below the gallows

"Do we really have to do this?" Gabby didn't want to go out for coffee with Lizzie. She looked Lizzie in the eye, as if this was punishment.

"Yes, we need to do this." Lizzie was naturally on schedule for everything. Gabby watched Lizzie study her Android phone, but she put it away quick enough. As if she did mean business.

"Why?" Gabby knew Lizzie couldn't stand her. Gabby would be just as content in her room doodling pictures. No, she might not be the comic book artist that Will was, but she could waste her time perfectly. She didn't need to talk to people. Gabby swelled a frown as they waited in line for a drink from the coffee place in the mall.

The menu alone was enough to confuse Gabby as she dreaded to even make an order.

"I don't even like coffee." Gabby looked at Lizzie, as if she'd rather not have anything.

"Two hot chocolates." Lizzie said very swift and laid out the correct amount of cash.

Gabby was surprised. She took Lizzie for the bank card kind of girl, but no she counted ever penny. A few minutes later came out two soup sized cups with a mountain of whipped cream and a cherry on top.

Gabby couldn't help but smile. She hadn't expected this. They went to a table to sit.

"So  how are you and Will?" Lizzie asked. When Gabby practically dipped her nose in the whipped cream.

"Fine." She guessed. He didn't really talk about Halloween and she'd all thought that night had disappeared by now. Will didn't complain. He was his rather quiet self. So was she.

Lizzie slightly nodded but persisted with her questions.

"So just how far of a relationship do you have with that kid?" Lizzie ate her cherry.

Gabby shrugged, unsure she liked this interrogation. Nobody had asked her anything. Sort of like all those times when something did happen..at one of those foster homes she'd been too in the past. It was all about someone else.

She was really too tired to think about it. She didn't want to say anything.

"What about you? You, you know." Suddenly, it was if she couldn't even hear herself. Like maybe a self-induced seizure. It happened sometimes. Her ears would just blankout and a part of her, didn't feel like she was really there. Except she could hear how her heart quickened. But her heart had beat so that night when she was with Will. "You and Rico?" She wouldn't use the F word. There were plenty of words she could substitute.

Oh, she didn't want to think how she could go on autopilot. And it sadden her to think it was like that with Will.

She watched Lizzie's mouth move. Perhaps Gabby didn't need to know. She didn't want Lizzie to know a thing about her past. It was best to leave it in the shadows and never speak of it.