cripple, walking around with a pair of fairy wings on, like the freak that you are. You'll be lucky if you get any sort of job. You are going nowhere, fast. And what no father too? Ran off before you were even born! You are from the same cloth. You'll be the same, run off at the first opportunity. And your mother..."

Gabe stood up so forcefully that his chair clattered and toppled backwards behind him, crashing noisily on to the hard floor, making everyone jump and immediately look in his direction. Nathaniel was just coming into the room, escorting and holding the arm of his mother who had managed to sober herself up a bit and not attempted to smuggle in any alcohol this time.

With all eyes fixed on him, Gabe spoke with a control and venom that he had never summoned or used before. Gabe, who was usually so quiet and awkward, usually so mild mannered. Gabe, who didn't like any form of confrontation or argument, spoke now with a passion and force.

"Hey you! You jumped up pathetic piece of sorry excuse for a father. Your daughter is lying here half dead. Your wife and son have only just turned up because they are too sick to even look after themselves, let alone Grace!"

"Yes, agreed. Her mother is a monster!" said Grace's father like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

"Shut up for a minute! How can _you_ call anyone else a monster let alone the mother of your own children? They are ill and it looks like you are not making them any better, which you don't even so much as have a shimmer of guilt about. What does that make you? You are the monster, worse than a wild animal. You do not even possess the basic animal instinct to protect your own family, quite the opposite in fact!"

"I'm assuming you haven't seen my house then. No wild animal could make something like that boy." Grace's father's face was now puce to purple with anger and alcohol abuse.

"You could have all the money in the world and you still wouldn't care. All the things you say you want for Grace but the way you act, the way you treat her, how is she supposed to even stand a chance of getting anywhere? You show no respect to her. Do you want her bruised and beaten up, what is that all about? Hitting a woman, hitting your own beautiful daughter! One thing is for sure, that is not love! That is not good parenting. You may be top of the pyramid for business, you may have satisfied the Gods of power and money, but you failed in all the places that really matter. Failed. Being a decent human being, being a decent caring husband, being a loving father!"

Gabe felt now like he had said what he had wanted to say. He felt the release of the anger by expressing his truth. He was calm now, surprisingly calm. There was only one thing left to say and Gabe was surprised with himself for feeling compassion for this man.

"Do you not, in moments of peace or in your dreams, want true love? Do you want that? Do you actually want the things that money cannot buy? How much do you have if you take away all the money? Who would still be stood there holding your hand and loving you then? You know nothing of things that make you feel it's good to be alive somewhere so deep down inside of you that you feel blessed." Gabe was finished now. He looked Grace's father in the eye and saw him for what he was, a confused power hungry little man.

Grace and Nathaniel looked at their father, adult children with tear stained faces.

Grace's father bowed his head, as if in shame. As if he knew the truth. It was, in a way, a relief. He had been living a lie, he had started something that had given him power, esteem, respect and it had got out of control. He saw the faces of his wife and children and he remembered what it had been like, in the old days. Before the success, before the money; another lifetime ago when it was just them, the four of them against the rest of the world.

The innocence in his children's eyes had now been replaced with a deep agonising pain and for the first time, he recognised a small glimmer of the responsibility that was his. He had come close to seeing it before but he had thought that he would have had an immediate breakdown if he had admitted it to himself. That if he even so much as gave a thought to where he might be at fault that the flood gates would open. Grace's father felt like he had lost control and that had always been his greatest fear. But when it came down to it, it was a relief. A huge relief.

Gabe, who had always bitten his tongue and kept his ideas and opinions to himself, saw that sometimes you had to say something; to defend yourself, to defend your family, your loved ones. He had done it and Grace's father had not killed him. He was not thrown out of the hospital. He had not been struck by lightning. If anything, Gabe felt that much better about himself. In respecting himself, his mum and his girlfriend, his true inner self-respect had grown.

Something changed in that room that night, something clicked, something was revealed that had been hidden before. Looking back, it was a night of crossroads and paths were chosen and made. It was a day and night of awakening.

# Chapter 28

Gina told everyone that came to the house that Gabe, 'The Man with Wings', was out of town after the furore of the day before.

"What are you going to do Gabe? It doesn't look like people are going to give up interest in a hurry."

"I'm still thinking about it. Grace texted me to say she is feeling better, she wants to get out of the hospital."

"Today? Is that alright? Well you know what I think about hospitals Gabe but the medical profession do a have their place."

"We need to get away mum."

Word had spread about The Exhibition and Gabe and the small matter of him having wings. It was the talk of the city. Everyone who bumped into anyone else let them know what they knew about 'The Man with Wings'. Neighbours that didn't even like or know each other even mentioned it. Someone was knocking on their front door every couple of minutes and their phones didn't stop ringing.

Gina could see that Gabe was itching to get to Grace but they were trapped in the house by everyone who had decided to turn up on the off chance of getting a glimpse of the wings.

"Hang on a minute love, I've got a plan." Gina went to the front door and shouted over at the growing gathering. They momentarily stopped, like statues, with the door they had been waiting to open all morning, finally actually opening.

"Just had message from Gabriel, he's back at the school and they're doing a re-filming of The Exhibition, for Sky TV or something. He's there now!"

The crowd rapidly dispersed.

"Thanks mum, you really are the best. You know, today feels like a good day for flying." Gabe kissed his mum on the cheek and held her tight before disappearing out of the back door.

Gina's phone went off again but this time she didn't ignore it. It was a text, from Gabe's father, she had seen him at The Exhibition. Gina replied and told him what she thought she knew, she thought that it was the right thing to do. He had abandoned her but she understood better than anyone how that may have seemed like the only option. She forgave him. She was so proud of Gabe, she couldn't hate the man who she had adored so much anymore and besides, Gina needed a lift and she hoped that Cassiel still had that motorbike.

# Chapter 29

As they drove up into the moors and headed towards the coast, Gabe realised that they were being followed. First by a scooter or two, then by a few cars and then by people carriers, vans and 4x4's carrying half a dozen people. Not one car over took them, they all stayed back, behind their car. They were definitely being followed, en mass.

Gabe had told his friends and his mum of their intentions. Grace had told her mum and dad and Nathaniel; the rest had heard through rumour, gossip and here say.

Word had got around. It had spread around the kids that they had been at school with and everyone that they knew. Around the pubs, clubs, shops and streets of houses of the city and beyond. And in a flash, it was as if everyone knew and everyone wanted to go and see. So people came from all over packed in to cars, camper vans, on mopeds and on motorbikes. Some people packed tents and gas stoves and sleeping bags. Some hitched and some waited for the rare buses. It was as if almost everyone in the city was now heading out towards the sea, on what was the most glorious sunny day.

Gabe and Grace had reached their special place and they stood at the top of the cliff, holding hands. They looked out towards the distance, to the horizon to where the sea met the sky. They looked all around themselves at the beauty and wonders of Mother Nature. The sea below was rough and angry, the wind snapped around them, yet they felt so calm. Like standing in the eye of the storm.

They looked at each other from time to time and they smiled through their tears. Tears of joy and of pain released. But mostly, they let the elements and their thoughts hit their bodies and minds relentlessly until they could no longer feel or think of anything anymore.

It was just the two of them together in this world, alive and living, in love and free to be themselves. The past was gone and the future was going to have to be brighter, but all they had was this moment, the present. Stood here together there was nowhere else that they would rather be. For the world and life, in all its miracle and wonderment, for all the human kindness and compassion, they seemed to have come up against so many difficulties, so many harsh people, so much judgement and unfairness and struggle, that it had seemed like there was no way out.

They must have been standing there for about an hour but it felt like a life time and Grace was getting tired now. She couldn't cry anymore, she still felt weak and she just wanted to get on with it now, just do it. End what they had started, so that they could start all over again, afresh.

Grace let herself drink up the last feelings and thoughts of everything that had happened for the last time and she gave Gabe's hand a squeeze. She was ready.

Gabe looked at Grace. He knew it was time too.

"You sure you want to do this?" Grace spoke through the wind.

"I am as sure as I have ever been sure about anything in my whole life. Without you I am nothing. Without you I am nothing at all."

Gabe and Grace turned around and they looked behind, to where there seemed to be hundreds of people standing, watching and waiting and still gathering. Everyone that had felt compelled to come had come and they were still coming from far and wide, to see with their own eyes 'The Man with Wings'.

Gabe and Grace's family members and friends had made it to the front of the crowd and were ordering the others back as they encroached on the couple standing now on the very edge of the steep cliff.

Frank, Dave and Johnny sensing that Gabe was looking at them turned and held up their left arms and made fists in the air, showing their tattoos etched on to their wrists. The eye above lll inscribed on them forever so that they would never forget. The tattoo that would always be there to remind them, remind them of what they needed reminding about, the only things that really mattered. This simple act filled Gabe up with even more strength and conviction.

Gina was there too and she had faith, she had faith in Gabe. She had often wondered how it would all end for Gabe. How he would ever cope or simply survive in this world? The pains he might suffer and what if the worse were to happen? She had imagined in a million different ways losing him but Gina had never imagined this. She knew now that there was nothing more that she could do. She had to let him go. It was time.

Gabe and Grace now turned from the growing crowd of people they knew and plenty more that they did not and they looked out from the cliff's edge, where they were standing, back out towards the far distant horizon. Out to the vast sea, to the future, to the unknown.

They had been pushed to the edge and now there was no other choice. Gabe saw himself as Grace saw him, she had given him back himself. The self he had always wanted and dreamed of being, just himself. He believed now that life was full of possibilities. Infinite possibilities. That you couldn't hide away forever, not without wilting and getting undernourished emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

With the sun burning down on him, Gabe felt like he understood. He had to go towards the light. He had made it there, to the end of the tunnel.

"Gabe!" Gabe turned to look at Grace and he stroked her hand one last time and she opened her eyes wide and she mouthed the words to Gabe that she had always wanted to but had not uttered out loud to anyone since she was a child because she had lost all faith in them. The words that Gabe feared he would never hear Grace say because they would never be true.

"I love you."

"I LOVE YOU!" Grace shouted so loudly that even the crowd heard.

"I love you Gabe. I loved you that first night, you know that. I didn't have to tell you."

Gabe and Grace kept holding hands until the very last second and Gabe wanted to just shut his eyes tight and not look but he didn't, he knew that he has to face his fears wide eyed. He had to right some wrongs, here and now. He had to show them all.

He led Grace back from the edge and he let go of her hand and kissed her face. But as he turned his back on them all, Gabe felt his throat begin to constrict as his lungs stalled. Even at the end, fear had come to stop him.

Looking out to the vast space of sky, Gabe faced his fears and took two fast strides towards the very edge of the cliff and he jumped.

Gabe jumped high up into the air, towards the sun and into the light, he spread his arms and his wings out wide and he tensed every muscle in his body and then, Gabe descended, out of sight of all the onlookers, sharply down towards the water.

Everyone who was watching from the safety of the rock solid ground, gasped in shock and horror at what they had just witnessed. Every one of them had their entire lives flash before their eyes as it hit them what this man has just done; the obvious consequences. For a split second, they all felt consumed by guilt as their weaknesses were revealed to them. Their own cruelty. What had they done chasing a young man up here? A young man who was so in love with this girl, and she him. They had seen him with his wings and they had said bad things but really, they realised, the wings had been really, really beautiful. If anything, they had been jealous and worse. They saw their own ugliness and then, their very own beauty. From the solid footing they had on the soil of the earth, they all felt their mortality and it felt like a gift to be just here and alive. The potential presence of death so near had shook them to realise that they were _alive. Really alive._ And it was a revelation. Like an awakening from a long and deep slumber.

Descending fast, Gabe stretched himself out wide again. He knew he could do it. He knew that he was born to do it. This was his curse and his gift. He had to do it, for his mum, for his dad, for Grace, for his friends and for all the people that he felt judged and hated him too. Judging and hating was a prison of its own, Gabe realised, and if he felt people should give him a break, then perhaps he should give others the same benefit. So perhaps most importantly, Gabe had to do it for himself. And in doing it for himself, he was doing it for everybody else too.

Gabe summoned every ounce of strength that he had, from his muscles and from his spirit. The growths, his wings, that he has kept in the dark, folded up tight behind him for so many years, were now in the fresh air with the wind blowing through them and the rays of the sun lit them up, free at last in their natural habitat after having been incarcerated for so long. They now spread out into their real, full magnificent glory.

Immediately, Gabe started to glide instead of descend. His torso and legs skimmed the freezing cold water waves of the sea and only Grace could see him and she suddenly felt safe, totally safe, her body stopped compelling her to jump too. They were no longer falling.

Gabe knew what he had to do and he pulled his wings up behind him and he turned his head up towards the blinding white sun, now burning bright and high in the cloudless blue skies above him and he soared up through the air like it was instinctual to do.

Gabe flew up to Grace with ease and serenity.

Gabe felt the heavy meshed weight of anxiety, that usually sat on his lungs, dragged on his shoulder blades and surrounded his heart, gradually lighten as it slowly unravelled and dissolved away. Until it was gone and it was, as if it had never even been there. Gabe could breathe, finally really breathe, as if for the first time. And now, in front of everybody that had followed them up here, with his secret finally exposed, Gabe hovered effortlessly in the air with his wings out bare, naked and real.

Gabe looked to the crowd, into the eyes of all the people looking at him. He was looking the world in the eye and the world was, for the very first time, looking back at him.

With everybody's eyes on him; the masses, The Middles, The Beautiful and The Damned, everyone; incredulous and speechless, impressed and in awe. Gabe saw something in every one of them that he recognised in himself. He saw their own individual life stories, their secrets, their struggles that were as important to them as his were to him.

Gabe could see how different everyone was and at the same time, how similar they all were. And right here, right now, Gabe made this his truth.

And everything, in that moment, made sense.

Gabe felt all the emotions, from love to pity, every feeling different and as valid. Not good, not bad, but just the experience, the adventure, the life.

Every eye was on Gabe and they all too saw themselves in him, they saw their story, their secrets, their lives revealed. They saw the similarities and the differences and they knew that both were as precious. They glimpsed at the truth, and with that...Gabe began to fly.

In the end a paradox, of course

That nothing really matters, and at the same time, every little thing does.

# Thanks and Gratitude

Always and forever to my children; Eden, Sidney and Hunter

My love-kids; Kayley, Christian and Olivia

To my soul sister, Julia King

To all the friends and family along the way; past, present and future

Sally Mapley for reading first and being so massively positive

The brilliant Erasure and INXS for their music and the lyrics at the beginning

Prince and Placebo for their constant unwavering companionship

Ditto Puppy La La.

You healed my wings after they had been damaged almost beyond repair, I love you.
